There was no talk of climate change back then, no melting glaciers and island nations threatened by rising waters. The pervasive use of plastic wasn't creating massive rafts of junk in the oceans and wide-spread drought wasn't pushing up world food prices. But lots of us believed in a better world and some of us were passionate about it all because we were Christians.
I'm curious to know what you think about what has happened through the decades, especially because we are in the midst of Creation Time. We are better informed, but are we so overwhelmed by our information that we figure we don't have a prayer? Or are we still fighting the good fight for our sake, for future generations, and for God's sake?
One thing that really bothers me is the "me first" attitude so many seem to have. The environment comes a distant second after their own comfort, as evidenced by the many cars I walk by enroute to work - especially in the winter - that are sitting in driveways idling needlessly. It have to resist the temptation to reach in and switch them off!
ReplyDeleteWhether or not this attitude has become more pervasive over the years, I don't know. What I do know is that the environmental problems are much more talked about now, and yet so many people still seem not to care.
It is refreshing to speak with others, especially at St. Paul's, who feel the same way. It reminds me that there are others who do "walk the walk".
I am one of those people whose fears and anxieties can sometimes get so big that I can't think about anything else. I went through a period a few years ago where I let my worries about the environment affect me to the point that I was convinced we had to sell our house immediately because we lived near a large river and I believed the rapid melting from the mountains was going to flood us out. Fantastical movies about the end of the world and meteors obliterating all civilization only add to these worries. These thoughts kept me up at night. I am an educated woman so I should know better than to over-react, but sometimes I think that the more I know makes me a more anxious person. It helps for me to do something about it because then I don't feel so helpless about the situation, but at the same time, I wonder if I am not alone in my anxiety because of being too much in the know. I wonder if it's down to coming from the generation where we were greedily oblivious in the beginning of our life, and now we're in panic mode. I rejoice in the fact that my children are being educated in school to respect their environment and it is not something we have to convince them of, they just know it is so. This gives me hope that we will do better with the generations that follow us.
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