Eco-Spirituality

The St. Joan of Arc Eco-Spirituality Committee plans programs to help us connect our spirituality and sense of justice with the earth, its systems and all its creatures.

Our Mission

To help the St Joan's community become aware of our social and spiritual responsibility to care for God’s creation so that we live sustainably as compassionate stewards.

St Joan of Arc's Journey to Zero Waste

We are embarking on a journey to reduce the waste we generate here at St Joan’s. We began this effort at last year’s Cabaret, where we collected almost 1000 pounds of bottles, cans, paper, compostables, and yes, some trash. All of the trash fit into 2 trash bags weighing 50 pounds, for a recovery rate of 95%, while serving over 1000 people during the two nights of the event.

Reducing waste, or discards, by composting keeps it out of the landfill and recycles the products back to the earth as soil. By doing this we avoid the negative effects of either burning the discards for fuel or land filling. Burning compostable materials is not an efficient source of fuel as food scraps can contain large amounts of water. Land filling can result in anaerobic digestion releasing methane, approximately 20 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Even when methane is "captured", it is an inefficient process and much of the methane is still released to the atmosphere.

Eco-Spirituality: Every second, a slice of rainforest the size of a football field is mowed down - primarily for commercial use. Visit www.therainforestsite.org to see what you can do to fight this alarming statistic. The Earth is our Mother. For our children's sake, we must work for her sustainability.

(Update) - St Joan's began it's full time composting program in February when Susan Hubbard, co-president of Eureka Recycling spoke at our masses. Since then, we have trained the school on our campus (HLA), and they are composting at breakfast and lunch. Doug Lohman, our maintenance supervisor, says we have reduced waste by 50% with the school now composting. We are trying to get everyone who hosts events to compost and use compostable products. Please help us eliminate waste by using the "Organics Recycling" containers and using compostable plateware (see attached flyer). As soon as the janitors are trained, we plan to compost all the paper towels that now go in the bathroom trash cans.

Questions or suggestions? Visit our table in the plaza after mass on our Earth Day Celebration at St Joan's (April 20th) or send us an email at: ContactEco@stjoan.com.

Think Before You Throw!

The earth is our home, the household where we play and work out our lives with each other. This home is the incarnation of God's / Divine Wisdom's creative love. The earth, like all of creation, is sacred, and like a mother nurtures our lives and reveals the sacred to us. Humans, as embodied spirits, share with all creation the divine spirit. Our human journey is intricately connected with the earth and all its creatures; our way to healing and wholeness (= salvation) plays out through our inter-relationship with the living systems of the earth.

As householders of the earth, we are stewards of its life-systems -- the air, land and water essential for our lives. We face a crisis because the earth's life-systems are extremely stressed, to the point where they soon may no longer be able to sustain human life. The earth will go on; we may not.

"Eco-spirituality", which embraces earth-centered and creation-centered spirituality, fosters an awareness of how we are inseparably interconnected with all of creation. It calls us to be stewards of the earth and students of her rhythms and the mystery of her sacred landscape so that we act wisely and learn to live justly amongst its abundance and rich diversity. It challenges us to raise our awareness and change our behavior in all our relations with the earth, its creatures and each other.