It’s ironic that as much as I love Star Wars (I’m not a total SW kook, but I’ll never turn down re-watching any of the films), I don’t like space much.  While I’m aware there are results of space research that benefit life on Earth (like my Tempur-Pedic mattress!), I subscribe to the ideology that we should be focusing more of our efforts on this planet, and figuring out how  to deal with climate change and pollution.  We need all hands on deck for this.

As I mentioned last Sunday, the church is forming a new Environmental Ministry, which will feature unlimited ways we as a congregation and as individuals can walk our talk about green values and lighten our carbon footprint.

As a start, here’s how you can get involved with the noble cause of activism and advocacy.  If super-gluing yourself to buildings and trains like Extinction Rebellion has again this week – they’ve been at it much of the month – does not appeal to you, here are ways you can protect and proliferate Los Angeles’ tree canopy, which is in decline:

1. Angelenos for Trees. http://angelenosfortrees.org/ Contact Jeanne McConnell at jeanne@jeannemcconnell.com. 323-363-8397.   Work with a team to contact various parties in neighborhood councils to distribute current information about best practices for preserving tree canopies, cutting down/saving  street trees and provide draft motions to push the city council to implement the recommendations of the Dudek report.
2. Tree People. https://www.treepeople.org/ urbanplanting@treepeople.org 818-623-4892. Become a citizen forester and plant trees.
3. City Plants. https://www.cityplants.org/volunteer/ Plant trees or become a block leader and manage plants on your block.
4. CFAC. The Community Forestry Advisory Committee. https://dpw.lacity.org/community-forest-advisory-committee.  Provides advice to the City Council on Trees.   This is a very important position.  But it is a long a process to get on the committee.  There are a number of alternate positions open as well as some on the councils for District 3,6,8, 9, 10, 12 & 13.  You need to live or work in the district (preferably live) and be nominated by your city council member and then the mayor’s office.
5. Neighborhood Council of Sustainability Alliance. https://www.ncsa.la/  Tree division.  Joann D’Antonio is listed as the contact person.  Help notify and alert each neighborhood council of a street tree that is being removed.   Sometimes they need to be removed but usually not and the neighborhood council can get involved to help stop unnecessary removals.

As Master Jedi explain to their apprentices (think Yoda, or Master Jedi Luke Skywalker), “the force” is an energy that animates all living things; it moves through us and among us.  Indeed, we are made up of atoms and elements that originated in space. We are literally star dust!

So even if I dislike space (the cold and the silence, the uninhabitable planets and distant stars), that is silly, since I am of it.  We all are.  I suggest we all “use the force” and help make our world a better place, one that is human-habitable for the many millennia of generations to come.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!

See you in church,

Rev. Hannah