DEATH OR LIFE

And nearly three hundred years later Penn is echoed by another Quaker, Howard Brinton.

 "As I write this I am writing in a house which will soon be destroyed by a thru-way enabling automobiles and trucks to save a few minutes in going from one place to another. I hope they will make good use of the time they will save. Because in building this road a great deal of life will be destroyed. The living fields and woods will be shrouded in a dead shroud of concrete, destroying all life under it and much that is near it. This is only one example of how death is replacing life in the western world. When this cold, dead shroud of concrete is extended further, life will decrease and death will increase, and when it goes far enough life will cease. We are living in a world where death is gradually supplanting life. And the final end of this process is predictable."

This was taken from a series of pamphlets he wrote explaining Quaker beliefs. Beliefs that are dead opposite to the "machine" definition that has taken over how we view the world. And the opposite of life isn't death. After all, a seed has to die for the new plant to be born. In his view the opposite of life is the machine. And his view goes a long way to explain the God/dess awful mess we find ourselves in.