Before I check out your "game" tell me your politics.

The older I become the more I relish those times when I am able to "be in the moment." Those times when work, children, and conflicts of the world are pushed aside. I find these moments in prayer and meditation. Many times I find conversation with friends has rooted me in the moment. Sometimes it is the experience of a beautiful sunset. Often I find it during exercise.

I love a long bike ride. I am blessed to live a few short minutes from Chickamauga Military Park where there are several miles of road suitable for riding. If a more strenuous ride is in order there are three mountains offering as much challenge as you desire.

During the winter months I spend time in the local YMCA, where a game of racquetball is easily found. Friday afternoon, a friend and I met there for a "friendly" game, friendly meaning he would just as soon pound me into the court as not.

We met in the locker room and caught up with the news on friends and family as we changed into our workout clothes. When we walked upstairs into the court area a man, seated in front of our court smiled and spoke, "Good Morning."

"Good morning."

"Would you like to play cut throat?"  ( a game in which one person plays th eother two)

I caught myself sizing up my opponent. Normally I would have taken in his age, physical condition, and equipment, trying to decide whether he was going to be someone I wanted to play before I answered. This time it was different. I noticed he was of dark complexion with wavy hair with a slight accent and before I knew it I was wondering whether he was from the Middle East.

I have never considered myself prejudice and I don't think I was being entirely so now. But, I had to admit, three or four years ago I would never have wondered whether he was Muslim, or Christian, or atheist. I would only have wondered what kind of game he had. I thought about my reaction and realized that we are bombarded with news of Arab and Jew and Christian conflict. Politics is permeated with agendas based on belief. The evening news is substantially dominated with stories of Middle East conflict and terrorism.

With no premeditation on my part I had become one of those who first judges based on religious belief, even when a simple game of racquetball is in order.

Radical Change - Radical Actions

Once, in the 1.5 mile drive from the main highway there were 5 houses, now there are 20 subdivisions. Once as a boy I roamed these hills quail hunting now there are none to be seen, once I fished in the lake adjacent to the property, now it is virtually impossible to find a point of entry all the land is divided and has multimillion dollar homes, some with one resident per 2 or 3 thousand square feet.


I thought of the legacy I am passing to my son, one with barriers to nature and then I realized….. At some point in time, unless we change our habits and lifestyle there will be no nature to be enjoyed. We are already polluting, consuming, destroying at an unrecoverable rate. On a global level, the glaciers are melting, our natural resources are being consumed at an alarming rate and yet there is less concern than who will win the super bowl.

I find it hard to remove the environment from my mind these days and find that for the most part, few who I talk to seem to care. Maybe it is because we have concentrated too much attention on global problems that seem insurmountable and not enough on what is going on in our own backyard. How much fertilizer do you spread on that green lawn that requires mowing once every week or two? How often do we shop for food items that are grown non-organically and require petro to be delivered rather than locally grown or even home grown organic vegetables? Could it be that purchasing items in bulk rather than individual packages would be less costly in the long run? How many times do you run home to change clothes before those errands we need done before the day is done and for that matter, why is mass transit not a first choice rather than an afterthought.

Environmentalism starts at home, and then hope spreads. Radical change requires radical action, the kind that begins at home.