Today we’re excited to begin our second season of eco-faith posts. Thanks for joining us! We’ll get started by planting seeds for three projects we hope to “cultivate” this season. Then we’ll talk a bit more about planting actual seeds to produce tangible crops that we can begin to harvest in the not-too-distant future. First, the projects.

Individual actions: Eco-Faith’s first season focused primarily on steps each of us can take on our own to care for the planet: diligent recycling, for example, or responsible disposal of electronic devices, or intentional repair/repurposing/gifting of items we no longer use, or regrowing scallions on windowsills—or even creating worm bins (!) to enhance soil quality. Ideas like these for earth-friendly individual actions will always crop up. So, for 2021 project #1, we will from time to time identify or revisit an individual action for your consideration. For example, last year we introduced Ridwell, a disposal service that handles non-recyclable food packaging and certain other plastics; batteries; clothes/fabric, shoes—and a “rotating” category for things such as strings of Christmas lights. Ten dollars/month provides a discreet outdoor collection bin and regular pick-up. We have now joined those of you who use this service to step up their recycling game conveniently and cost-effectively.
Climate change community actions: Even in the darkness overshadowing this post-election period, seeds of hope are being sown with respect to our physical world: the U.S. return to the Paris Climate Accord … General Motors’ decision to move away from fossil fuel-powered vehicles … the U.S.-hosted Earth Day Climate Summit … cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline Project …. In fact, all kinds of climate-friendly actions are being undertaken nationally and at the Washington state and King County levels as well. The future harvests that these actions promise are truly encouraging, but many workers will be needed to bring them in. So, our second project for this season will be looking more closely at various legislative initiatives to try to unearth specific opportunities for some or all of the Union community to actively support. Stay tuned!
Union Gardens: With the arrival of February, the gardening season quietly (and damply) begins. Time to clean up the garden beds, loosen and amend the soil, and think about what to grow this year. For serious gardeners, it’s also time to think about indoor starts—and actually to sow peas and spinach outdoors. In fact, before too many more weeks pass, it will be time to transfer starts or directly seed:

Eco-faith 2021 Directions

Individual Acts, Communal Acts, Union Gardens

In a post last October, we wondered …

“…next spring, what if everyone in the Union community who gardens, or who could garden, decided to plant extra tomatoes, or lettuce, or spinach, or onions, peppers, melons, squash, potatoes, …. Could we grow enough food to make a difference for someone else?”

Which leads to this question about a third project: Can Union members plant and manage a “socially-distanced community garden?” The idea would be to plant and grow enough veggies in the back yard, on the deck, in the pea patch, or wherever, for the enjoyment of the gardeners—AND someone else … some Lake Union Village residents, for example, or Union’s burrito-rolling team, ICS sandwich makers, Compass House residents, or ….

So, these are the three project “seeds” we want to plant with respect to Eco-Faith season two: (1) occasionally sharing ideas that Union members can implement on their own to benefit our physical world; (2) climate-focused legislative initiatives that Union could actively support/engage in; and (3) Union Gardens, a socially distanced community garden that aims to grow vegetables to share with others in our wider community.

As we get rolling in the coming weeks, we’ll be on the lookout for purposeful individual actions to share. We’ll be browsing legislative programs for community action opportunities. And we’ll be digging into the possibility of gardening for others as well as ourselves.

We would love to hear what you think about these ideas!