The Best Gift of All

THE BEST GIFT of ALL

>By Karen I. Shragg
(As a gift to my mom who amazingly
and wonderfully made it to her 84th birthday)

No need to shop long hours
No need to sit and fret
No need to wrap any gifts tonight
I’ve got the best idea yet

Whatever presents I may open
Although purchased with much care
Could never match the gift of you
Your role in my life is rare

So put a ribbon on your forehead
and wrapping paper on your sleeves
Climb into a paper box
(Just get down on your knees)

Get some heavy lifters to
Put you at my feet
For you’re the only gift I want
It’s something I’ll repeat

For long after all the ribbons
And boxes are put away
Long after closets hold
What I opened up today

I still have you in my world
And that’s my greatest gift
Just to see you smile at me
Is this season’s greatest lift.

The Biology of Peace

Consumption Friday is upon us and the news will tell of whether it was a good one or not by the volume of things consumed. It will show people waiting in line for bargains... it will seem all normal.. except it all represents consumption and its subsequent waste. Goods are needed and gifts are fun to give.. but focus will not be on how to make our world saner, it will be on how our corporations did today... as if they are not subject to the laws of physics too..the laws of limited natural resources..... so I wrote this in defiance of a world we still have the power to change, if we want to badly enough...


I know the president who I helped elect is very busy preparing his speech for why we should send more troops in Afghanistan, but maybe someone can steer him to this poem and the feeling I have that as a progressive my only choices are to either be devastated by a leader I completely disrespect or be disappointed by a leader I like... I think he will be making a huge mistake one that is costly, unproductive and a drain our limited resources...


The Biology of Peace
By Karen I. Shragg

Now that we know
Now that we can prove
That we are all related
Thanks to the success of those brave
few who ventured out of
Sub-Saharan Africa just a second ago
Earth time
Its time to let go of all of the lies
Which tell stories of difference
Which plant the seeds of violence
Which perpetuate war

Now that we know that our kind left the trees
When the forests dried out to find food
Just a few Earth minutes ago
Its time to stop treating them like
Strangers forcing their ultimate extinction
As if we don’t owe them more than a ride on a
Circus train for they share all but a fraction of our DNA

Now that we know our power to make all ecosystems
Bow to our wishes and break in the process
Its time for full throttle focus on stewardship
Which is not a sacrifice
But a sacrament
The kind with real consequences here on
Our planet which science is telling us doesn’t
Have long to support us
All of us
In numbers which far exceed its ability to give

Now that we know our planet’s limits
Now that we know we can exhaust them
with our numbers alone
Its time to admit we have limits of our own.

Population is STILL our number one problem

The Economist opinion in November 2nd’s Star Tribune paper was right on several accounts but fatally wrong on several others. It is true that lower fertility has helped to spur economic growth in much of the world, but population growth remains a serious problem in sub-Saharan Africa and much of Southern Asia. Yes, global fertility rates fell sharply in the latter half of the 20th Century, but fertility rates remain stubbornly high in some of the poorest developing nations, and in some countries--like Kenya--fertility rates are climbing back up.

The bottom line is that though globally we have gone down globally from approximately 93 million additional people (births minus deaths) per year to 73 million we are still in serious overshoot of our natural resource base, as we have enough natural resources to keep only 2 billion people living on Planet Earth at a modest existence. On our current trajectory we are dangerously headed to 9 billion inhabitants of this limited place and beyond. The Economist article is as comforting as it would be to tell the passengers of the Titanic that the iceberg will hit next week instead of tomorrow.

Ten years ago, The Economist ["Drowning in Oil"] were completely of base on their forecast of oil reserves when they infamously declared that “The world is awash with the stuff and it is likely to remain so.” Now we are past peak oil and getting the remaining goo out of the ground is much more expensive and that’s before you look at its contribution to greenhouse gases.

Declarations in 2009 that “Population growth is already slowing almost as fast as it naturally could” or "worries about a population explosion are themselves being exploded," are equally false. This whole take on the issue throws a political monkey wrench into the efforts that must be done to educate people on the way our planet continues to rapidly grow while our natural resources continue to decrease.

In addition, the article declares that we can do no more about population growth so we need to focus on green technologies. This hopeless analysis is also false. Once we truly get the population issue we will be able to find many humane ways of solving this crisis, from tax incentives to education. If one truly understands that in the time it takes you read the Star Tribune ( assuming that is one hour) 9,000 additional people were added to the planet, then you will understand that no amount of green technologies can get us out of the hole we are digging for ourselves. The basics of life’s essential needs are in limited supply. Water is one of the main limiting factors, and solving how many people will need it in the future is where our efforts need to be, not on whether or not we can all drive electric cars.

Population Elephant

I met a new co-hort in the population field today. His name is Kurt Dahl and he has great insights into this profoundly difficult-to-navigate issue. Check him out at www.populationelephant.com I noticed that his list of knowledgeable people in this field is only a list of men. I plan to change that someday. It was a pleasure to have lunch with him today and discuss this critical key issue with a fellow activist in this area.

Congrats to Our New Senator

Dear Al, Frannie, Thomasin and Joe,

Congratulations to all of you on surviving the grueling months of challenges to your election as our senator. I am so excited. It has truly been a pleasure being a district and state delegate for you as well as a canvasser. I wish I could have done more.

Go and join Amy and be the senator of the people. You know what we want. What the people want hasn’t changed much over the years. We want everything you said you would fight for in your campaign. We want a chance for a better future. We want the rules to start favoring the average person and not the big corporations. We want education and health care that doesn’t rob us of our savings and put us under a mountain of debt. We don’t want anymore of us to be sent off to wars which cannot be won and will only drain our budgets and the best resource we have, our young people.

We want out leaders to be better educated on the issues than we are so that they may lead us in a direction to a better world. We don’t need them to test the political waters before making a decision and then do only what is currently popular. Time has taught us that equal rights for all is the right thing to do, health care for all including mental health coverage is the right thing to do. In the end, as our late great friend and senator said, “We all do better when we all do better”, that even includes those from the other side of the aisle.

As you begin your learning curve of how to negotiate the political hurdles and challenges of Washington, please keep in mind that keeping us headed in a direction of social and ecological justice is not ultimately possible without addressing one issue which no one is touching, the issue of our own numbers.

The Mayan culture died off because they overpopulated their resource base. Globally we are doing that to the tune of 9,000 people per hour net gain each and every day. The US with its high rate of consumption is much too blame for robbing the Earth of so many of its raw materials. People need to know that underlying that over-consumption is the fact that we are the fastest growing industrialized country in the world. 3,000,000 more Americans each year will need food, health care, housing, jobs, clean water, and let’s not forget wild areas to enjoy.

This factor alone will undermine any legislation which you may get a chance to author or sign. Humanely working on this issue is not only possible but necessary. While you will have many pressing challenges facing you in the senate, please keep this in mind as you do what I’m sure will be a great job as our senator.

If you ever need anything related to population, environmental issues, environmental education, or sustainability please contact me, I would love to be of some assistance.

Congratulations. I look forward more sanity and humor coming out of Washington in the days ahead.

Karen's Creamy Vegan Salad dressing

1 Cup Nayonaise ( this is made by Nasoya and is tofu based )
2 Tblsp Dijon Mustard
2 tsps Tumeric
2 cloves garlic shredded
1/3 cup water
2 Tblsp honey or maple syrup
2 tsps dill weed

optional 1 tblsp organic pickle relish, fresh garden herbs,basil, oregane to taste

Unworthy of a Green Label

If going green is to mean anything or catch on in a meaningful way it must not only be measured by a companies willingness to put on a green roof or distribute organic food. It must not only be measured by their use of energy efficient light bulbs. While it is fine to commend corporations for putting in place practices which help us all out by reducing carbon emissions, we need to stop referring them as green if they continue to have anti-family, anti-union and in general anti-employee practices.

The new green needs to be humane too. Twice this month I have seen where Wal-mart got an award for being greener than several companies which pay fair wages and offer their employees health care AND have other traditionally green practices in place. Natural Health Magazine gave them one of their top ten green company awards in their recent publication.

Wal-mart is now a part of the Twin Cities Living Green Expo, taking up a lot of floor space and ad space, while not managing to pay their workers fairly or give them health care benefits. The very wealthy owners of this mega-store have private jets which they use to come into towns and break up unions. They are responsible for burdening the hospitals of every state in which they do business because their employees use emergency rooms as the doctors they cannot afford. Essentially they fence cheap goods made with low wages abroad, forcing age-old local businesses to close in many a small town. This alone should prevent their entry into events which used to stand for something far more meaningful.

These very wealthy companies should disgust every American especially those who love following a greener ethic. These companies are not green, not by my definition. My definition of green is a company which insists on offering goods which are fair traded, locally and organicially-sourced necessary goods. They pay a living wage and give full health care. medical leave and vacation benefits to its employees. When we allow them to co-opt us because they are doing a few good things, we undermine our entire cause.

While it is true that just by their size alone they can effect a lot of green changes, they need to be told that they need to include fair labor practices in their green portrait.
These CEO’s can afford this without giving up too may golden seatbelts in their private planes.America will be a better country for it, and the Green movement will be able to attract many more members as they see that it is offers a wider umbrella. The Green movement will stand for more than green roofs and incandescent florescent lightbulbs, it will stand for people too.

Lessons I'm Still Learning from My Mom

Lessons I’m Still Learning from my Mom
( With thanks to my friends and family for your love and support)
By Karen I. Shragg

Before an illness grabs you
Like a dog grabs its favorite toy
Before it shakes you down to your very core
Leaving you with a body you barely recognize
Be sure you’ve accumulated the kind of
Friends and family who will love you beyond
The physical person to whom they’ve grown accustom
Take the time today to make one more friend
Call one more relative, make someone smile
For those who are connected to your inner beauty
Will be the ones to remind you
That to them you will always be beautiful
And they will tell you that just when
You need to hear it most
Holding your hand
Giving you courage just when you think you’ve run dry
Giving you a gift you
Need not worry about ever repaying
Because you are just collecting on an investment
You’ve made over the years
With each gesture of love
With each gift of your time
They will be there like beacons on a dark night
Lighting the way to a better tomorrow.

Some of the Best Teachers

Some of the best teachers
Don’t even know they are teaching
But the lessons are there
For us to catch and store
Away for future use
Visiting my mom in the hospital has been like that
Each day I take away a few gems
That I wouldn’t trade for all the organic tea in China
The way she accepts her situation ( bed ridden in ICU for 3 weeks
And counting ) without complaining
The way she cares about others more than herself
The way she can still make me laugh with little quips
But mostly, in a world with people wanting for so many things,
Thinking that they will be happier when they get more stuff,
I asked this grand and gracious lady what she longs for the
most right now.. and she said, “I’d like to go for a walk outside”
So if you are reading this, take the time to go for a walk outside.
Do it for yourself, do it for those who can’t, do if for my mom
Who is still teaching me lessons
Even when she doesn’t know it.

Healthy Smoothie

I've been experimenting on how to give my mom nutrition as she goes through the challenges of chemotherapy. Unfortunately she is not ready to eat or drink much yet as her tastebuds are upside down and my mother who is an admitted chocoholic doesn't like the taste of sweets... meanwhile others can enjoy this delicious smoothie which is so full of fiber and nutrition.. its great for people on the go as well as a drink to boost your immune system. (Hemp powder is available at Linden Hills Coop in the Twin Cities, other co-ops and natural food stores, its full of protein and fiber.)

Put in a blender the following:
2 cups Organic soy vanilla
1/8 cup Aloe gel
4 tblsps Hemp powder
3 Tblsps Vanilla
8 oz frozen organic peaches ( or fruit of your choice)
6 oz cherry soy yogurt
8 oz water
4 ice cubes

Shriekology:

Shriekology: Wanting to Scream Every Time Policy Decisions Ignore Ecological Realities.

Radical Rant by Karen I. Shragg Ed.d

You’ve probably heard of the term “Freakonomics “coined by Stephen D. Levitt and Steven J. Dubner, the authors of the book by the same title. The subtitle of this book is,” A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.” The core message of their book is a belief that complex issues can be better understood if we just find the right perspective. That got me to ponder the question, what is the right perspective? Is there such a thing? These economists have it relatively easy. Their economic perspective is well accepted in our country and in global political discourse. People understand and accept the perspective that the economy is the glue which holds everything together.

Environmentalists rarely get that kind of attention for our perspective, one that claims that ecology trumps everything else. In an ecologically framed world you can’t buy fresh water, create soil from scratch in a laboratory and that there are limits in human terms to all of the fuels we are now rapidly running out of. The economy is certainly a critical piece to our daily well-being, BUT an even more important and bigger perspective is one that embraces basic ecology.

Therefore, I have decided to coin the word, “Shriekology” in order to name the feeling I and my fellow environmentalists get when we witness a major political decision being made that ignores basic ecological laws.

Every day our so-called leaders are making decisions that defy the laws of ecology. They do this to try to get elected/re-elected and become popular instead of telling us the truth. True leadership would help our country to steer clear of the worst of our fates. One such” leader “recently told a reporter that Minnesotans weren’t ready to reduce freeway speed limits in order to save fuel. We need the kind of leaders that get Ecology 101 and do their best to educate their constituents about ecology so we may act in our own best long term interests.

So what are these laws? One ecologist, Barry Commoner listed five of them in his book, “The Closing Circle.” He was suggesting back in the 1970’s that the growth of industry and technology were presenting huge negative effects. Commoner thought we needed to be educated about the natural world so that we didn’t let these forces destroy the very planet we depend on for life. In today’s world of seeing the world through the economic-colored glasses, they cannot be restated too often. They are as follows:

1. Everything is connected to everything else.
2. Everything has to go somewhere or there is no such place as away.
3. Everything is always changing.
4. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
5. Everything has limits.

They are very basic and indisputable from a scientific perspective. The last two represent the idea that we cannot live on a premise of growth while eating away our natural capital. Yet these five principles are woefully underrepresented and even ignored in so many ways that it can make your head spin, hence the phrase “shriekology.”

Those who want the US to drill off shore for more oil or in our The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are blinded by their desire to keep the oil flowing. They never include the carbon emissions that will result from drilling and the energy it will take to extract it, or that it too will run out someday, only postponing the dire problems that lie ahead.

Politicians and economists should have Commoner’s laws on their stationary, on their walls and tattooed on their arms before they sign bills which undermine the very rules under which we all must live. Perhaps this would prevent them from supporting unsustainable perspectives, like economics and political correctness. Often laws are passed which help out certain in vogue problems in the short term without consideration of these ecological principles.

I just recently returned from an amazing trip to Australia. The beauty of its mountainous terrain, witnessing ancient rainforest trees and world class sandy beaches made my head spin. This constant barrage of awesome beauty left me looking for a word that could describe the feeling I had of total amazement. The Aussies with their very colorful vocabulary had just such a word. They call the feeling of seeing a koala, kangaroo, wallaby and king parrot all in the same day, being ‘gob-smacked’.

I was so impressed with their conservation messages that hit you starting at each airport and greet you in your hotel and every opportunity. Visitors are constantly being told how important it was to conserve water, an extremely important resource for a country which is drying out due to Global Climate Change. One island we visited is totally run on desalinized water, a very energy consuming process. Recycling opportunities were plentiful and there was notable lack of billboard advertising polluting the gorgeous landscape. Education about invasive species were skillfully described at every one of their numerous national parks and world heritage sites. It was also evident that they hadn’t let their population run rampant. Their roads were not too crowded, their skies were not polluted and the people had a relaxed air about them.

By all indications this was a country that studied and embraced Commoners’ laws of ecology. There was one exception. When I teased them about wanting to move down under especially if we couldn’t vote our current political party out of office, they welcomed me with open arms. You see they think they need more people. So much so that October 17th is National Babies Day. Women are offered a baby bonus to help increase Australia’s fertility rate. I flew by my pit stop of gob-smacked-dom and landed right into the world of shriekology. In my shriekological moment I just wanted to scream, “AND WHERE DO YOU PROPOSE TO GET ALL THE WATER THOSE NEW AUSTRALIANS WILL NEED? A country could potentially shut down unnecessary jobs like in the fast food industry to free people up to work in agriculture. In an ecologically dictated reality an increase in population will create more problems than they solve. One result will certainly be turning their water shortage into a crisis.

I didn’t actually shriek when I reacted to this genuinely nice welcome to move to the southern hemisphere, but I did confront that sentiment in as polite of a way as I could. “Do you see water as a limiting factor to the number of people Australia can sustain?” I asked. The question did not resonate. In typical shriekology fashion, each person replied that there aren’t enough people to do all the work and help with the economy.

As we work to try to keep our nature centers afloat we need to be sure that the basic laws of ecology are a core part of our message in our programs and signage. Otherwise we will lose our voices from all of that shrieking we will be forced to do.

So You Want a Job in Recreation

So You Want a Job in Recreation?
A Reality Check of our Field

by Karen I. Shragg Ed.d.

Having a career in recreation has a great ring to it. It sounds like so much fun. I’ve been teased about college courses I must have taken in order to get my job. Titles like “Under Water Basket Weaving,” “How to Run Bingo Games for Seniors, and the like. I’ve also had people tell me how lucky I am to work in a place where people come to have fun. I always agree. But how do we tell them our secret? What is our secret? That we all put in some incredible hours to accomplish often Herculean tasks of jobs that would be assigned to at least a dozen more people in any other profession. It is also not well known that we really are professionals who have gone to real universities taking professional classes that we rely on in order to be trained for the job we do.

The other side of the secret is that we could never be adequately prepared for what we are asked to do in our coveted positions. If we were adequately prepared, our university class descriptions would sound something like this:

Recreation 101: How to juggle the demands of running new special events while completing your regular schedule with no additional staff. Or Recreation 102:
How to advertise your new programs to new audiences with no new money for advertising. Recreation 103 might sound something like: How to convince your spouse that it would be fun to work on real holidays and take comp time next year for them.

From special event planning to meeting with neighborhoods in preparation for a new park design, our jobs in recreation test the boundaries of 80 hour two week pay periods more often than not.

One of the reasons we are not unionized is probably because union bosses would snarl at the thought of having its members required to get up at 3 am to get a marathon off the ground. They’d march right to city hall to complain about how we had to spend 16 hours on a Saturday making sure Halloween happened for thousands of guests.

In our profession, we work to make people enjoy their holidays. That means we’ll be spending our Fourth of July, on the back of a float waving to parade goers while promoting our friend’s group. New Year’s Eve means you’ll be hiking in snow up to your thighs putting out luminaries instead of going out with your friends. Easter will find you up to your eyeballs in plastic eggs and chocolate.



In this field we are challenged with providing engaging experiences for people of all ages in a wide variety of activities with small budgets. That means we call on all of our relatives and friends to help us with our special events, offering to feed them and give out volunteer t-shirts as our eternally grateful thank you in exchange for their generous offer of time


So you want a job in recreation? That’s terrific, it’s a great field with many daily rewards. I know I wouldn’t want a career in anything else. It’s just that it would be nice to retire the idea that we don’t work very hard or that it doesn’t take a college degree to do our jobs. Once the word is out, we’ll be teased less and respected more. The public will better understand what it took to put in the skate park, run the sandcastle building contest and put on that Memorial Pay picnic for thousands. The complaints, though not many, would all but vanish if they just knew even a little bit about all the meetings, phone calls, emails, volunteer coordination and physical work it took to pull off even one of our yearly goals.

How do we tell them all that goes into our secret without sounding like we are whining? We’re not about to do that. We’re too busy trying to hold our programs together in tough budget times when what we do is perceived to be non-essential services.

We know the value of what we do, how we serve a public with activities that enriches their lives, that’s why we do what we do, and put in the hours that is required to get the job done. We know at the end of some very long days, the world is a better place because there was a new ball field to play on, a new dance class to take and a summer camp to attend.

We know that recreation deserves a better stature in society for the way we keep kids engaged in meaningful after school activities and give families wholesome inexpensive things to do on weekends. We know that recreation provides immeasurable benefits that greatly influence the quality of life in our communities. But we’re not telling, that’ll be up to you.

More Poems to Chew On

Entrenched
By Karen I. Shragg

Here we go again
Being swallowed up
in linear circles of history
Repeating the ugliest side of herself
living the part of the cliché
That those who do not pay attention
are thus condemned to repeat it
Kidnappers do the unthinkable
Then the victim’s side
comes down even harder
bombs try to show might
in ‘how dare you think we’d negotiate’
explosion of revenge
and end up creating
even more kidnappers
Making one easily forget
On which side of the fence evil resides
This linear cycle of war and retaliation
And more war
Begging the question
Of why we think our kind is so special
When we are uniquely and oh so successfully
Excel at destruction.

Dreaming New Stories Our Way
by Karen I. Shragg

We manifest our stories
In the way
We war
Or don’t war
The way we buy
Or don’t buy
The way we pray
Or don’t’ pray
And near as I can tell
We’re about due for new ones
Oh how I hunger for new ones
We already know the results of stories
Which profess excuses for subordination
And the Earth’s domination from a specie
Whose brain size indicates
At least the potential of knowing better
Who needs to quit cutting its own umbilical cord
With silly notions that trees
Are better off when turned into paper
And printed with portraits of dead white presidents
Oh how we need new stories
That would speak of equality
That would teach how
no one ever benefits from greed
Or from forcing our ways on others
With weapons that only recycle pain
We need stories not of gods
to meet only when you are dead
But of glory one can get by
Getting that we are but one of the delicate creatures
So lucky to live in this universe
On a rare planet
Still able to support the life
Of a specie with more power than we deserve.


Maybe God went Fishing
By Karen I. Shragg

God seems to have left the scene
Allowing his more than loyal subjects
To continue breeding misery
In his name
It couldn’t be HER name
For women are excused from
A claim to god-driven evil
Animal sacrifice of bygone days
Pales in comparison
To bearing witness
strapped-on bombs
Sacrificial children
Ghostly aftermaths
Of innocent bloodshed
A bow to martyrdom gone mad
with countless victims
of a religiosity I dare not understand
What kind of religious fingerprint
Claims goodness comes with higher body counts
All done
In the name of a God
Who seems to have gone fishing
For he is not answering the prayers
Of either side.

Sacrifice
By Karen I. Shragg

War bleeds us of sanity
Humanity’s better side exemplified
by all that fills art museum walls
Vaporizes in the ashes
Of caring who started the madness
In the first place
After bombs rain down and miss their targets
After rubble fills the anguished landscape
After chasing pain with pain
Brings about only more pain
We who watch
morally wounded from the sidelines
Just want it to stop
Forever
All those orphans on both sides
Real victims nick named
collateral damage so the pain of
what we’ve done won’t sting so much
Their tears are just as salty
Their anguish just as deep
As they look among the rubble
In stunned silence for survivors
Looking like they belong to the same people
And deep down
They do.

Just in Time
by Karen I. Shragg

Wild Turkeys
Stream out of upland forests
As if they never left
Round feathered exclamation points
of conservation success
bluebirds dot suburbs
and fly around like golf balls on courses
which bother to set up houses
In glorious testimony to
Efforts of thousands who cared
To build them homes and reintroduce
Them to their old stomping grounds
trumped only by news of Ivory billed sitings
Lord god birds returning
From beyond the grave
just in time to bear witness to
a warmed up planet
and all that will not survive
because we thought we could
focus on individual species
and ignore the way our daily
habits, our increasing numbers
gnaw away at the life support
systems of planet.

A Personal Note to the Frankens

Dear Al, Frannine, Thomasin and Joe,
You are my heros. Each of you has been a superb campaigner, tirelesssly going all over Minnesota to endless meetings and events, speaking about the issues. Its been a pleasure to have worked for the campaign, to have been a delegate for you at the state, I wish I could've done more. You have toughed out one of the longest senate contests in history and with so much integrity. The best part is that I get to call long time friends and fans of the Wellstones, my new senate family. Together with Amy Klobuchar you will support President Obama's efforts to bring the economy under control, bring home our troops, bring about universal health care support the environment and green technologies and so many more issues you campaigned about.
While we won't agree on every issue, I will always trust that you will keep the interests of the average Minnesotan in mind and not serve the interests of the corporations. I trust you will never lie to voters. I know that you, like so many of us, were upset when Pauls' seat fell into the hands of those whose ultimate goal is self-serving. Winning it back feels so good and I know that as you vote and speak you will win over those who were reluctant to vote for you.
Good Luck Al... As soon as "Lucy's Hero Remembering Paul Wellstone" is out.. you are all invited to the book signing party, though it may now have to be in Washington.Thanks for all of your hard work and the way you care about Minnesotans.

Spiritual Boycotting

Boycotting works, we know it does. When people, en masse, boycotted segregated restaurants in the Jim Crow days, attention was brought to this racist policy that helped to break the backs of the bigots who supported it. The lettuce boycotts of the sixties brought attention to the conditions of migrant farm workers and so on and so forth.

But what if its just one person trying to make a lonely statement in world that hasn’t quite caught on to the need for a particular cause? What if you just want to boycott something because you hate what it stands for? What if you know that it won’t really make a difference in actuality but will make you feel better? That’s what I call spiritual boycotting. Causes small and not so small can be taken on by an individual to help shape who you are. Don’t like factory farming? Buy only from local farmers you trust. Don’t believe in the lack of benefits for employees of certain warehouse stores? Don’t set foot inside their doors, no matter how tempting the sales. Want to combat the proliferation of carcinogens? Fill your home with non-toxic cleaners and organic food. Does the waste of the holiday season bother you? Give sustainable gifts wrapped in reusable cloth bags.

Spiritual boycotting is valuable because it allows a person to define what gives one’s life meaning. If you refuse to buy something or go somewhere because it clashes with your values, it’s important to know that it does make a difference. It makes a difference because you are now acting like you would like the world to act. While it isn’t likely to change the popularity of whatever it is you are boycotting, there is value in defining yourself by your actions. There is value in being an example for others too.

It is very clear that so much of the commercial shrimp industry is doing major damage to sea turtle populations. If you refuse to eat shrimp because you don’t want to participate in the detrimental effects to this endangered animal, it will probably not hurt the shrimp industry. Apparently the appetite for shrimp in our culture outweighs the endangerment of these magnificent creatures. The shrimp industry will more than likely continue to catch and kill these magnificent animals due to the heavy demand for shrimp and their need for income. They will do this until it is no longer economically rewarding to do so or until the shrimp populations are reduced beyond recognition. Refusing to eat shrimp is all about defining your values. It’s also about connections, the one we each have to our sustaining planet. We are all connected to the natural capital of this planet.

We are also trapped in the dominant paradigm of our current societal ways which doesn’t permit us to boycott all that we’d like to, but it does allow for some opportunities for making a statement. We may not be able to choose to repair something instead of buying something new due to the prohibitive costs, but we may be able to avoid giving our hard earned money to corporate giants which have no care for anything but their bottom line.

In the song, “Alice’s Restaurant” Arlo Guthrie encourages people to go to their draft board and act crazy so that they won’t be drafted to serve in Vietnam. If one person does this, they’ll think you are crazy but if three or more do it they might think it’s a movement, he advises would be draftees. That is the hope behind spiritual boycotting. The hope is that your particular issue will “tip’ one day when a more enlightened population will follow your boycott and help your cause take hold. Until then gain meaning in your life by siding with issues of justice, peace and sustainability and it will indeed be a happier new year for you and the rest of the world which needs our committed attention.