THE CREATOR LOVES THE CREATION

          The Creator loves the creation: both the act and the product.  Why else would He create?  We are told that he has created “worlds without number”.  That is not something someone does out of duty.  Creating this world is quite enough to impress me.  When I have created something I am sometimes tired of the project, and sometimes aware of how it could have been better.  But it is still my creation and I love it in a certain way. 

          Gods love for His creation is mysterious to most of us.  So much of the creation appears to have no human purpose.  The beautifully colored beetle and the lilies of the field are loved by God yet serve no particular purpose to mankind.  Yet they are part of the pattern of which we are a part.  They are part of the whole that sustains us.  We share a common parentage in creation. 

          Humans have made some strides towards understanding the patterns of creation that binds the earth together, though it is doubtful that we will ever understand it completely.   We have found many ways to use parts of the creation in practical ways.   We may respect and preserve the creation.  But we cannot control it.  There is always the wedding of the mysterious and the practical, the Heavenly and the earthly.

          Humans are generally interested in the practical, the physical acts that we practice.  We often separate abstractions into a separate area.  Freedom may be a political, theological, or physical concept.  But it is not an abstraction, it must be lived.  Love of our fellow man, which the Bible sometimes calls charity, may be a theological or philosophical concept.  But it must be practiced.  And so it requires a certain skill. 

          One cannot be free if they cannot earn their own living.  One cannot love one’s neighbor if they cannot keep their trash out of their yard, their poison out of their water, or care for themselves so they are not a burden.  If one has not learned to play the piano, they are not free to play the piano for a Church service.  If one cannot produce something and have nothing to offer, you cannot help your community.

          The good man is not the man who committed no crime.  Doing good is not the same as doing nothing.  Doing good is the ability to do something well.  In order to do good you have to know how to do something.  Doing good is not just about the Heavenly, but also includes the practical.  It is learning and practicing these practical skills that we become Heavenly.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR THE LAND TO HEAL?

Several years ago I went to Lake Powell with some friends.  We climbed up through a place called the Hole in the Rock where some early settlers took their wagons as they traveled down to Bluff to settle the country down there.  It was an amazing feat to take the wagons down that canyon wall.  People still talk about it today. 

Later we went across the lake and followed their trail for a couple of miles on the other side.  This country was much friendlier, with rolling hills of grass, sage brush and junipers.  No other vehicle had traveled this trail for well over a hundred years, but the ruts of their wagon wheels were still visible in the sand.  

This image has stayed with me for a very long time.  As impressive as the human accomplishment of determination and ingenuity was, the record of their damage to the land may be even greater.  Not because it is such an eyesore.  But it is a lasting testimony to how long it takes for the land to recover from mans interference. 

When the first American settlers arrived in the plains of Nebraska and Kansas they found top soil that was more than a foot deep.  They were amazed at the fertility.  Now we routinely add chemical fertilizers.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  There are ways of farming that replenish the soil and maintain nature’s richness and variety.  But modern farming is often more like strip mining.  How many years would it take to replenish the great plains of the United States?

A trail of wagon ruts is no big deal.  A mountain side of four-wheeler and motorcycle tracks is probably not significant except in terms of aesthetics.  But they are symbols of how little humans know about the earth, and how little value they place on the land.  We understand very little about the responsibilities of dominion, the techniques of replenishment, or our position in nature.    

IDEALS AND NECESSITIES

I looked on the internet for images from 1913, the year my Father was born.  Should I have been shocked that it seemed like such another world?  Not only was it unlike today, it was totally unlike the year I was born, 1945.  I am not as impressed with the machinery, prices, or styles as I am that the entire way of life was obviously different. 

Most people still lived on their land.  Even so-called townsfolk had large lots, gardens, chickens or a milk cow.  If one wanted chicken, they had to raise their own, or buy from a neighbor.  There was electrical refrigeration so there was no way to keep meat, eggs, or milk fresh.  It all had to be pretty much local.  That means that most people participated in agricultural activities, or in other words work.  And since physical labor was needed, families had to work together.  The home wasn’t a place as much as a series of events that required cooperation and participation.  This was not some idyllic existence.  This was necessity. 

But then things changed, and what was necessity became less necessary.  Government policy encouraged large farms.  People moved to the cities.  Cars made it possible to work ever farther away from home.  Television made the idyllic seem trivial.  And public education took our children away from home.  Education is good, of course.  But does it really take as many hours of the day as it presently takes.  Or is it, perhaps, that school is more about watching the children while parents work (and play)? 

Now, we worry because the family doesn’t work together.  If we try to work together it must be before early morning when the bus for school leaves, or late afternoon after the school activities.   We pay for gym memberships because we don’t do enough physical labor.  And we’re never quite sure if our food is good for us or not.  The tendency is to think of the way it was then to be an “ideal”.

But as the idyllic has become less necessary, it has also become less possible.  In 1913, the benefits, and difficulties, couldn’t be avoided.  Now the ideal would have to be upheld mostly by will.  There is no necessity for such a way of life, and that makes it very difficult to create or continue. 

That does not mean it is less important.  It doesn’t mean it’s impossible.  It doesn’t mean one shouldn’t try.  It’s just that government and culture will not help you. 

WHAT ARE PEOPLE FOR?

I took my grand-daughter (age 11 at the time) to hear the Vienna Boys Choir perform. On the way home, she and a friend were talking and giggling in the back seat when my grand-daughter suddenly asked, "Papa, why did Heavenly Father make leeches?" I don't know where that question came from. My reply that He must have thought they were important, simply provoked a large, "Yuck!" from my grand-daughter. She obviously disagrees with Heavenly Father.
For several years I was involved in mosquito control activities. One of the most frequently asked question was, “What good are mosquitoes?” At first I took the question quite seriously because it provided me with the opportunity to showcase my otherwise useless biological knowledge and understanding of ecological matters. But it soon became apparent that people didn’t really care about the role mosquitoes might play in the natural ecosystem. For most people, the mere existence of mosquitoes is simply unfathomable.
But recently I had the random thought, “What are people for?” I think maybe people need to think about that a little.

EZEKIEL SAW A WHEEL . . . .

“Ezekiel saw the wheel, way up in the middle of the air.”
(Negro spiritual)

Actually, he saw two wheels, one inside the other (Ezekiel 1:16). When two wheels are set inside each other they are made to turn together, in the same direction, in harmony. And Ezekiel tells us that where the living creatures went, the wheels went. These wheels are united inside one another, turning in the same direction, with similar purpose. Working together favors life.

In contrast, William Blake wrote, in his poem “And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time” (second stanza only presented here):
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
What mill wheels did he reference? It is generally thought that he spoke of a wheel outside of a wheel, as found in an industrial mill of his day: the two wheels in opposition to each other. In this arrangement, one wheel turns the other by inter-meshing cogs. These two wheels are divided in space, direction of rotation and purpose. And this image he found “Satanic”.

The word “control” literally means to roll against. It is interesting that as a mechanical principle, opposing wheels are excellent forms of control. But as a metaphor for a culture, or a person, it suggests that sometime after Ezekiel, man began to see himself as turning, not with the forces of creation and God, but against it.

GDP AND FAILURE

Can a country survive when it is more profitable to be sick or broken than to be well or repaired? Soon the major portion of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will not be about production, but about health care. No one can make money out of keeping people healthy, so we are worth more to our country sick and well. Why? Because we will spend more. Of course, this is true only if the only our culture values only money. GDP does not measure many other variables such as top soil, stability, creativity, safety, friendliness, food quality, reliability of products, or freedom.

This is true of almost everything. For example, instead of talking about the life of one person, what if we examine the value of one marriage and family. If a husband and wife are united in their goals and committed to their marriage, they will work together, diligently to purchase a home, care for it properly, raise children, educate them, and try to be productive in the community. They will be of great worth to that community as will their children as they grow into responsible adults. But they will not be worth as much financially to the community because they will be frugal and consume less.

They will be worth more, financially, to the economy if they divorce. Then they will no longer be able to help each other out. There won’t be two people to help with the children and they will need child care. There will have to be two houses instead of one. Instead of producing part of their own food they will have to purchase more because there is no time to garden. They will have to purchase more processed foods because there is less time to cook. They will eat out more often. There will be legal bills, and trips back and forth to share children, and more cell phones so the children can stay in contact. More computers, TV’s, stoves, refrigerators, furniture, cars and such will be needed for two households.

The divorced family is worth so much less to the community and to society, but so much more to the financial economy. Could the same thing be said for neighborhoods, communities, counties, states, and countries? Perhaps the GDP could be used as a measure of just how broken and inefficient a nation is: the higher the GDP, the worse off it would be in many of the things that matter most. Is the GDP a direct predictor of divorce? Could it be used as an indicator of ill health or failing communities? I haven’t done the statistics, but it sort of seems like someone ought to look at that.

CONTROL

Humans are obsessed with control. We say we want to “keep things under control”. We try to “control” inflation, erosion, traffic, crowds, development, and even our selves. Much of our efforts are spent in trying to control the forces of nature. But we have been successful enough that we sometimes think we have control.

However, it is impossible to control anything, if we refuse to identify, and set, the limits of the extremes. So while we use the word, we have no real intent. If one cannot limit the cause, one cannot limit the effect. And humans refuse to limit spending, borrowing, cars, houses, or just about anything else, even ourselves. We wish to control the forces of nature, but not limit human nature.

For whatever reason, humans have taken control mostly through violent means. How much of our society depends on explosions? We use the concept in mines, building highways, weapons, inside internal combustion engines, even fighting fires. And wherever there is energy there is always the risk of explosion. We even experience “boom and bust” economic cycles. The industrial revolution could be called the explosion revolution.

When something is very complex we generally assume there must be some single cause. Early scientists discovered a law that for every action there must be an opposite and equal reaction. While this appears to be true, it has led mankind to believe that there must always be central control. In fact, in nature, control is almost always decentralized. But humans have difficulty seeing how order can arise spontaneously from disorder, even though it appears to happen over and over again.

Thus we continuously try to control the world with central control, when all of nature testifies that it is not possible. Nature and human nature are not the same thing.