Proximity

One thing about having 1,300 or so Quakers living together on a college campus for a week at FGC Gathering is being in proximity to one another.

As a result, I had a better sense of the collective impact we can have. The spiritual impact. The activist impact. In this case, though, I’m thinking of our impact on the earth: water use, energy use, food consumption, and waste production. Living closely together in this community for a week, it’s quite visible. Do people leave the faucet running? Do we flush twice? (I live in California so I’m sensitive about water use; Wisconsin is historically wetter.) How much bottled water or soda do we drink? Do we turn the lights off in the shower area when we’re done? And look at how much paper we all get just by attending the Gathering!

It was also nice to see so many people walking around, not needing a car for the vast portion of the week, and golf carts available for people who needed them or for children who were especially worn out.

At some point, recycling boxes were provided in dorm lobbies. On the last day, I had a nudge to take the piled-up recycling from our dorm lobby to the receptacles outside. As it happened, we had to make two trips to take our luggage from the dorm to the bus, and I was going back by myself for the last pieces. I decided to take the recycling out at that point, because we were in no hurry. Then I would return the keys in the slot.

As it happened, Robin needed her meal card for lunch, and it was in her key holder. She called to tell me this as I was taking the recycling out. If I hadn’t been taking out the recycling, I would have already turned in her key with the meal card. I was able to fish out the card before returning the keys. And it was good.