Caring for our common home

Friday, Oct. 23, 2015

The first thing I noticed when I left home Tuesday morning was the stars. In the cloudless sky overhead, Orion and Taurus were locked in their eternal battle. I am always pleased to see them; they are the only constellations outside of the Big Dipper and the Pleiades that I recognize.  

I used to walk frequently under the stars, but it’s been years now, and as I made my way to the TRAX station on Tuesday I realized how much I miss those solitary strolls, when I saw and thought things not common in the light of day. 

During one of my first starlight walks, along the wharf in Monterey when I was 18, a rat the size of a loaf of bread squeezed down a pipe no larger than the palm of my hand. Ever since then I have detested rodents of all stripes, although I do make a grudging exception for beavers and porcupines.

 On that same walk I saw so many stray cats that I realized I could never feed them all, which led me to contemplate the starving orphans in other parts of the world, and the sadness that overwhelmed me is probably the primary reason why I have always supported my local food bank.

I had no such epiphany on Tuesday. Once seated on the train, I immersed myself in my book during the commute to work.

All of this is pertinent because it came about as my response to Pope Francis’ call in “Laudato Si’” for every person to make an effort to care for the earth. My lifestyle is already fairly green: At home our thermostat is set at 78 in the summer and 68 in the winter (yes, we wear sweaters), we try to eat the food in the fridge before it spoils, and I carry a refillable water bottle. None of this is at all difficult, so when the Holy Father suggested each of us is responsible for the care of our common home, I pondered what more I could do.

I settled on taking TRAX to work once a week for a couple of reasons: It’s something I feel I can continue to do on a regular basis, but it’s also somewhat of a nuisance because it takes almost twice as long as driving to work, and I have to put up with the hassles of public transit. This inconvenience, I hope, will be a regular reminder that I, along with the rest of humanity, am supposed to be a caretaker of Mother Earth, and my decisions need to reflect that truth.

What initially I had viewed as a complete sacrifice, however, actually contained several blessings. Because I walked to the TRAX stop from both work and home, I got 40 minutes of aerobic exercise. Also, as I’ve already noted, I was able to read; on a normal day, I have a hard time squeezing in both a workout and outside reading, so to be able to do both in the same day was wonderful.

Not having to drive was relaxing, as well; commuter traffic tends to exasperate me all out of proportion. I don’t think public transportation is the next best thing to peanut better, but it’s certainly got its benefits. 

I’m aware that me riding TRAX one day a week removes such a minuscule portion of pollution from the air as to be insignificant. I can’t singlehandedly clean our contaminated environment any more than I can feed the starving multitude. It will take all of us, each taking tiny steps, to create the cumulative effect needed to preserve our world for future generations.