Margaret Bitz and Dan Mahli have organized a neighborhood clean-up project for Nativity. Margaret shares both her motivation for doing this and the details of the event in the following article:
God was happy. In his burst of happiness He decorated his home, the universe. He hung the moon and stars in his bedroom and the sun in his living room. He set out many pools of water and sculpted big and small mountains. He carpeted his rooms with green grass, yellow sand, black dirt and prairie flowers. He released birds, butterflies and dragon flies to brighten the skies. He made crickets to make music and ants to show us how to work together.
We at Nativity want to make a parish effort to keep God’s creation beautiful. There are many things we can do personally. First, we want to always dispose of litter in an appropriate manner. Secondly, we want to recycle whenever recycling is possible. Thirdly, we want to, individually, pick up litter that has been dropped on lawns and sidewalks in our neighborhoods. Fourthly, we want to pray for a growing awareness of our responsibility to keep the earth clean. And lastly, as a parish community, we want to devote an hour twice a year to walk together through our parish neighborhood picking up litter. This year we are planning on doing this on November 1, All Saints Day, as a way of honoring the saints, imitating their respect toward God and His creation. We will have sign-ups for a parish neighborhood cleanup after the Sunday Liturgies the weekends of October 17/18, 24/25 and Oct 31/Nov 1. For those who won’t be in town on any of these weekends, sign-ups can be done by calling the parish office 232-2414. The gathering for the cleanup will be at 1:30 in the Parish gathering space. At that time specific instructions will be given to rev us up for the project and afterwards a snack, hot chocolate and/or hot cider will be available to warm our chilled bodies and invigorate our spirits for an ongoing commitment to keeping God’s creation beautiful
