xcel
11-28-2006, 07:05 PM
Environmental efforts are everyday mission for nuns at northwest Missouri monastery. (http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/16114348.htm)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2007_Toyota_Camry_Hybrid1.jpgEdward M. Eveld - Kansas City Star - Nov. 28, 2006
2007 TCH - These Sisters belive in it!
CLYDE, Mo. - At a century-old monastery atop a ridge in northwest Missouri, Sister Sean Douglas contemplates ground-source heat pumps. To retrofit the thick-walled home and chapel of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration for a geothermal system would be costly, she knows. But the existing radiator heat, fueled by propane, is so …
“Awful,” Douglas said.
Awful, she means, because it’s a nonrenewable resource.
In large and small ways, the community of 75 Catholic sisters is going green, from driving hybrid cars to using biodegradable corn starch pellets to ship the altar bread they make.
At a time when some Christian groups are debating their position on environmental issues, the sisters are of one voice, which they say emanates from their sixth-century patron, St. Benedict. “It’s our heritage,” said Sister Cheryl Morehead, “going back hundreds of years.”
The ideals of frugality require the sisters to tread softly on the earth, to consume less, not more. Their chief calling is to a contemplative life, prayer balanced by work, while maintaining a simple daily routine. But, as they see it, their monastic lifestyle is no excuse for keeping in the dark about modern methods to conserve.
“We’re more and more aware of what we can do,” Douglas said. “Many times it’s just little steps.”
The sisters bought their first hybrid car, a Toyota Prius, in 2004. This summer they replaced their other car with a hybrid Camry. “It was a new experience for the sisters,” Douglas said. “We had individual lessons with all 30 drivers.”
During a six-year span, the sisters replaced 800 windows - most were circa 1901 - with high-efficiency windows to conserve energy. Some windows had been so out of kilter, it snowed indoors. Douglas and another sister helped workers with the window trim. “Kind of fun, except we started in January on the north side,” she said.
The sisters have begun replacing their incandescent bulbs with more energy-efficient and cooler fluorescent ones.
Outside the monastery walls, the sisters recently planted 200 acres in prairie grasses and wildflowers as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program to reduce soil erosion and enhance the environment. “That’s in the ground now, and I’m excited,” Morehead said. “It’s like a wildlife habitat.”
The sisters also have an organic garden, and they compost all food scraps. They harvested buckets of volunteer tomatoes and squash all summer from the compost area.
When the sisters were forced to cut down their fungus-damaged pine trees, they saved the wood which, in the hands of skillful maintenance workers, became benches, magazine racks and storage bins.
“That made us feel a little better about losing the trees,” Morehead said.
For Christmas, the sisters won’t use real trees to decorate the monastery, only artificial.
Last month they announced their participation in a wind energy farm in the area. It’s a project to erect two dozen giant wind turbines, with one on the sisters’ land. The energy generated will flow to the area’s electric cooperatives. “It’s just a neat thing to be part of because the larger area benefits a lot from the project,” Douglas said.
Tom Carnahan, founder of Wind Capital Group, said the wind farm got a boost from the sisters’ enthusiasm. “They stood up and were real leaders about this,” said Carnahan, the son of the late Gov. Mel Carnahan. “Their wanting to be involved sent a signal to the community.”
A small handful of Missouri organizations have been named to the Green Power Leadership Club, a designation by the Environmental Protection Agency. One is the Benedictine Sisters. They were cited for their purchase of “green tags,” renewable energy certificates. A California wind farm will deliver energy in the sisters’ name.
So, what’s left to do?
The heating and cooling system is a biggie, and the sisters are dreaming geothermal. Douglas has schooled herself on ground-source heat pumps. “It’s an expensive item,” said Douglas about the conversion. “It’s something we’d like to move toward.”
Other opportunities: They’re considering a glass crusher, which grinds glass as fine as sand, because they lack a good option for recycling glass. And they’re studying outdoor solar lighting.
At this point, the “little steps” are adding up to an impressive record. Through it all, the sisters never stop praying.
On a recent chilly autumn day, they assembled as they always do at noon for “Day Hour” prayer. Below the chapel’s stained glass and mosaics, tapers burning on the altar, they chanted Psalm 148, which instructs all the earth to praise God, “mountains and hills, all fruit trees and cedars, wild animals and cattle, creeping things and birds that fly.”
“The times we gather to pray are explicit, and we pray for everybody,” Morehead said. “That may sound general and bland, but it reminds us who the focus is.”
Even when not gathered, the sisters are praying, including as they work. They pray for those who will receive the white, whole wheat and low-gluten wafers baked in the altar bread department, which produces 2 million a week. And for those who use the soaps, in scents from Gregorian Mist to Mango Madness, mixed in their soap department.
And they pray for the success of their environmental efforts, a reflection of their reverence for God’s nature. St. Benedict taught that objects in the monastery should be treated respectfully, as though they were “vessels of the altar.”
“We want to take care of our environment as if it is a vessel of the altar,” Morehead said.
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2007_Toyota_Camry_Hybrid1.jpgEdward M. Eveld - Kansas City Star - Nov. 28, 2006
2007 TCH - These Sisters belive in it!
CLYDE, Mo. - At a century-old monastery atop a ridge in northwest Missouri, Sister Sean Douglas contemplates ground-source heat pumps. To retrofit the thick-walled home and chapel of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration for a geothermal system would be costly, she knows. But the existing radiator heat, fueled by propane, is so …
“Awful,” Douglas said.
Awful, she means, because it’s a nonrenewable resource.
In large and small ways, the community of 75 Catholic sisters is going green, from driving hybrid cars to using biodegradable corn starch pellets to ship the altar bread they make.
At a time when some Christian groups are debating their position on environmental issues, the sisters are of one voice, which they say emanates from their sixth-century patron, St. Benedict. “It’s our heritage,” said Sister Cheryl Morehead, “going back hundreds of years.”
The ideals of frugality require the sisters to tread softly on the earth, to consume less, not more. Their chief calling is to a contemplative life, prayer balanced by work, while maintaining a simple daily routine. But, as they see it, their monastic lifestyle is no excuse for keeping in the dark about modern methods to conserve.
“We’re more and more aware of what we can do,” Douglas said. “Many times it’s just little steps.”
The sisters bought their first hybrid car, a Toyota Prius, in 2004. This summer they replaced their other car with a hybrid Camry. “It was a new experience for the sisters,” Douglas said. “We had individual lessons with all 30 drivers.”
During a six-year span, the sisters replaced 800 windows - most were circa 1901 - with high-efficiency windows to conserve energy. Some windows had been so out of kilter, it snowed indoors. Douglas and another sister helped workers with the window trim. “Kind of fun, except we started in January on the north side,” she said.
The sisters have begun replacing their incandescent bulbs with more energy-efficient and cooler fluorescent ones.
Outside the monastery walls, the sisters recently planted 200 acres in prairie grasses and wildflowers as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program to reduce soil erosion and enhance the environment. “That’s in the ground now, and I’m excited,” Morehead said. “It’s like a wildlife habitat.”
The sisters also have an organic garden, and they compost all food scraps. They harvested buckets of volunteer tomatoes and squash all summer from the compost area.
When the sisters were forced to cut down their fungus-damaged pine trees, they saved the wood which, in the hands of skillful maintenance workers, became benches, magazine racks and storage bins.
“That made us feel a little better about losing the trees,” Morehead said.
For Christmas, the sisters won’t use real trees to decorate the monastery, only artificial.
Last month they announced their participation in a wind energy farm in the area. It’s a project to erect two dozen giant wind turbines, with one on the sisters’ land. The energy generated will flow to the area’s electric cooperatives. “It’s just a neat thing to be part of because the larger area benefits a lot from the project,” Douglas said.
Tom Carnahan, founder of Wind Capital Group, said the wind farm got a boost from the sisters’ enthusiasm. “They stood up and were real leaders about this,” said Carnahan, the son of the late Gov. Mel Carnahan. “Their wanting to be involved sent a signal to the community.”
A small handful of Missouri organizations have been named to the Green Power Leadership Club, a designation by the Environmental Protection Agency. One is the Benedictine Sisters. They were cited for their purchase of “green tags,” renewable energy certificates. A California wind farm will deliver energy in the sisters’ name.
So, what’s left to do?
The heating and cooling system is a biggie, and the sisters are dreaming geothermal. Douglas has schooled herself on ground-source heat pumps. “It’s an expensive item,” said Douglas about the conversion. “It’s something we’d like to move toward.”
Other opportunities: They’re considering a glass crusher, which grinds glass as fine as sand, because they lack a good option for recycling glass. And they’re studying outdoor solar lighting.
At this point, the “little steps” are adding up to an impressive record. Through it all, the sisters never stop praying.
On a recent chilly autumn day, they assembled as they always do at noon for “Day Hour” prayer. Below the chapel’s stained glass and mosaics, tapers burning on the altar, they chanted Psalm 148, which instructs all the earth to praise God, “mountains and hills, all fruit trees and cedars, wild animals and cattle, creeping things and birds that fly.”
“The times we gather to pray are explicit, and we pray for everybody,” Morehead said. “That may sound general and bland, but it reminds us who the focus is.”
Even when not gathered, the sisters are praying, including as they work. They pray for those who will receive the white, whole wheat and low-gluten wafers baked in the altar bread department, which produces 2 million a week. And for those who use the soaps, in scents from Gregorian Mist to Mango Madness, mixed in their soap department.
And they pray for the success of their environmental efforts, a reflection of their reverence for God’s nature. St. Benedict taught that objects in the monastery should be treated respectfully, as though they were “vessels of the altar.”
“We want to take care of our environment as if it is a vessel of the altar,” Morehead said.