Fresh Water-Healthy Lives Mary McKinney Schmidt Writer and Great Lakes Advocate |
| Home Home is worth fighting for. It is worth protecting |
The goal of this website is to encourage people to get engaged in prioritizing the clean up and protection of Great Lakes waters. For ideas on how best to get involved, see Deck Night. Look for monthly updates the first week of each month. The last update was November 7, 2008. See "Painting All the Colors of the Rainbow" under Deck Night. Also see "Faith" and "Tell Me the Weight of a Snowflake" on this Home Page. |
| Copyright 2008 Mary McKinney Schmidt For reprints of stories or prints, contact mary@freshwaterhealthylives.org |
click on underlined phrases (some are blue, some black, some purple) or select one of the six tabs across the top of each page. If you have suggestions or comments, please contact mary@freshwaterhealthylives.org Copyright 2008 Mary McKinney Schmidt |
Faith Like many in the baby boom generation, I pushed political involvement to the background as I worked my way up the corporate ladder. Consumed by a demanding job with an exhausting travel schedule, I had enough difficulties balancing my role as a wife, daughter, sister, friend and corporate executive without adding the pressures of community involvement. But a little voice deep within my soul began to emerge as the years slid by and the job titles became more impressive, compensation more lucrative. “This is not your life’s work,” the voice whispered, haunting my dreams and invading the quiet, reflective time of early morning jogs. As a child, I remember sitting at the dinner table surrounded by my five siblings. My father, a university professor, owned the head of the table. “You have a responsibility on this earth to make a difference,” he instructed us. At fifty-two years old, I heard his words again as I reflected on my 24 year career with Baxter Healthcare. I was reporting directly to the corporation’ s Chairman and CEO, responsible for relationships with the leading healthcare executives in the country. The thought of leaving the familiar, comfortable and financially secure surroundings of corporate life was terrifying. “What is it I am meant to do?” I asked the universe. But there were far too many distractions in such a fast-paced, high- pressure job to hear any answer. Writing the word “faith” on a tile I placed on the corner of my desk, I left the roster of Baxter employees in December of 2004. Void of titles and business cards, I struggled to maintain a sense of self- worth. And after a career jammed with back-to-back meetings, phone calls and flight schedules, the silence of the blank calendar pages was deafening. Inwardly I cringed every time someone asked me what I was “doing” now and suggested I was “far too young to retire.” The only certainty in my quest for purpose was the overwhelming need to live near the eastern shores of Lake Michigan. “People don’t move north for the second half of their lives,” I was told repeatedly by friends and neighbors in Nashville, TN, our home for almost 13 years. But when I closed my eyes to envision my future, I could see the clear blue waters of Lake Michigan stretching for miles. I could hear the waves pounding the surf; feel my feet dig into the soft, white sand that stretched from water’s edge to the dunes towering overhead; smell the freshness of the pines, hemlocks, maples and oaks that pepper the forests of the backdunes. My husband and I moved to western Michigan in the spring of 2005. Out of idle curiosity, I attended a public hearing that summer discussing the health of the Great Lakes. A team of scientists, engineers, business leaders, tribes and government agencies were reporting the results of a study commissioned by President George W. Bush to assess one of the country’s “national treasures.” I sat, numb with horror, as I heard the coalition describe the deteriorating state of Lake Michigan and the other four Great Lakes. The ecosystem of the Great Lakes is at a tipping point, they reported. The influx of aquatic invasive species, the frequency of sewage overflows, toxic pollutants (such as mercury, PCBS and pesticides) found in nearby soils and the loss of wetlands and other coastal habitat have placed the ecosystem in grave danger. The damage could be irreversible if steps are not taken immediately, the report concluded. I was heartbroken. “Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark,” a remarkable woman named Alene Moris shared with me months later. My lesson in faith had begun.he light of dawn touched my cloudy future. My lesson in faith had begun. |
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