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Whether a person is religious or not, a spiritual person or even just a half-way decent person is someone who has a love and a care for themself, people and the world around them. It's simple.

There's an old saying that cleanliness is next to godliness. Against popular belief the saying did not come from the Bible, it was said in a sermon by someone named John Wesley in 1791. I'm not sure exactly what that saying means, but I do believe that spiritual people clean up their mess. I used to be a complete slob growing up. I attribute it to my dear mom who was such a supermom that she did everything. She had a full time job as a teacher, she was in clubs and organizations and she cooked and kept our house spotless. Sad to say, my dad and I would lie around and watch TV while she zipped around doing it all. We were horrible but she was a little to blame because she was such a perfectionist that if you started to clean something and were not doing it in what she considered the right way she would stop you and do it herself. This is a long tangent from the point I'm eventually going to make, because as the title states, this is an environmental article.

Anyway, as I got older and lived on my own, I discovered a correlation between my state of mind and my cleanliness. I couldn’t think straight in a messy filthy home. I also noticed that times when I tended to let things get really messy were also times that I was also confused or felt down in other areas of my life, as if the level of order in my environment could sometimes reflect the level of order in my emotional or psychological state. On a spiritual level, cleanliness shows a care and an appreciation for your space around you.

So when I think about the state of our earth home, and the way we clean or don't clean our mess on this planet, it's obvious that all of us, every single one of us, has a pretty lazy, slovenly mental and spiritual attitude towards our mess. If you haven't noticed already, the earth is a mess. From America, to Africa, to Russia, to Asia, to Mexico, the problem is with every country and every person. Because like I used to do with my mom, we are all just expecting someone else to clean up. We are just expecting someone else to do something with the Ocean pollution problem or the toxic chemicals in our ground and air, and maybe we're not fully aware of how bad it is because it's not as interesting as" Dancing With The Stars" or "CSI". Then what if you do care and are aware, but the problem seems so overwhelming that, what can one person do??

One person can do a little or a lot, that's not the issue though. One person just has to do something. What I mean is that we all do a little bit in the wrong direction, if we all do at least a little bit in the right direction, it will make a difference. You might not single handedly clean the Gulf Oil Spill by yourself, but you can write a letter to BP or your congressmen. If you're worried about the growth of cancers from pesticide run off in our water supply, write a letter and try to stop buying from those companies. If you're sad to see the Oceans filled with garbage, don't throw trash down; try your hardest to recycle as much as you can. Send $5 dollars to an environmental non-profit. Or maybe volunteer, most of all tell your kids about the problem. Spirituality is not really some deep mystical thing. It's quite simple caring about people and caring about the world. So get spiritual and clean up!

http://www.cleanoceanaction.org/