I Believe in Soil Stewardship by Verlon K. "Tony" Vrana

This I Believe: We have a scriptural as well as an ethical and moral obligation to care for our environment.

During my early days with the Soil Conservation Service, we worked with farmers, civic groups, in country schools, and elsewhere promoting the virtues of soil conservation. Some of our literature used, or paraphrased, Genesis and the Psalms, to stress that, The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof and that while God gave man, dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moved upon the face of the earth , it was man's responsibility as Steward's of God s creation of natural resources to pass them on to future generations without their usefulness being diminished.

This year, 2008, marks the 53rd year that the National Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts have promoted the celebration of Soil Stewardship week, which begins the 5th Sunday after Easter. The concept for a soil stewardship observance has its origin in an early Church practice held 3 days preceding Ascension Day. It was referred to as Rogation Day, a special time of prayer for the harvest.

Referring to Soil Stewardship is using the Aldo Leopold interpretation that the word soil is a metaphor for all of our natural resources. So the question is, What do we need to be sensitive to today, when it comes to caring for God's creation.

I Believe, we might focus on 3 entities: government, the organizations to which we belong, and ourselves as individuals.

I Believe, we should advocate for governmental policies and procedures at the Federal, State, and local levels that encourage the stewardship of our natural resources.

I Believe, we should encourage the stewardship of our natural resources in any organization of which we are a part. A good example is article 160. I. of the 2005-2008 Social Principles of the United Methodist Church, which states in part: All creation is the Lord's, and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life, and space are to be valued and conserved because they are God's creation and not solely because they are useful to human beings. God has granted us stewardship of creation. We should meet these stewardship duties through acts of loving care and respect.

I Believe, as individuals we should be aware of the carbon footprint , the energy consumption, and the resource depletion resulting from any and all of our property and our purchases. Then we should provide proper care and maintenance in the utilization of any property for which we are responsible, and finally, we should, to the extent possible, recycle that which is no longer of use to us, that it might be utilized by someone else or reconstituted into a usable product.

And as an afterthought, I Believe, we should plant a tree, not necessarily for our personal benefit, but as an example of doing something, that others, and future generations, might enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Verlon K. Tony Vrana
April 29, 2008
I Believe