Escaping Suburbia

I was an eight year old who had never ventured from the suburbia of Northeast Ohio standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon for the first time. The next summer, I found myself standing at the base of the Teton Mountains in Wyoming anticipating a hike through its hills. Two years later, I was laying in Rocky Mountain National Park next to a genuine campfire watching the moon rise above the mountains and seeing more stars than I seen even during school trips to the planetarium. Imagine how these sites would affect an eight-year-old girl from Mentor, Ohio.

I consider myself fortunate that my experience with nature began at a young age. As I transitioned from childhood to my teenage and young adult years, exposure to some of the most impressive natural sites in our country became a part of my concept of nature and how we interact with it. While other kids my age were traveling to Disney World or visiting their Grandmas in Texas, my family of five drove our rusty minivan and vintage 70's pop-up trailer cross country to the Rocky Mountains. Over the past twelve years we've spent weeks with our retro pop-up in some of the Rockies' stunning park and campsites. As a young child the sites I saw amazed me; no photograph I'd seen could do justice to the magnitude of a mountain range or the Grand Canyon or Old Faithful.

The first few trips we made to the mountains had the most significant impact on my environmental ethics. As we grow older, we are taken from a naïve state of ignorance and slowly introduced to new concepts about the world around us. Our universe grows from our neighborhood to an entire planet, and even solar system. These concepts are learned through our educations systems, our family’s narrative, television, and storybooks. However, nothing can teach as well as practical experience. I firmly believe that there is no way to teach a young child about their respective size than to take them to one of nature’s major creations. During the course of our family vacations, I quickly realized that we are a miniscule part of nature and our world; it is impossible for anyone who stood where I stood to feel any differently.

This realization has become central to my beliefs and actions throughout the later years of my life. I don’t consider myself a religious person; the strict rules and restrictions of the Roman Catholic faith never set well with me. However, I believe that my experiences with the environment and immense respect for nature has created, or at least enhanced, a form of faith for me. Though I have trouble believing some of the stories of the Bible I can see many of its concepts in our surroundings. Many people turn to their faith when they need an escape or guidance. I, on the other hand, find nature to be more therapeutic than any Catholic service I’ve ever been to. For the past couple years, nature has offered me an escape from the pressures of everyday life. Whenever I felt that I needed guidance or direction, I usually found my way to the woods behind my house and wandered through. I discovered I could think much more clearly and usually found the guidance I needed.

Furthermore, I believe that one can live well in the eyes of God by living life to the fullest and appreciating all that we are given. I believe that services, confessions, and penances distract people from actually taking action to improve the world around them and living out God’s vision. For me, the environment is one of the greatest gifts we have been provided and therefore I feel it is each person’s responsibility to protect it and enjoy it.

Stemming from the experiences I have had with nature, I have become very aware of how our actions affect the environment around us and how much damage mankind is capable of doing. This consciousness has guided my actions and motivations throughout the past few years. I have grown more conscience of how my actions affect the environment and how I can become more responsible for caring for it. Through small steps – recycling paper, using cold water when I wash clothes, using reusable shopping bags, walking instead of driving, turning off unused lights - I try to lessen my impact on the environment. I also encourage my friends and family to take some of the same steps in their daily lives. Even if they don’t have the same experiences with and respect for nature as I do, they still recognize the need to protect the environment. Admittedly, I still have a long way to go. However, I recognize the need for responsible living and have a strong motivation to keep working towards it – a family photo from a past vacation always does the trick.