Simple Living -- when people you know make a difference

I know where I'll be at 6:00 this evening -- watching NC Public Television and a new evening show they're airing, called "Simple Living." The co-creators of this program are Wanda Urbanska and her husband, Frank Levering, of Levering Orchard near Ararat, Virginia.

I knew Frank's parents, a lovely, deep, wise couple named Sam and Miriam Levering, back in the days when I was a Quaker. Sam and Miriam were architects of the Law of the Seas Treaty and my first intelligent introduction to political activism.

Now, I am, and always have been an unapologetic one-issue voter, and that one issue is the right to life, opposing abortion and euthenasia in all its forms and guises. Some of my friends think my approach is terribly narrow and naive, but it seems to me that the other issues -- the socioeconomic issues -- really are the other side of the same coin, and that when we can acknowledge that human life is more valuable than any bird or beast on the Endangered Species list, and only when that occurs, then we will as a matter of natural consequence become more sensitive to the necessity of work with dignity and decent wages and of the protection of the environmental resources upon which we are all so desparately dependent. But for many years, the other issues didn't register much interest with me at all. It was through my acquaintance with Sam and Miriam that I saw that all these issues are part of a fabric of responsible, reverent living.

So, now Wanda has her own television show, and I'm enjoying perusing her website, and I recommend both to you, as well.