Inconvenient

Convenience is something that it seems like the US has down to a fine art. Appliances and gadgets that make life so much easier. Drive thru ATM's for cash (not that you ever need cash when you have convenient things like cards in your wallet. Drive thru fast food outlets, even drive thru Starbucks when you'd love to sit down for a coffee, but you just didn't have the time.

Chris and I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth the other day.
It's the first film I've fallen asleep in, largely because sleep is generally in short supply these days and because the film is essentially a lecture. But we were so drawn in by the content we watched it again, wide awake.

I was never majorly into environmental issues, beyond the basic stuff of recycling,picking up litter, not using too much water, and being kind to trees. Probably because I thought if I was going to invest my emotional energy in something I would do something that was more people focused than plant life focussed. How naive was I?

As I listened in and Al Gore spelled out the effects of the environment on the world around us, especially the two - thirds world... I got a bit of a wake up call to say the least. It was no longer an issue I could be a passive observer on, not if I cared.
And especially not here where consumption happens on a rather ridiculous scale.

At the end of the DVD there's this kind of environmental altar call - totally a preaching for a response moment. Like, OK so you've watched this - how will you respond? Do you want to change your life?
We didn't get on our knees or anything, but we did find ourselves saying "Yes" out loud.

It is inconvenient to look beyond my comfort zone.
Incovenient to research environmental issues, to lobby for change. To use cloth diapers, to change the way we live as a family.
Its inconvenient to change. Inconvenient to care. Inconvenient to act.

But flip me, I've got to ask myself some serious questions if as a Christian I am not prepared to change my life when it has such a devastating effect on other parts of the world simply because it is inconvenient. True?