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I grew up during the war years, that period we liked to call in the Republic "The Emergency", when due to rationing, material goods such as food and clothing were in short supply even if you were well off financially, and my family wasn't.
I was still in my early teens when, just after the war, my father
reached the age of retirement. My mother had a hard time of it feeding
and clothing two adults and 7 growing children on a Civil Servant's
pension. But she was thrifty and we managed; nothing was wasted.
Clothes, shoes, books, toys, all had to be treated with respect and be
passed on from the oldest right down to the youngest, some of the
things having to undergo repairs or adjustments on the way, to maintain
them in usable condition. I learnt many lessons in recycling in those
days long before the word was coined.
With this upbringing, Poverty as lived in the convent was no
hardship to me when I entered, and during my subsequent Froebel teacher
training finding we students were encouraged to use waste materials in
our teaching pleased me greatly. I quickly became a 'collector' of old
magazines, jars, buttons, scraps of material, etc, etc and made use of
them in the classroom. But years passed and looking around me I often
bemoaned the amount of scrap that was thrown out daily and which I
thought could surely be put to good use. It is not surprising then
that I took
responsibility for the Community's ecological drive when the call came
from the General Chapter for the Care of the Earth in this way among
others.
We are just 12 Sisters in our community so the amount of waste material
we generate is small compared to what must come from a larger community
where the car takes the output to the Ecopoint or Depot at stated
intervals. As I go for a walk every day I take our contribution with
me and drop it off at one of the places where large containers have
been made available for the public. In the convent we have our small
bins for bottles, plastics, wrappings, batteries, etc. Paper is
collected weekly so I don't have to deal with that, except to check
that paper and nothing else is being put into the bin marked 'Paper'.
I take with me whatever has accumulated in the other bins from the day
before.
Most mornings I leave the house around 9am and pass the school entrance
where parents are dropping off their children. They salute me and I
can imagine them saying: 'There goes Sister on her way to the dump', or
some such. When I arrive at the Ecopoint more parents are arriving or
pulling away from the car park, where it is situated, and there in his
scruffy jeans and long hair is the attendant. He gives me a cheery
wave and a 'Good morning Sister and God bless you'. That gives me a
lift and reminds me that we said, when formulating our definition of a
Holy Preacher, that "each sister is the face of the Community wherever
she is present to others, whether she is proclaiming the Word of God
formally or otherwise". I am witnessing to the Community's ecological
effort and my example may encourage those who see me to make an effort
too. After all
I am only one
But I am one
I cannot do everything
But I can do something
What I can do
I ought to do
What I ought to do
I will do.
By the grace of God.
Bernadette Marie Pakenham, OP
Bom Sucesso
Lisbon
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