What kind of animal are we?

as i look through old files in a feeble attempt to get myself organized, i find old writings and thoughts of mine....i cannot remember when or where or why I wrote this....does not matter.....but i still resonate with the assessment of our creator as a risk-taker......my older self wearies with a weight of despair that can only be counter-balanced with an irrational hope....may we homo sapiens be worth the gamble.

would love to know your thoughts.....

When God made humankind, it was a crapshoot. This creature was given the aptitude to love and care for this planet called a garden and live in balanced relationship with it. When the human does this they find themselves to be truly home. They live within a natural cycle that brings peace to them and all they touch. It is a beautiful image that their face reflects and their world is made more beautiful by their participation in it.

There are two other aspects or faces of humanity though which have predominated much of our existence. One is a face that looks upon the garden with the eyes of a thief, always piling up resources or hoarding which we know is not beautiful. In fact hoarding is considered a form of mental illness. This thief is not a Robin Hood seeking a more even distribution of resources from the haves to the have nots. Instead it is a deranged animal addicted to the mere accumulation of more stuff than is needed for any one individual. There is a type of obesity that results with no concern for the starvation that it may create in the lives of their fellow creatures. Some might even die from the actions of the thief but that is not his concern.

There is yet a third face and it is multi-faceted. This is the disinterested face of apathy with a touch of ignorance. Its expressions are fluid and can change at the drop of a hat depending on their surrounding environment. It stands between the faces of Thief and Beauty and can be persuaded by either. In its own way this is the most powerful of the three. To which of the others will it yield; destruction of life versus abundance of life? This choice confronts us more than we realize. The risks are great and the stakes are increasingly high. Will we (all the created order) blow it all or win big? By an unusual design it seems that God is banking on our making the right choices in this endeavor.

With this responsibility it would seem that our ongoing challenge is to save ourselves from ourselves and dissolve the myth that there is not enough to go around. We must create a new narrative. Ideological sacred cows such as free enterprise and patriotism need to be re-defined. Patriotism is the love of all countries and the desire to work for their good. Free enterprise is not inherently bad unless it is allowed to be. Our country is learning that the hard way in an economic crisis that is the direct result of unbridled greed and exploitation. A term I was introduced to recently over dinner by a friend who had this on his heart was “ethical capitalism.” Call this person a dreamer but out of such dreams come new possibilities and paradigms. This is what is needed and it will emerge from the grassroots level where all revolutionary ideas always come from.

We live in a time of crisis. From the Gulf Oil Spill to the Global Financial Crisis we are alarmed by wake-up calls. Continuing to operate within the same paradigms that fed these problems will only aggravate the situation. As mentioned already, we humans are complicated creatures yet we have very simple needs. The word “enough” needs to not only be in our vocabulary but become our motivator. As we wake up, which face will we see in the mirror? Beauty; Thief; Apathy? And, if apathy, by which narrative will we be influenced and yield?  

The challenge is greater than any one individual or small group can tackle. It seems overwhelming and our Apathy hides her face in the sand. But in our toolbox we have the gift of thoughtfulness which allows us to dream and inspire and live into our role as co-creators with God. It is time for us to change the world. The garden is still available to us. Scripture gives us no indication that it was destroyed. Perhaps we can find our way back to it and we will be home.