BLOG 6/3/17. THE ENVIRONMENT IS A MATTER OF CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP
I am really not able to remain silent of the environment, what with all of the political controversy over global warming and climate change, or this administrations choice to abandon international accords to seek to deal with such issues. Maybe it’s because I grew up singing St. Francis’ lovely hymn: All Creatures of our God and King, and was early enamored with his “Brother sun, sister moon” sense that all of God’s creation lived in a mystical relationship.
Dear mother earth,
who day by day unfolded blessings on our way,
Oh, praise Him! Alelluia!
The flowers and fruits that in thee grow,
Let them His glory also show!
Oh, praise him!
Maybe it’s because I grew up on the edge of the Everglades, did my Boy Scout nature study in its marshes, and how those giant corporations saw its huge economic potential in agriculture and so raped that delicate natural infrastructure ,and nearly destroyed that remarkable treasure. And I watched the huge and expensive political battle to restore the ‘glades to their original nature and save such unique beauty – opposed by those who accused its defenders as ‘tree-huggers’.
Or maybe it’s because I took so many soul-restoring prayer walks in the Pisgah National Forest, observing the beauty of those mountain forests, … and recalling in the early 20th century that so much of the western North Carolina mountains were ‘clear-cut’ by the logging industry because it is one of the largest hardwood preserves in the world, … and what a political battle it took to make much of it into a national forest so that we have it today with its luxuriant second-growth forests as such a place of beauty.
Not to mention the founding of most of our national parks, the cost of which also became a huge political battle in the days of President Teddy Roosevelt, and others who followed in his footsteps.
And I come back to Francis of Assisi, as the political debate raging over industrial pollution seems to be protected by the financial interest of the polluters, or our desire for comfort no matter the environmental damage. Then I see wonderfully futuristic efforts at urban farming that speak to providing food in environmentally friendly ways. I read of huge break-throughs in providing clean water to the world, and I take hope. (I commend a book: Abundance, by Peter Diamatis and others.)
Yet, to me, this is all is a significant dimension of my Christian stewardship, not a matter of my political identification. I am heartened by the selfless efforts of organizations such as the Sierra Club, and neighborhood associations for organic gardening, and the creation of beauty. I am (I am certain) culpable in the violation of this stewardship in ways that I am not even aware of. But when my neighborhood association begins to consider our association’s guidelines on solar panels on our rooftops it gives me hope.
I needed to say this to my readers. I am, with St. Francis, a lover of God’s creation, and want to be a faithful agent of good stewardship of such and to encourage all whom I know, and those I don’t know, to join me in that quest, whether out of religious conviction, or out of sheer quest for a better tomorrow, what with the potential of artificial intelligence, and the incomparable capacities of the scientific community.
“This is my Father’s world …” and I cannot be indifferent to those who profane and pollute it!
