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Today's
Meditation:
Wouldn't
it be nice if everyone were able to put back what they
took out? If everyone only put back what they took
out, and didn't add all their litter and refuse? I
remember a nice passage in Willa Cather's Death Came for
the Archbishop in which two characters discuss the Native
Americans' ability to live in a place for a while and then
move on, leaving no trace that they had spent time
there. They had true respect for the planet and
their surroundings, and they knew how important it was to
leave things as they should be for the next people who
came along, and for nature itself.
For
our part, we've inherited a planet on which very few areas
have been left in their "pure" state. We
have to deal with a huge number of problems that have been
brought on by over- development, overuse, manipulation, and
abuse. People before us took what they could from
the land and they put very little back. It's a
legacy that we've inherited through no fault of our own,
and to our credit, we've come a long way towards righting
some of the wrongs of the past.
That
doesn't mean, though, that we don't still have
responsibilities to this planet. What have we given
back? Are we going to leave with little fuss, or
will we leave behind a mountain of trash that someone else
will have to deal with? We have a beautiful planet
here, and one of the ways that we can help our children
and grandchildren to live life fully is to leave them a
planet that's still beautiful, that's still healthy,
that's still functional. And that's up to every
single one of us, not just those few who are working
in conservation.
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