I think that most of us have them. It was one of those times when a confluence of events got me wondering if God might be trying to get my attention about something.

I was standing in the checkout line at Stop and Shop with a few odds and ends, and struck up a conversation with the young man at the cash register. Like a rookie version of an Old Testament prophet, he was worked up about something, and not too many seconds passed before he let me in on what was agitating him. “Do you know how much of the world’s oxygen is produced by the Amazon forest?” he asked. “I think that all the Amazon Rain Forests generate about 25% of the world’s oxygen,” I replied. And I continued, “Do I win the prize?” He went on, without missing a beat, “Well, the Amazon forest in Brazil makes about 20% of the world’s oxygen.” “That sounds about right,” I retorted. He went on even more agitatedly, “Do you know how long it will be until the Brazilian rain forests are gone?” I replied, less confidently, “Well let’s see, they say that most of the fish in the seas will be gone in about 40 years. So I’ll say 40 years.” He burst out, “No. It’ll be by 2020.” I retorted, “I knew my children and grandchildren would be facing those horrors, but I thought I’d die before those catastrophes began.” We agreed that it’s a terrible prospect.

That conversation took place amidst my efforts to help my daughter study for her most recent social studies test. It was on the natives who lived on this continent for the better part of 30,000 years before the Europeans invaded. I say invaded because 95% of the natives of this continent were killed by American settlers and the military or by the diseases they brought with them. Rachel and I were discussing the religious philosophies of the various tribes. Their basic worldview, with various adaptations from tribe to tribe, was this: Everything belongs to God (the Creator), and that includes people. Everything is interconnected, and so if one creature destroys part of the world, in domino effect, everything else will be negatively affected. Therefore it’s a delusion to think that people can own land or water, trees or animals, because they depend upon each other and already belong to someone else – God. European settlers, by and large, thought that view was primitive and inferior, and so they rejected it and tended to label other settlers who adopted that point of view as “gone native” or as witches to be burned.

Then I was sitting in my porcelain meditation room, reading the latest issue of the National Geographic. Yep. The cashier was right. The lead article was about the Brazilian Rain Forests and that they’re being sold off or stolen like hotcakes for valuable wood and to grow crops or graze cattle. Apparently, according to the story, anyone trying to stand in the way – indigenous tribesmen, nuns, environmentalists can easily get shot for their trouble. Aggressive entrepreneurs have often had a penchant for hiring mercenaries to rid themselves of those who threaten to stifle the greed that they felt entitled to satisfy. But if you don’t respect land, water, plant and animal life, why should you respect human life?

Now, in truth, none of this is new to me, except perhaps for the immediacy of the situation. I’ve known all this for the better part of 35 years, and preached, taught and written about it for the better part of 25 years. But I have been persuaded that it has become URGENT. You and I, if you’re over 50, may escape the environmental consequences looming on the horizon. But I’m profoundly sorry to say that our children probably will not and our grandchildren most certainly will not.

Alas, we’ve known all this for a generation or two, and haven’t wanted to do much about it. That’s because we’ve been playing a game of chicken with the cumulative effects of industrialization on the environment – that we’d be able to squeeze by without changing our lifestyles on the off chance that the consequences won’t hit us. And so we’ve employed two rudimentary defense mechanisms – denial and escapism. We try to escape with the hope that either we can gain enough wealth to insulate ourselves from the natural consequences or God will rescue us through direct protection or ultimate salvation. And then we elect leaders who reinforce our denials and escape mechanisms – claiming that other issues are more important rather like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic of state. Shortsightedness may be politics as usual, but I don’t think that we have time for that anymore. I believe that the more threatening terrorists even than radical Islamists are unfettered environmental profiteers.

I know that this is unpleasant to read and it’s even more unpleasant to write, but one must speak the truth as one sees it, so that people can choose to change their ways. It’s not that God, our Creator, doesn’t care about us. God loves us and everything else He’s made. God reveals Himself through nature as well as sacred Scripture. Jesus said, “How can you say that you love God, whom you don’t see, if you don’t love your neighbor, whom you do see?” I absolutely believe that our neighbors include all creation plants, animals, earth, water and air. The natives whom my daughter has been studying were right about this. The one who made us owns us and everything else, too. Everything is interconnected and interdependent. When one part of nature is destroyed the dominos fall. While it is always possible that our Lord, Jesus Christ, may return to rescue us in the nick of time, something else is more likely. Throughout history God has always permitted the natural consequences of human behavior to have their way with people. God has always sent messengers to warn. False prophets and leaders have always colluded with people’s resistance to the warnings. And God has always let the chips fall. That’s when people have changed – when they bottomed out. Then, when they turned to God, He helped them to live differently. I hope that the current generation of humanity decides to act earlier. God can restore destroyed Amazon rain forests in a hundred years or so. God can freeze melted poles again in a few hundred years or so. God can replenish the seas with life again in a few generations. But, first, we humans must change – to seek God’s help to be better stewards of this wonderful world, of which we’re only part. In the meantime, it’s not too late to make our leaders accountable for dealing with these urgent matters in collaboration with the global community and to simplify our own lives. After all, it’s New Year’s – a time for new resolutions. May God’s Spirit help us to make the resolutions we must and to live by them.

Affectionately in Christ

Phil +