One of our favourite shops is Beanies Wholefoods. I guess it is primarily used as a greengrocers; and then a wholefood grocer (they have an incredible barley couscous, much tastier than ‘normal’ couscous); but they stock a wide range of natural alternative products. The co-operative has a Buddhist/vegan ethos, but, when it comes to stewarding creation, they’ve led the way for a growing number of meat-eating dairy-product-loving Christians (Blessed be the Cheese-makers) I know in Sheffield.
In my view, you can’t take the commission to make disciples seriously unless you take the commission to steward creation seriously – unless consideration of our collective and personal environmental impact is part of our being and making disciples. On a personal level, we’re eating an almost entirely organic diet now; using natural cleaning products on the whole (especially washing-up and laundry liquids – stuff that runs off into the water supply); and today I’ve put into action something I’ve been contemplating for a while now: natural-ingredient deodorant.
Is it as sweat-maskingly effective as the pharmaceutical brands? I’ve no idea (so far, so good though). Is it better for the planet? Well, the jury might be out on highly-localised air-pollution; but when it comes to water-pollution, I’m sold. Check out this little meditation on the matter over at howies (another favourite), and think for yourself…
Beanies Wholefoods , environmental impact , theology , emerging church , howies
I agree entirely with the stewarding creation bit - it was your talk in September 2004 ( http://andrewdowsett.blogspot.com/2004/09/ecowarrior.html [don't know how to post a link so it looks good!]) that convinced Amanda (I didn't need too much convincing anyway) that we should get the cleanest family car we could when my company car was renewed - so we did, and are really glad we did.
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