"The Web of Life"
- At the Desert Retreat House -
Last week after Hurricane Harvey hit the coast of Texas, scientists
and government officials could hardly come up with the words to describe the catastrophic
devastation the hurricane caused, many calling it “the worst one ever.” Now “Irma,”
another catastrophic mega-hurricane, is brewing in the ocean, threatening to hit
the coast of Florida, “the worst one ever” recorded in the Atlantic.
I just came across an article written by a group of environmental
scientists suggesting that it’s ludicrous to think that this string of
super-hurricanes has not been affected by "climate change influenced by human intervention that has contributed to higher than ever
sea-surface temperatures,” fueling super-hurricanes like “Harvey” and now “Irma.”
I am reminded of something American Buddhist author and
ecologist, Susan Murphy, once said:
The earth sustains our life with
its magical weave of infinite relationship,
mutual dependency between all
life forms and the elements that sustain them,
water, air, soil, minerals,
sunlight.
Some call this peerless magic
‘ecology,’ or ‘nature.’
I think of it as the grace that
animates creation
Failing to trust and protect this
perpetually self-renewing gift,
attempting instead to exploit it
as bounty earmarked for our exclusive use,
we are tearing apart the web of
life.
“Worst-ever” hurricanes in the Atlantic and "higher than ever" summer heat in places like California didn’t happen by accident but have
been driven by uncontrolled human greed. In order to make a “ton of money” human
beings have poisoned the air and polluted the oceans and now we are all
suffering from it. The earth has been ravaged and depleted because we have
“earmarked the gift of nature for our exclusive use and exploited it as our bounty.”
As I see it, the problem here is essentially a spiritual
problem. Driven by our own “ego-driven” need for gratification, contemporary society
has failed to realize our place in the natural world. We have lost sight of the
fact that nature doesn’t belong to us; rather, we belong to nature. We “are”
the one web of life, everything and everyone is dynamically interdependent, and
so if the web is torn apart, we are are all torn apart and life cannot be
sustained.
Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, puts it this
way:
When you look around you
what you see is not your
environment, it is you.
You are the earth, and when you see this,
you will be moved to treat the
earth the same way
as you would treat yourself.
The future of the planet depends
on it.
Before that “worst-ever” hurricane hit Texas, my guess is
that a whole bunch of people living there may have thought that environmental and
ecological concerns were nothing more than items on a liberal political agenda.
My hope is that now, having felt the catastrophic effects of that mega-hurricane,
some may have changed their mind. Now more than ever, each and every one of us
is being called to raise our consciousness about how we care for “Mother Earth.”
The future of the planet, the future of humankind, depends on it.
Pope Francis once said:
If we destroy creation,
creation will destroy us.
I say “Amen” to that!
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