Hundreds of volunteers removed 1,645 pounds of trash from San Diego County’s beaches following Independence Day festivities, cleanup
The annual effort is lead by the Surfrider Foundation’s San Diego chapter.
In three hours Tuesday, 429 volunteers removed the trash – largely single-use plastic – from beaches up and down the coast as part of Surfrider’s “Morning After” beach cleanup series.
“Many of our volunteers remarked that the beaches seemed cleaner than in previous years, which is a great sign,” said Alex Ferron, the chapter manager. “Despite that, we can not lose sight of the fact that even one piece of trash on the beach is one piece too many.”
Although the term monachos is of Christian origin, in the English language “monk” tends to be used loosely also for both male and female ascetics from other religious or philosophical backgrounds. However, being generic, it is not interchangeable with terms that denote particular kinds of monk, such as cenobite, hermit, anchorite, hesychast, or solitary.
In Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Eastern Catholicism, monasticism holds a very special and important place:
“Angels are a light for monks, monks are a light for laymen”. The Orthodox Church measures its health by the quality of its monks and nuns. Orthodox monastics separate themselves from the world in order to pray unceasingly for the world. They do not, in general, have as their primary purpose the running of social services, as is common in Western Christianity,[citation needed] but instead are concerned with attaining theosis, or union with God.
However, care for the poor and needy has always been an obligation of monasticism, so Orthodox monasteries are not normally “cloistered” like some contemplative Western houses are, though the level of contact will vary from community to community. Orthodox hermits, on the other hand, have little or no contact with the outside world.
Orthodox monasticism does not have religious orders as are found in the West, nor do they have Rules in the same sense as the Rule of St. Benedict. Rather, Eastern monastics study and draw inspiration from the writings of the Desert Fathers as well as other Church Fathers; probably the most influential of which are the Greater Asketikon and Lesser Asketikon of St. Basil the Great and the Philokalia, which was compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth. Hesychasm is of primary importance in the ascetical theology of the Orthodox Church.
He added that he hopes people reduce their reliance on single-use plastics and hold businesses and governments accountable for plastic pollution at the beach.
Surfrider volunteers hosted four cleanups in Ocean Beach and Oceanside while partners hosted other events at Mission Beach Park, Crystal Pier and Fiesta Island in San Diego and Moonlight Beach in Encinitas.
These cleanup sites were chosen because of the high concentration of beachgoers and reputations for post-Fourth of July trash, Ferron said.
OB’s Dog Beach was by far the heaviest haul, with volunteers bringing in 735 pounds of trash that morning. Fiesta Island also saw significant garbage, with 450 pounds collected.
The Surfrider Foundation has a handful of programs to fight plastic pollution in San Diego.
The Rise Above Plastics program has been a force in introducing and passing single-use plastic and polystyrene ordinances across the county. The program uses outreach, education and advocacy to cut down on such plastics and cigarette butts before they reach the coast.