My Environment - A reflection

By: Pastor C. Paa, Jr.

I come home to a townhouse complex surrounded by trees. In fact the complex is basically a park beside a park.

The front is a main thoroughfare, 104th Avenue, where all types of vehicles pass by while the back and sides are part of Hawthorne Park, where residents can enjoy nature whether biking, jogging or just taking a walk along the winding trails under the trees in the forested area of the park. One can also have a peaceful rendezvous with nature just sitting by the pond where ducks abound even on cold winter days. The pond is actually my favourite place to visit in times when I need to be alone to think or even just ponder about things.

For me the park is a perfect place to get away and breathe a cleaner air. I believe it is the absence of vehicular exhausts, and the vegetation that makes the air purer. Even the noise of city life is obscured by the sound of the winds gently blowing over the tree tops, although the silence is occasionally broken by a few quacks of hungry ducks frolicking in the pond.

My car is a V6 SUV of which I am not particularly proud of because of its fuel consumption that is not only hard on my pocket but is against my conviction towards anything that contributes harmful elements to the environment we as the higher kind of species are suppose to be stewards. But I do as what other humans do trying to convince myself that a few perks here and there is not going to hurt the earth. After all, I am but just one of the 7 billion inhabitants and so what I do or not do thus is insignificant.


When finally man is able to live with nature instead of trying to tame it, the hope of the future generation will be realized. For to live in harmony with that which sustain life is a noble endeavour. One that is generally considered desirable by the majority yet only a few adhere to.

Just this past week, we finally wrapped up our sustainability class. The culmination of which was a presentation of the many different teams about what we have learned in the course. Personally, being a student trying to learn this new concept of paradigm shifts, I am overwhelmed with what I have done and not done as a citizen of this planet. The trash I have created all throughout my more than 40 years of existence. The many chances that I could have cleaned up or help cleaned up my trash and of others. My apathy towards those who were actually trying to save this planet, from those who were destructive and just did not care.

I would wish and will strive to become a positive force towards change for a better understanding, a better usage of the resources that this planet offers me.