Good Stewards

Today I am grateful for a new stretch of trail and a bridge just opened on our local trail system. I am also grateful for my sense of sight and the lush green colors I can see this time of the year.

Back in April, some voluntary garbage duty on Earth Day helped me step up my environmental stewardship efforts. Reducing, reusing, recycling have all been things I do, but I am trying to do them more.

Reflecting on my conversation with Cathy Novelli from Listening for America last week, the idea of stewardship came up again and has stayed on my mind. Stewardship of our finite resources; human, natural, capital, labor, production, space.

I am reminded that I need to pay attention and do my part, that we all do, because as Chief Seattle said "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children."

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines stewardship as "the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care."  That certainly fits the natural and other resources that humankind has the privilege of having available to us today.

It also brings to mind being good stewards of our own cognitive, emotional, spiritual, and physical resources. Such personal resources are indeed entrusted to each of us as individuals. We can help or hinder ourselves.

I am a better steward of these individual assets when I live gratefully, exercise, pray and meditate, fully feel and process emotions. These healthy actions all take discipline, dedication, effort, time, acceptance, patience. Any good stewardship requires these. I appreciate that mindful gratitude provides energy and clarity to take such actions.

Practice makes progress possible, in our stewardship efforts. In all human endeavors.

Comments