A Faith that Lasts: Waste Not

One thing I’ve found funny over the past few years as I’ve tried to be more intentional about how I live, whether in terms of more sustainable living, decolonizing my mindset, or even just trying to be a better disciple of Jesus, is how so many of the things that are counter-cultural and challenging are simultaneously deeply embedded in that same culture. Perhaps part of what has made ‘the West’ such a confusion of genius and terror is that we teach our children very specific values but have economic and social structures that teach the opposite values. Our attitude towards waste is a great example. “Waste not, want not” is a three hundred year old proverb (and a similar, though less pithy version predates it by at least another two hundred years). And yet, even as two generations have been taught the ‘3 Rs’ in school — reduce, reuse, recycle — we’re producing more waste than ever. As should come as no surprise at this point, permaculture design pays a lot of attention to waste, but puts a different, and I think helpful, spin on it. Today I’d like to look at this concept and then see how we might apply it in the life of faith.

In terms of systems theory, waste is connected to outputs. But these outputs are not just the desired or designed outputs, but all outputs. If we think of the basic principle that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed, it means that the energy at the start of a process has to equal the energy at the end. ‘Waste’, then, refers primarily to the unintended outputs, the byproducts of the system, including heat, light, pollutants, and unused remains. Permaculture design tries to limit waste as much as possible. As David Holmgren writes:

This principle brings together traditional values of frugality and care for material goods, the modern concern about pollution, and the “more radical” perspective that sees wastes as resources and opportunities. … The industrial processes that support modern life can be characterized by an input-output model, in which the inputs are natural materials and energy, while the outputs are useful things and services. However, when we step back from this process and take a long-term view, we can see all these useful things end up as wastes (mostly in rubbish tips) and that even the most ethereal of services required the degradation of energy and resources to wastes. This model might therefore be better characterized as “consume/excrete”. The view of people as simply consumers and excreters might be biological, but it is not ecological.*

Permaculture design shifts our relationship to waste by making systems more efficient, by choosing renewable and reusable resources, and by finding secondary uses for byproducts.

Efficiency is both an obsession of contemporary life and something that gets a bad name, particularly in spiritual circles. And it’s true that in the workplace it has all too often become synonymous with cost-cutting and ‘doing more with less.’ And very little in our spiritual lives is ‘efficient’ in the corporate sense. (There is nothing ‘efficient’ in this sense about liturgy or meditation!) But, as with many things in life, the motivation for finding efficiencies is critical. Efficiency as a byword for maximizing profits by overworking staff is very different from understanding efficiency as a way of reducing waste and being good stewards of resources. The latter approach is not about going faster, but about observing where resources of energy, time, or matter are wasted in processes. It tries to smooth out bottlenecks, avoid unnecessary duplication, and reduce loss through energy sinks or drains.

In terms of selection of resources, permaculture uses a hierarchy based on a resource’s creative potential. The most desirable resources are those that increase with use (the best example being seeds, which, when used, produce more seeds), and the least desirable are those that are not only destroyed through use but pollute or degrade other systems through their use (fossil fuels, for example). Most resources live in between these extremes, being lost through lack of use, being unaffected by use, or being destroyed through use (without polluting). As an example of this principle in action, using raised water reservoirs allows water to be distributed across a garden through gravitational energy, rather than requiring use of a pump.

Finally, in terms of finding secondary uses for byproducts, we can revisit the Principle of Highest Use, which increases yields and decreases waste by using the byproducts of a system as the inputs of other systems. To cite a common example, the parts of an onion we don’t use can be used to make vegetable stock, then the skins can be used to make dyes, and then can be composted and returned to the earth not as waste but as soil.

What does all of this have to do with the life of faith? This is another principle that can be applied directly, since our relationship with food and energy (of all kinds) is inherently spiritual. (I remember in my Orthodox days conversations about how it was worse to waste food than to break one’s fast.) But I do think there are ways to apply it to the less tangible aspect of spirituality too.

• Reducing Waste: As much as Paul talked about bearing the good “fruit of the Spirit,” he also talked in the same passage about avoiding those things that produce bad fruit. In keeping with how virtue and vice were understood in his day, the examples he gives are largely about losing control of oneself in ways that break relationships and community. (The list is awkward to translate because we don’t have good ways of talking about ‘sin’ in English without sounding ridiculous, but I might paraphrase Galatians 5.19-21 as: “mindless sexuality, corruption, the exercise of freedom without concern for others, thinking created things are more important than their Creator, turning to charms and potions, hostility, strife, zealousness, loss of temper, argumentativeness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, and unrestrained partying.” Or, one could paraphrase it as “Anything that might make for ‘good television’ on The Bachelor, The Real Housewives, or Spring Break/Girls Gone Wild.” But of course, this is just a small subset of personal sin; Paul wasn’t being exhaustive here!) Put in the language we’re talking about today, ‘sin’ can be thought of as waste of the system of our life and spirituality, and, since it harms our relationships, as a kind of pollutant at that. Thought of in these terms, we can look at the system and see where these things come from and try to adjust it accordingly. It might look like ensuring our basic needs are looked after — sleep, food, water — so we’re less likely to snap at others, or it might look like finding ways to drink responsibly and mindfully, and if this is not possible for us, choosing sobriety. Or it might simply be stopping before acting in order to ask ourselves how our action might negatively impact others. Remember: Our faith should bear good fruit, and good fruit does not have victims or collateral damage.
• Renewable Resources: The hierarchy of resources offers a compelling set of questions for the life of faith: What things increase naturally with use? What resources do I have — energy, skills, etc. — that will be lost if they aren’t used? What are resources that I have that are renewable? (One of these things for me is ‘bullet prayers’ — a quick ‘thank you, Lord’ or ‘Lord have mercy’ costs me nothing but can be enough to re-open my eyes to how God is at work in the midst of a busy day, and they never run out!) And, again, what are things in my life that ‘pollute’ those around me? And, how can I minimize their use and mitigate their negative impacts?
• Highest Use: I looked at the spiritual usefulness of this principle last week, but here we can shift our perspective on it and think of it not in terms of maximizing our yield but minimizing waste. Thinking of my friend who refuses to read a ‘spiritual’ book until he’s applied the last one he read, he’s not only making sure he’s getting the most out of his reading, but ensuring he’s not wasting what he learns. After all, reading takes time and energy that could be spent doing many other things.

“Waste not, want not” is an important principle in life, not just for the sake of frugality and ecological sustainability, but in our life of faith too. By not wasting what we’ve been given, by using it well, and limiting the negative ‘waste’ that our lives produce for others, we’re well on our way to building a faith that is built for the long-haul.

* Please see the series bibliography for more information