I was invited to speak on a panel at the UU-UNO 2010 Intergenerational Spring Seminar – A Climate of Change: Heads, Hearts, and Hands Around the Planet.  The panel topic was: Faith-Based Perspectives on Climate Change.  When I speak at Unitarian Universalist events I like to start with a reflection and/or reading to get participants thinking in a certain way.  The reading I chose for this particular event comes from Earth Bound: Daily Meditations for All Seasons by Brian Nelson and just so happens to be today’s (April 12) entry so I decided that it would be interesting to share on this blog.  It addresses stewardship in the broadest sense and in the sense that my office approaches stewardship.

“As the days get longer and the temperatures get warmer, animals start shedding the fur that helps them weather the winter and hoard their body heat.  Unless they shed this fur, they’ll overheat in the months to come.

Similarly, the longer we act as though we’re in a winter culture, a culture of scarcity and deprivation, the more likely we are to overheat now that it’s spring.

Stop living in a winter of your mind and shed the barriers that keep things at bay.  Act as though abundance and generosity are not only possible but imminent.  Welcome easier times and they will happen more often.”