“We The People”…Want Clean Water.

Recently, one of my fellow bloggers wrote a great post about how we should no longer use plastic water bottles since they have a negative impact on the environment. In my comment, I agreed to the idea and said that in my case, I do buy some bottled water since the kind that comes out of my faucet is not healthy to drink and the water from my countertop water filter does not taste very good.

Some cities in America are fortunate to have officials who stress that the water that we use can be consumed without fear of getting sick. Many communities such as those depicted in the movies Erin Brockovich and Civil Action, are not so fortunate.

In my area, it has been reported that the water which comes from the tap is full of crap. How sad is that? I have traveled all over the world and have seen the effects of unhealthy water. Most of it has been in third world nations.  Why is it that America, which is a Superpower, does not have water that is safe enough for all of us to drink?

As we have seen in the debates about health care, many people in this country stress the importance of being a free society where we can make money. I am cool with making money, however, to make money without any regard as to how it affects those around you is somehow insane.

How can a country founded by fifty-six men who had the nerve to stand up to the almighty British Empire, be so enamored with profit that we forget to take into account “We the people”?

Of course, those who are all for profit, inevitably start screaming that the call for clean water is somehow Communist or Socialist. How can wanting clean water make you a Communist or a Socialist? When I was in school, I do not recall being taught that Karl Marx or Lenin wrote about clean drinking water being a key focus in their infamous manifesto. (If I am wrong about this, please contact me on my blog.)

One of the key tenets in all religions is the notion that our actions do impact those around us and inevitably impact us too. Call it karma, divine retribution or justice, what goes around sure does come around in some shape or form. And that includes what you do to the environment.

When the Native Americans were asked to sign contracts to sell land, they found it strange for no one truly can own land. From a spiritual perspective that is true. A person may buy a home and have a mortgage but that does not mean you own and control the land. If anything, it owns and controls you. A natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina proved that to all of us.

When Lord Buddha first decided to go in search of finding the answers to why there was pain and suffering, he went into nature. He attained Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, not against some wall on the palace of his birth.

Nature not only provides us with food and water but it also helps remind us that our problems are truly not that big in the scheme of life. Stand on the beach and the vastness of the ocean makes anything look small in comparison.

Nature, in my opinion, grounds us and helps put everything in perspective.

Nature may appear to be separate from you but in reality it encompasses your entire world. Everyday we experience the effects of nature. Nature is not stagnant. It ebbs and flows depending on what is happening in the atmosphere.

Often in life, people think of themselves as an isolated island. I used to do this too, so I understand the power of the illusion. However, the reality is that you are not some lone wolf in the world. You are a part of the macrocosm that makes up this beautiful planet. What you do to another, you are doing to yourself.

Nature is not some trash dump that exists in the bad part of town. Nature is everywhere.