CREATION NEVER STOPPED

I did an earlier opinion entry about the state of public, media reported Christianity in America. I hold to that opinion but what the media reports isn't the whole story. I love the essays of Wendell Berry but the farmer who writes essays on the land and how we misuse it also writes poetry about the land and our relation to the land and to creation. One of his favorite subjects is the Sabbath. This is an excerpt from his collection This Day. A collection that spans years from the late seventies to the new millennium.

"But I am a bad weather churchgoer. When the weather is good, sometimes when it is only tolerable, I am drawn to the woods on the local hillsides or along the streams. The woodlands here are not 'the forest primeval' or 'wilderness areas.' Nearly all are reforested old tobacco patches abandoned a lifetime or more ago, where you can still see the marks of cropland erosion now mostly healed or healing, 

In such places, on the best of these sabbath days, I experience a lovely freedom from expectations; other people's and also my own. I go free from the tasks and intentions of my workdays, so my mind becomes hospitable to unintended thoughts, to what I am very willing to call inspiration. The poems come incidentally or they do not come at all. If the Muse leaves me alone, I leave her alone. To be quiet, even wordless, in a good place is a better gift than poetry.

On these days and other days also, the idea of the sabbath has been on my mind. It is as rich and demanding an idea as any I know. The sabbath is the day, and the successive days honoring the day, when God rested after finishing the work of creation. This work was not finished, I think, in the sense of once and for all. It was finished by being given the power to exist and to continue, even to repair itself as it is now doing on the reforested hillsides of my home country.

We are to rest on the sabbath also, I have supposed,, in order to understand that the providence or the productivity of the living world, the most essential work, continues while we rest. This work is entirely independent of our work, and is far more complex and wonderful that any work we have ever done or will ever do. It is more complex and wonderful than we will ever understand. 

From the biblical point of view, the earth and our earthly livelihood are conditional gifts. We may possess the land given to us, that we are given to, only by remembering our intimate kinship with it. The condition of the people is indistinguishable ultimately from the condition of the land. Work that destroys the land, diminishing its ability to support life, is a great evil for which sooner or later the punishment is homelessness, hunger, and thirst. For some, the context of this thinking has switched from religion to science, but the understanding of the land as a conditional gift has not changed."

More later.

THE NO HEART INSTITUTE

More propaganda from the libertarian think tank, the Heartland Institute, on climate change. The Institute plans to send their little propaganda piece to all the science teachers in the country. Personally I would be tempted to take it down to office and find the paper cutter. Or the paper shredder in they have one. Once reduced to tiny pieces of paper I'd mail it back to them.

Most reputable scientists who actually deal with climate and its effects on the world agree that climate change is largely driven by human actions and industry. The group also claims that a warming climate would actually be beneficial. Tell that to the Pacific islanders who are losing their land. Tell that to populations in countries like Bangladesh that will face permanent flooding as the seas rise. Tell that to cities in low lying or sea level areas like Manhattan and Miami. What will happen to countries like the Netherlands? What will happen in areas along the equator, Iran, the rest of the Middle East, India or the Pacific Islands bordering Asia as the temperatures rise to lethal levels? Yes it will be warmer in northern Canada and Siberia and Alaska. But, as temperatures rise the permafrost melts with the potential of releasing methane that has been trapped for thousands of years and methane is a much more powerful green house gas than carbon dioxide.

Science fiction and fantasy writers were using climate change as a plot device back in the sixties and seventies. The subject was used in TV shows and movies back in the seventies and eighties. Thats more than a generation ago.

The old adage still holds true. Follow the money who benefits now from a problem that will only get worse? Those who benefit now probably know change is coming and hope their money will protect them when the whole sorry house of cards comes crashing down around our ears. I have a great niece who is all of two days old. I tremble at the thought of the worst that her future may hold.

Incidentally the institute no longer publishes a list of donors. What they call harassment I call the right of customers to tell a company "I buy your product. I don't like how you spending the money I gave you so I won't buy your product anymore." And if an individual or corporation supports what the institute supports they shouldn't mind the rest of us knowing about it. 

Check out the Wickipedia entry for them. Check out some of the other causes they support and the lies that have been told. Bit of an eyeopener.

RESPECT

I don't make a secret of the fact that I respect blogger Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station. This is a long entry and I may have linked to it before. But, seriously the last two paragraphs don't make sense unless you read the rest of the entry.

The current occupant was "elected" to the office of president of the United States. He appears to believe that being elected to the office entitles him to the respect "earned" by actually filling the office and fulfilling the duties that come with that office.

So far all we've seen are twitter storms, tantrums and the occasional  wandering, disjointed speech. Speeches peppered with claims of how smart he is ect. ect. ect. Now he wants a military parade. Because. Somebody else had one? He saw one on a History Channel documentary about Nazi Germany or the USSR? Or, God/dess help us something on North Korea?

I am prepared to respect the office. I do not, have not, and probably will never respect the individual currently occupying that office.

WHERE WERE THE KANGAROOS

There is a christian "theme park" called Ark Encounter. Pushed by young creationist Ken Ham who does have an environmental biology degree but not one in Geology, the park claims to have created a replica of Noah's ark. Now that I think about it he doesn't have a degree in theology either.

Anyway the park is in Kentucky and Ham managed to wangle tax exemptions promising that the park would provide jobs and increased tax revenue in a state that desperately needs the jobs and the revenue. Note: as far as I can tell neither the jobs or the revenue have come through.

When the park was opened there was a fair amount of side holding. Said side holding brought on by the displays of baby dinos that were supposedly some of the ark's passengers. Because you see babies take up much less space than their parents. No explanation of how they kept the baby meat eaters from eating the baby plant eaters however. Actually how did they keep the lions and leopards from eating the antelopes? The recent film Noah solves part of the problem by using some sort of herbal combo that when burned puts all the animals to sleep for voyage. No dinos on board though.

Anyway I was listening to the score from the film on YouTube (really strange music BTW. It works in the film but not by itself.) It hit me. The heck with the dinos. Where were the kangaroos? And all the other Australian marsupials? I mean it's a long way from the Middle East to Australia. And last I heard there are no kangaroos in Iraq or Iran or Turkey or....lol. And it's a long way from Mount Ararat to Australia and there's a lot of water to get across. Inquiring minds would like to know the answer to that question. I won't be holding my breath though.