Cherishing God’s Earth
by Recycling at Church

             You care for the land and water it;
             you enrich it abundantly.
             The streams of God are filled with water
             for so you have ordained it.
                          Psalm 65:9

Great news about keeping our church and community rooms clean, while helping us to be better stewards of Planet Earth: We have new recycling containers in both the Parish Hall and outside the Community Room. Also, Waste Management has brought us more blue recycling carts, so that the cleaning people can empty the contents into the blue containers for pickup.

In Scotts Valley we can recycle glass, cans, plastic, and all kinds of paper and cardboard (except tissue paper). These items may be mixed, regardless of what it says on the containers. They are sorted at the recycle facility. We will also have a paper bin in the office, which we can use for old church bulletins.

So please use our new recycling bins, and encourage all those using the church to do so as well.

Yours in Service,
             Susan Seaburg,, Bishop’s Warden

Save Energy by “Hanging Out”

As part of my role on the Bishop’s Committee I have offered to help St. Philip’s be aware of how we can use our earth’s resources more wisely. These days there is a need to focus on reducing our dependence on environmentally costly energy sources.  One way we can do this is simply to use less energy, and what easier way to do so than to hang out your laundry to dry instead of using a clothes dryer? A staggering 5 - 10% of domestic US electricity consumption goes to clothes dryers. Automatic dryers consume a great deal of energy: they are the second biggest energy-using appliances after refrigerators. The typical US household does 400 loads of laundry a year, and washers and dryers consume 81,000 gigawatt hours of electricity annually.

The California Energy Commission estimates that an electric dryer costs about $130 a year to run. The clothesline is a completely cost-free way to save energy! It is also an opportunity to take time to see what’s going on in the garden, listen to the birds, watch the wind blowing in the trees, smell the flowers, get a little exercise, and enjoy the fresh air. What’s more, clothes dried naturally smell better and last longer! Sadly however, a great many people are not allowed to hang their clothes out to dry. Clotheslines are banned by nearly all California’s 35,000 homeowners’ associations. The good news is that communities are taking action through the “Right to Dry” and “Stop the Ban” campaigns. One woman in Florida won the right to hang out her laundry to dry under a state law encouraging solar energy use.  So, if you can, get out there, “hang out”, and make use of our bountiful free solar energy, and if you can’t, get involved in changing local policy. You can visit Project Laundry List at www.laundrylist.org for further reading and for information on saving energy, natural laundry products, and more.

             Camilla Shaffer, Resource Manager

Team St. Edward's rides
in the Tour de Cure

On June 10th Fr. Ed McNeill will lead Team St. Edward's in the Tour de Cure, a fundraiser for Diabetes research.

 

This is a bike ride from Palo Alto over the Santa Cruz mountains to the coast and back. Fr. Ed likes to say that "the body of Christ has two arms of love: Soul Outreach and Social Outreach. Evangelism is Soul Outreach.

 

Social outreach includes such things as food banks and medical research". Riding in the Tour de Cure is one way for the Church to show her commitment to Social Outreach. If you would like to support Team St. Edward's by riding with the team or by making a donation you can do so here

             http://tour.diabetes.org/

There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet.

             Brooke Medicine Eagle

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

             Chief Seattle, 1855

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show for any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

             Unknown