Thank you to Sister Leanne Jablonski, PhD for her excellent presentation at the November meeting.

A heartfelt “Thankyou” goes to all those who brought the refreshments for the November Dialogue.  Contributors include Erika, Emily, Eileen, Bill and Lillian. Thank you for helping, Connie. 

 Thank you for the hospitality of Dr. Ed Zaiders and United Theological Seminary.

Looking Back

The DCJD President, Lillian Gillespie, formatted the November Dialogue as an invitation to the communities in and around the Dayton area to join the Dialogue members in an open meeting.  This is the Dialogue's 30th anniversary year.  Many of the founding members stood to be recognized as people who had begun a movement that now has branched internationally. 

Rabbi Judith Bluestein was awarded a Hadassah Lifetime Membership by Dayton area Hadassah President Beverly Farnbacher.  Lillian gave the devotional.

 Our featured speaker was Sr. Leanne Jablonski, Ph.D., who presented her topic, Environmental Justice, which she defined as the right for all people who are affected by the use of a natural resource as being able to have a role in decision-making concerning the use of the resource.

Her statistics about those of us who live in the USA were sobering and challenging:  the USA’s residents comprise 4-5%, of the world’s total population.  But we consume 67% of the energy use, which is 5 times more than our fair share.

She reminded her listeners that our everyday decisions are moral decisions.  Which car to buy or how to travel; where we go to buy clothes, comparing thrift shops to giant malls...which have "paved paradise and put up parking lots" ...these decisions involve people we will never meet, but whose lives and health and children and grandchildren are impacted in some way by the choices we make.

Practical applications regarding ecology in our neighborhoods and communities included some of these tangible first steps:  ecology centered Bible Studies, joining with others to become more conscious of the needs and to speak with a common voice, planting native plants in our yards, assessing our cars and buildings for energy waste, and a return to old-fashioned values. 

Thought for the Month

Sister Leanne opened her topic with a Bible verse, Micah 6:8:  “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

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