Mathing with Theo

I know I know, you have to be Roman Catholic, not-married and be willing to live a life of solitude and quiet meditation. But still, everytime I read one of his essays or another chapter in The Seven Storey Mountain I just get all fired up about the contemplative life. Just take a look at the following selection for his auto-biography (Seven Storey):

It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His entire creation long ago. People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce men and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us? Can there be any doubt where wars come from and where peace comes from, when the children of this world, excluding God from their peace conferences, only manage to bring about greater and greater wars the more they talk about peace?”

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Since I’ve been on such a green writing kick I thought I would post this great link http://www.greenroofs.com/ .

For a while I’ve been thinking about turning my roof into a garden/second lawn. My thoughts were that a green roof would add extra insulation, help out the ol’ environment a bit, and well…look really cool. I got a little scared though when I considered how much water and soil can weigh (1 cubic meter of water is a metric ton ~ 2000lbs) and decided that it wasn’t quite worth collapsing my house for the environment.

It turns out it might be a little less dangerous, but a bit more time consuming than I thought.

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I felt so green again today. If you recall I proudly wrote about my experience biking to work in June http://scroggles.com/index.php/greentheo/2007/07/18/so_green. Today I added to my green travel experiences by riding the Denver RTD (www.rtd-denver.com) bus system to and from work.

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The plight of the Zimbabweans and the thirst of the Somalians is recorded here http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0827/p01s08-woaf.html and here http://www.slate.com/id/2173105/nav/tap3/ (thank you Andrew http://evilline.blogspot.com).

The Zimbabweans are unable to buy food and basic necessities because of rampant inflation. They are starving, despite sitting atop some of the most fertile soil in the world. As Somalia is an arid and dry country, they have little extra water for their livestock or themselves, yet their current water shortage is not just an “Act of God”.

How can such injustice be allowed to happen?

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