If Mother Nature took the pulpit, what would she preach?
I give you so much. Your air, your water, your land, your food, your joy, and even your livelihoods. Freely. Lovingly. Passionately. Unconditionally.
Within my mountains are all the minerals and stones and materials with which you build, create, forge, innovate, sustain, thrive, fuel, and live.
From the exhale of my trees, grasses, shrubs, and growth flows the currency of your existence—air. I breathe out, and you breathe in. Together we breathe. This bond called respiration is ours, it's sacred. It's intimate.
Upon my hills, waterways, forests, and fields roam my animals, with whom you find both endearing companionship and essential survival. You tame them, hunt them, raise them, eat them. They come from me and become part of you. This sacrifice means the world. To me, to you, and even to my dear animals.
There are moments when I think we are singing the same song of appreciation. Between me to you and you to me. A dance of honoring our connection. I would dare say interdependence, but you know, as I do, that my love for you is by choice, not necessity. I think we are connected, that you see me, honor me, respect me just as you often do to the mortal mothers who nurse and shelter you.
But then, late at night, when you drive your metal machine made of steel and oil, drunken on the barley we sowed hand in hand, you grasp a metal shard of something you consider trash—a thing with no use, no home, no meaning, and you toss it out the window onto my bare naked skin.
I think we are connected. And then you show me that we are not. The bruise goes deeper than you imagine, not because of the emotional, social, or intellectual laziness that would invite such disrespect, but because I love you.
My love for you is endless. No amount of trash thrown on my back, in my face, or on my fresh blanket of snow will bury my love for you.
Any yet, your actions hurt. And you are the first of my creations with enough power to create so much hurt that even my love may not be enough.
My love is endless, but my ability to offer it is not.
I see you. Do you see me?
Kommentare