THE concept of stewardship is one that has been adopted, at least in part, by many of the highly evolved and responsible societies in the world. Basically, stewardship consists of an awareness of our place in the natural and social worlds and more specifically of our obligations rather than a focus on a sense of blind entitlement.
When we practice good stewardship of our environment, it means that we try to protect and conserve it. We oppose unsustainable practices in farming, production and energy attainment. We keep in mind that the resources we have must last — not just for our generation but also for our children and our children’s children and so on.
Consumption and plenty should not lead us into wasteful practices, just as it is our responsibility to keep the natural world as unharmed as we possibly can while pursuing our own human goals.
It means being careful about the waste we produce, and how we dispose of it — recycling rather than throwing things in the trash and choosing our products wisely so as to produce the minimum amount of garbage in the first place.
It also means watching our consumption. We are privileged to live in this time and place where we have ample fulfillment of our basic needs for energy, food and water. We should keep in mind, though, that this isn’t the case for all people around the globe and what we do in our homes actually affects those around us, locally, regionally and globally, in ever-widening circles. If we are stewards of our environment, our first priority is to take care of it and conserve it, not use it up.
We can also practice awareness and good stewardship in our human community.
This involves taking responsibility for those who cannot provide for themselves, perhaps because of age or illness. That our social responsibility extends to both our family and our nation as a whole is something that most people intuitively understand, but it is remarkable how often we seem to disregard the intermediary step — those members of our community who are in our immediate purview, but are not directly related to us or in our circle of acquaintance. Yet, of these people are without family of their own, whom do we think will take care of them, if not us? It is understandable to be timid in taking the initiative to reach out to a stranger individually.
But there is a great need for community organizations that can do so. Such charitable foundations perform an indispensible function that of the social entrepreneur — people and groups who find innovative ways to meet social needs, out of their own sense of social responsibility.
Indeed, as societies all over the world have found, relying solely on the government to take care of social programs can be both futile and disempowering. Official channels can solve some of our problems, but not all. It is imperative that we all do our part.
At one time, awareness of these issues and needs — human and natural — was a matter of course and would scarcely have warranted the words I am writing here. I believe that stewardship in one form or another — a concern for the world around us and an awareness of our responsibility toward it — was woven into the fabric of traditional cultures.
It may be the very reason that human societies have succeeded in all the ways that they have. But society is changing, for better or for worse — probably both! We are busier than ever before.
We have full lives, without much time for social interaction and awareness, and we increasingly rely on convenience food and products — the very products more likely to be implicated in unsustainable production and disposal.
This is all the more reason why we must consciously make time for awareness of the needs of the world around us.
