Hello, everyone. Dana Corbit here. Okay, I admit it. Today when my dryer died for the fifth time in three years, I decided that it was time for it to go to the landfill. Hmm. That's not really how it happened. When I texted my husband this morning, calling for repairs before my wet laundry could take on the aroma of Parmesan cheese, he called back with the suggestion I'd given up on making. "Why don't you look for a new one?" he said.
Now you have to understand the significance of my sweetheart's request. He has managed to revive our lovely appliance through EACH of its near-death experiences, even locating outdated parts through the Internet to keep the door from opening during the cycle and sending clothes flying like a Salad Shooter.
Let's just say, I was humming the "Hallelujah Chorus" while searching on-line for a replacement. It didn't take long. With so much information at my fingertips, I compared products and prices, read specifications and customer reviews, located a source for free shipping and free haul away and did the most important research step - I called Mom - before placing the order. Only after receiving confirmation that the shiny new appliance would arrive tomorrow, with its much bandaged counterpart being taken away, did my guilt set in. I am sending another hunk of steel to the landfill. I might speak the pledge of "Recycle, Reduce, Reuse," but my husband is better at sticking to those words than I am, even if he's doing it for another unpleasant word: "Budget."
I say all of this to explain why I have spent much of the afternoon flipping through the Scriptures and "The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible," looking for references to waste and recycling. I didn't have a lot of success other than to learn from Mark 2:22 that one shouldn't put new wine in old skins or they will burst. Oh, and that the word "waste" in the early 1600s of the King James Version was what happened to the land of those who weren't following God's will. My search was a bust. Still, I have to believe that if Jesus were walking the earth today, He would recycle. I believe that God entrusted us with this beautiful planet, and we should treat it as precious. In my favorite passage, Matthew 6, Jesus tells of the lilies, the birds and the grass of the field, and how God cares for them. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these" - Matthew 6:28b-29.
Will I send back my brand-new shiny dryer? Sadly, no. My clothes are fermenting as I write. But this exercise has given me cause for thought. It doesn't hurt to try to make things last, choosing repairs over refuse, at least for a while. I guess I'll test my resolve when the washer breathes its last, and I have the chance to make it a matching set.
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