Recycling my attitude (starring Lent and Rohr)

Okay, so I know that recycling is a pain. in. the. ass.  My experience is not the exception.  I have a small kitchen with a tiny cubby barely big enough for my garbage bin, much less bins for garbage in its many reusable forms.  I have a collection of bins in a mirrored closet behind a curtain in my office, adjacent to my kitchen, for recycling.  Every time a wine bottle or a milk carton has run its course, the closet behind the curtain, in the next room, is the destination.  High-class complaint, I know.  But ALL complaints are relative, no ?—and besides, I’m not really complaining.  I’m painting a picture.  After the bins pile into mass chaos I go about separating the piles (plastic, glass, cardboard, etc.), end up with about a gazillion bags of salvage, schlep these bags down three flights of stairs into my car and drive across town to Green Hills, where my garbage meets its karma. 

So big deal.   A LOT of people do this, right?  Well right.  And wrong.  (I know a surprising amount of people that have not taken to the idea of recycling yet.)  But whatever, people come to things when they come to things. This is not my complaint either.  Actually, I don’t really have a complaint except that recycling is a pain, which feels like an entitled, spoiled and unexciting complaint.  That said, today I was stopped in my crabby tracks and I wanted to share:  

I was dumping my myriad bags of recyclables into their respected bins and I was struck with a picture:  An elderly, fragile, stooped-over woman, probably in her late 70’s or 80’s, caring a little bag of newspapers to the paper bin.  It was such a beautiful image, watching this lovely woman in her biologically conservative nature, doing her small part.  She walked much slower than I and seemed much less mission-minded than the rest of us do-gooders.  I suspect she wasn’t frustrated that the recycling trucks don’t come to her neighborhood, like yours truly.  She didn’t seem ornery because it smelled bad or it was cold outside.  She was simply recycling her garbage one small bag and even smaller step at a time.  She smiled at me, as to say, how about this process, and I smiled back.  We carved out a few small words and some small talk. Intuitively I slowed down, calmed down and dutifully finished putting my reusable’s in their respected bins.  And I left feeling grateful for this unassuming woman that Fate put in my path, who’s humility and grace did more for my mission to recycle than any brochure, statistic or charismatic charge ever could.  I actually felt blessed to have the opportunity to recycle and ultimately reprocess, not only my rubbish, but my mind-set as well. 

“We do not think ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking,” quotes the sage Richard Rohr.  Here’s to a Lenten season of living ourselves into new ways of thinking, as we slowly and faithfully recycle our respected little bags of refuse, staying mindful in the process and grateful for the goal.