Now
the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he
put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow
out to the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for
food….The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden
to work it and take care of it.” (From Genesis 2 NIV).
For
a vacation, would you rather go to the mountains or the seashore?
Why? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition,
page 1161).
BEER
CANS ON THE REEF
The
sea was rough, the day was hot,
And
no fish were aboard
And
so the crowd began to drink,
As
men do when they’re bored.
So
each one popped his can of beer.
Then
each another round,
And
overboard the cans they threw
Which
floated all around.
And
by and by each can filled up
And
sank down to the reef
And
rested on the coral there
ln
that bright world beneath.
lt
takes nature ten thousand years
To
build a coral strand,
To
shape in infinite detail
The
boulders, fish and fans.
And
beauty such as God can make
ls
there for all to see,
With
balance perfect in all things
As
life was meant to be.
So
often have l seen in life
The
best that one could do
Besmirched
by careless words or acts
By
those who never knew.
Like
beer cans settled on a reef,
The
digs, slurs and complaints
Reveal
how shallow is the mind
Of
those whose souls are faint.
Who
always cuts his fellow down
And
grinds him underneath
ls
like the fisherman who throws
His
beer cans on the reef.
From
Time and The Kite by Andrew H. Hines, Jr.
In
virtually every case the ultimate source of pollution arises from a
sense of arrogant entitlement on the part of human beings. There is
no reverence or sense of being blessed beyond deserving—rather we
hold arbitrarily that we are entitled to the world and it is our
assumed right to abuse it in any way we damn well please for selfish
ends. As Andy concludes in his poem above, this presumption doesn’t
end at the perimeter of the natural environment, but pollutes human
affairs also. Not only do we look at the world as open to the whims
of our manipulative self-interest, we lose respect for others and
besmirch them as readily as we do lakes and streams with the
excrement of arrogant entitlement.
Mother
Courage- Meryl Streep
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