if the mountains should crumble away, rivers dry, would it stop our stepping feet?

Some people like skydiving. Some people like to get tattoos or body piercings. Some people pound back a few Red Bulls.

I get a serious rush from recycling.
Yes, recycling.

I realize this makes me sound like a complete dork. Great. It's like answering "I want WORLD PEACE!" as the answer to my Win-the-Crown Question 2008.

But seriously: In recent years, I have come to love God's creation so much. So, so much. There are many things I don't love about it, true. Because we have corrupted it so badly. This place is only temporary, and while my heart may have many "homes" (Hoover, Auburn, Boone, and eventually-Lord willing!-Oregon), I know that this place is not my true home.

It is for now, however. God speaks to me strongest through His creation. Nature. Clouds. Animals. And mountains. Oh, the mountains.

Alabama is last on the bandwagon of everything. Recycling is no different. Helena, Alabama (a suburb of Birmingham) was named the 13th "Best Place to Raise Your Kids" in America. And Alabama's #1 "Best Place to Live 2007" (Placing #91 in Money Magazine's "Top 100 Places to Live"). Yep.

I learned over Christmas break that the city does not have a recycling facility.
Way to go, Helena.

I understand this complaint comes from someone who lives and breathes travel (namely cars and airplanes that deplete our natural resources and cause serious pollution). But I have this ridiculous urge to get more and more people to recycle. No one ever did this for me, I just kind of stumbled into it. (And my parents were married on Earth Day, go figure! And what ever happened to Auntie Litter?!)

More than that, if you put something in the trash...it goes back into the earth. You get to drink water made from what you threw away next year. You will eat food grown with that water the year after that. And in ten years, what you threw away will be in your food. ...you are what you eat.

So my current prayer of today, aside from loving prideful/inconsiderate people unconditionally, is that God would use me in some way to help make Satan's stomping grounds a little cleaner/more beautiful for future generations. And maybe (just maybe) the cleaner, healthier, and more beautiful this world becomes in the midst of the evil that consumes it, the clearer and more vividly God's creation will point to its Creator.


You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.

Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the LORD's renown,
for an everlasting sign,
which will not be destroyed. (Isaiah 55:12-13)