The Discipline of Responsive Stewardship

This week my wife and I saw the movie 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen', an improbable story that can still reel you in. It’s romantic comedy and political satire, not an environmental film, but one of the sub-plots contrasts a vision for developing a barren landscape against antagonists who would rather destroy the environment to advance their political ends. The downstream results are devastating (though, since the film is a comedy, not ultimately terminal).

That’s a light-hearted backdrop for the weighty and timely theme of ecological stewardship. In previous posts we’ve looked at two important disciplines for living joyfully and responsively in our flawed but wonderful world: the discipline of reverence, worship and awe and the discipline of gratitude. These disciplines focus our outlook and attitude towards creation and instill a sense of wonder and privilege. The discipline that I want to highlight in this post is