Greenblade

What if we were look to the Bible for answers but hear with new ears?

We are in trouble now. The road we are on, the one where we are using up the resources of the earth at an unsustainable rate, is a dead end. As things are going we cannot assure the next generation, let alone the seventh, that they may even be able to live on the earth we leave to them, let alone thrive. Read more of this post

Two days ago the season made a little turn. There are signs – a change in the light, in the sounds of insects, in the way the plants bend under the rain. The squash plants are still putting energy into the leaves; soon it will all go into the fruit. The tomatoes are just beginning to turn. Most of the elderberries are still green and upright but a few, filling with juice and turning purple, have dropped downwards. The days are shorter, steamy and hot. This the leading edge of Lughnasa, Celtic autumn, meaning harvest. Read more of this post

I wrote this story for Giffen, who said she had never been to the desert, but this encounter has come to feel emblematic to me of my ongoing effort to learn to live on this earth with respect and awe. I was visiting in southwestern Colorado and we had driven into Utah.

It was hot but I didn’t care. It was also dry and this time I remembered to keep drinking water. I felt good, at ease, comfortable. My friend is an excellent guide, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the land. He kept orienting me, pointing out a mountain or other land formation from various angles, so I always knew where I was, or felt like I did. Read more of this post

When the hydrofracking issue began taking off in Upstate New York, opponents were accused of being NIMBY – Not In My Back Yard. At first I was indignant: we were far more high-minded than that. Hydrofracking is objectively and inherently dangerous, destructive, and disrespectful. Also it is ugly and loud and invasive and no, I did not want to see the beautiful Finger Lakes turned into a drilling field, but my objections were certainly on moral and ethical grounds.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I wondered: what is wrong with not wanting something like that in one’s back yard? I love the Finger Lakes. I love Upstate New York. What is wrong with wanting to protect this beautiful land? Read more of this post