WISDOM-PSALM 1

Ps.1
[1] Blessed is the manwho walks not in the counsel of the wicked,nor stands in the way of sinners,nor sits in the seat of scoffers;


[2] but his delight is in the law of the LORD,and on his law he meditates day and night.


[3] He is like a treeplanted by streams of water,that yields its fruit in its season,and its leaf does not wither.In all that he does, he prospers.


[4] The wicked are not so,but are like chaff which the wind drives away.


[5] Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;


[6] for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,but the way of the wicked will perish.

The tree is planted in the right environment. It has water, sun, Creation provides all that it needs yield fruit when it is time and remain leafy and green.

Creation provides humanity with all that it needs; as long as we remain truely human, To be human we must acknowledge our connections what the Creator has fashioned. If we remain mindful of our connections we will prosper. If we don’t we’ll be blown away.

MEDITATION-YOU SHALL BE AS GODS

There are two Creation stories in Genesis. The first story ends with man being granted dominion of the earthly part of the Creation. The second story ends with the Fall. The usual interpretation since the days of Augustine, the melancholy former Manichean, is that sex was somehow involved.

Part of an essay by Thomas Merton put a different cast of the story of the “Fall.” In Merton’s interpretation what man reached out to take on his/her own was something that we already had; but it was within the relationship with God. And it doesn’t have anything to do with sex. It has to do with men reaching for the power of Gods, without the relationship, knowledge or respect for the rest of Creation. To me that dominion was granted within our relationship with God. When mankind reached for the power of God outside that relationship we lost the right to that dominion. We’re still trying to exercise it, but damn it we continue to destroy far more than we create.

We heard the litany all through the eighties and beyond. “God gave us dominion, we can do whatever we want with the earth as long it makes a profit for somebody; especially me.” “And anyone who doesn’t agree with this is a tree hugging, tree worshipping pagan.”

I have a variation on the old philosophy question. “If a tree dies in a forest does it go to waste?” It’s a question that gets asked a lot in the Northwest. And the usual answer from the big lumber companies is “Yes!” We have very little old growth forest left and there are still some companies that would love to take their chainsaws to it.

And no, I don’t believe that when a tree dies and falls in the forest that it’s wasted. I’ve seen those old, fallen trees. They support a whole universe in that rotting tree. You can find insects, mushrooms, moss, lichens and small bushes living on that old log, For me the whole idea of sustainable logging is an oxymoron. There is no way you can keep taking the life from the forest and not put back. You can do it for a few generations but in the end you’ll be left with a forest that’s a shadow of the old growth stands.

MEDITATION-NO HUMANS NEED APPLY

God created the garden and put man and woman in it to tend it and care for it in partership with God.

Now we seek to recreate the garden, Paradise, on our own. If only we had enough power, enough resources, enough labor saving devices, enough of something we don't seem to have. Except people. All the schematics for paradise from the seventies and eightes seem to have room for everything but people. And this abundance comes with a price tag. After we've come up with the ultimate labor saving devices and put everyone out of work who will have the money to buy all this abundance?

Machines planting, harvesting, recycling; cycle after cycle: a paradise of machine perfection. No disruptive, unprogrammable, imperfect humans need apply.

Note to self-reading Wendell Berry before noon is not for the faint of heart