Gulf of Messico

The green ends where the concrete barrier begins.

Where the concrete barrier ends is where "we" begin.

"We", as in what we humans with our intelligence have been able to cook up out of the ingredients we scour from what God made: the universe and all that is in it.

Specifically, our lonely blue planet so wonderfully colored and filled with life.

At least, it was. Once. This is not "once upon a time". This is not fairytale fiction. Much of it still existed in the first decades of my life.

When I was in grade school, there were about 3.5 billion people on earth. Now there are nearly twice that many. Earth's population can literally double in under three decades.

That's not doubling from one million to two million either. We're talking doubling way more people alive at once than have ever lived before in all the history we have the ability to know about--all combind.

Where will the lines intersect on the graph? What lines? The lines of the number being born and the number dying.

'Til now, the number being born has always stayed far ahead of the number dying. But an intersection may not be far off. It could come, not as a gentle change but as a steep collapse. I don't know, but I'm studying the things we are doing and where they might go.

Somebody couldn't afford to put their discards in their "proper" place: a landfill. (Tell me again how that is proper????) So they put them in an improper place for all to see. So somebody else could clean it up.

This stuff has since been moved. But it hasn't gone away, all this stuff you see in the picture. Maybe a few bits of metal have been recycled. But most of the rest of it will lurk somewhere else on earth.

Waiting for doomsday or....

What's going on in the Gulf of Mexico isn't unique or off the charts. It's a little capsule of what we humans in general have done with the gift we have been given.

And we still have the boldness to talk about stewardship of creation.

OK, when exactly? When?

That's not a question waiting a president, a Geneva convention or a Congress to rise from the dead. It's a question for each of us to raise and answer every day.

Roger

House Rules

Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant, who walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the Lord and relies upon his God?

But all of you are kindlers of fire, lighters of firebrands. Walk in the flame of your fire, and among the brands that you have kindled! This is what you shall have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment. Isaiah 50:10-11 NRSV

No smoking in front of church. For sure, no smoking inside!

How things change!

At one time, not only did people smoke in church, they burned big fires there. They burned the carcasses of butchered animals with blood poured all around the altar.

Far cry from the incense and smell of candle wax that came later.

Now, we get upset if the kid in the row ahead of us drops a couple of Cheerios and steps on them. Maybe she was sacrificing to the Lord!

So much of Isaiah, so much of the prophets is so manic. Utterly and polarizingly manic. Did even one of this voluminous collections of poetry and prose written over centuries get written with full knowledge of the context of the other writings that it would eventually become part of?

Not many, I'll bet. That's in part why they are so difficult to read today. You need an owner's manual that practically translates every line and metaphor and establishes the context. Trouble is, nobody has time for that. The explanatory material would be 10 times the length of the Isaiah text itself.

Who has time for that besides Walter Brueggemann?

Another thing. The natural imagery of so much of Scripture, particularly the Old Testament, is no longer of much import to people today. Back then, the world and its weather and cataclysms were a matter of life and death to most people. Nights were dark, and mostly silent. Shelter from violent storms was minimal. Famine happened regularly about every three years. People were by and large very skinny, and they starved, got sick and died regularly. Often very young.

There was no massive international shipment of food aid and medicine. The natural world ruled.

The manufactured world didn't exist.

Today, we waste so much time fighting the creation vs. evolution pitched battle. We who are custodians of the doctrine of creation are often woefully ill-informed about the very processes that God uses to create and sustain life--the very creative processes of God staring us in the face! Soil, air and water do not come from WalMart. Until WalMart owns it all. Then it will.

No, the real conflict today is not creation vs. evolution. It is manufacturing vs. God. We won't fight a war to prevent the name of God from being blasphemed. But we'll sure as Hades fight one if we think our right to manufacture is in any way threatened. Even if all that manufacturing is keeping us from knowing God and is choking the very breath of life all around us.

Rush Limbaugh thinks the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is "natural" and should be left alone.

OK. Let him give away his broadcasting wealth to the poor and buy a fishing boat. Let him spend the rest of his days trying to be a shrimper out of Houma, LA. Let him power his boat with oars and sails instead of with a diesel engine.

RUSH IS RONG!

No smoking in church. No not using your eyes and your brains either.

House rules. Amen.