I read a lot. The great thing is that even when I’m reading sometimes-boring books such as Internal Relations: Perspectives and Controversies, sometimes God just lets something pop out to me and make perfect sense. Take, for example, this sentence from the end of my most recent chapter on global warming.

Wait, before I give you the quote, I should mention where my brain has been lately: Heaven. Eternity. I’ve been reminded that living for an after-life is often the only thing that keeps me going, maintains my faith. I really don’t know how an atheist makes it through the really tough stuff in life. I would be a terrible, terrible athiest. So, I’m thinking a lot about how important the reality of Heaven is to me and how that reality should change how I walk through this life.

Now I’m reading this chapter on global warming, which is a trendy topic and all but one that leaves me with more questions than answers (and that just gets annoying). I am not nearly as “green” as I would like to be and yet I’m not all that motivated to change. I mean, I DID start using squirt bottle hair spray in junior high to help with that flouro-carbon thing. Also, I really think a compost bin is something I might do someday. But, why isn’t anyone talking about how much energy is wasted when we all blow dry and flat iron our hair everyday? (Have I mentioned how many hair stylists with whom I have shared a “you know, I don’t want to die with a flat iron in my hands” conversation only to have them give me a haircut that ONLY works when styled with a flat iron?)  Are we only environmentally responsible as long as it doesn’t cost us too much, especially in terms of vanity?

So, get ready, because all of this came smashing together when Keith L. Shimko (the author of the global politics book) wrote this concerning global warming:

[. . . ] the most critical challenge might be to people’s ability to take an apparently distant and seemingly speculative future into account in shaping their present behavior.

True for the environment. True for our souls. Thanks, POS 270!