I was out walking yesterday. I was muttering and grumbling to myself about...well, about everything. The world. The way the world is.
And then I stopped and looked around.
Enough rain has come that I could hear the frogs out chirping the Lower Meadow. Birds were twittering away in the trees. Away from the trail I could hear something heavier - probably a deer - moving through the brush. The wind was rustling the remaining leaves and needles on the trees and blowing over the wet, dead leaf mold on the ground.
Walking along, I passed a stump that had been left after the tree was cut down.
Even though the hole in the center narrows down, it still opens up onto the other side.
The reality is that, for everything that is going on the world right now, it is still a very large one with beauty all around it.
I love it when the world just stops, and you can focus on it before it gets away again...
ReplyDeleteGlen, I need to pay attention to that more. I bet it happens a lot more than I think.
DeleteI guess those of us able to see, have noticed the world is necking down, narrowing, but you saw daylight on the other side. God willing, so will we.
ReplyDeleteCourage and faith.
STxAR, it was only by the grace of God. Trust me, I was hardly looking for it.
DeleteWe have two worlds to choose from: the one God made and the one Man made. Your post beautifully illustrates the affects of each.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, I am grateful to have the opportunity. It worries me that so many only have the world Man made. It surely skews one's view.
DeleteI always love it when I can change my perspective on things if only temporarily and be lost in a moment.
ReplyDeleteEd, it was sorely needed at the moment it happened. I am grateful.
DeleteI have a really good view of the mountains from my front porch. I've often pondered that whether Man walks the Earth or not, the sun will come up, and the Earth will go on. It's humbling and comforting at the same time...
ReplyDeletePete, I do not know if you ever read the book Earth Abides (George Stewart, 1949), but that is one of the points of the book. At the end of the protagonist's life, being lifted by his great-grandsons at the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge, he realizes that even though civilization has collapsed, the Earth continues.
DeleteThe world does not look so screwed up when walking through nature..and we cut it all down all over the world and call it progress. Like your other post on changing attitudes for businesses..our information action ratio is wildly skewed due to a global outlook and nobody wants to act locally or do things on an individual basis to try to correct..I am on a tangent. Sorry! That all lacks detail and probably needs to be built out more!
ReplyDeleteEGB, I find the modern world's propensity to simultaneously be concerned about nature and the same time work to tear it up as quickly as possible to be quite confusing. Even in my large urban area which would call themselves concerned about this, they are tearing up unoccupied land as fast as they can to build things to support the tax base...so they can do more good things. You cannot say you are concerned about "out there" and not do anything about the "here" (which I think is what you are saying).
DeleteI just mean that we have good information as to harm that comes from destroying nature has yet we do nothing local about it and allow it to happen and allow it to accelerate. I am not particularly well read on the subject matter but when I heard the term I thought it did a good job of describing the way I felt about things: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information%E2%80%93action_ratio
ReplyDeleteEGB, that definition makes sense. Perhaps put another way, we have become desperately disconnected from the local because of the global. In that sense, globalization has failed.
DeleteI also fundamentally believe that government, at least in its role, fails miserably in that it makes everything political. Rather than actual researching all sides and resolving an issue with everyone in mind, it simply comes down and says "Do it our way". That makes it a political issue for everyone that does not agree either with the government in power or the decision. It is not a way to solve things.
that works! Or we '..cannot see the forest for all the trees'. As in it is hard to do anything when we are confounded at every turn with something else we must internalize.
ReplyDeleteI can agree with your views on government too!
I think that is it, EGB.
DeleteIt is also a matter of the local. For example, as I mentioned in the Walkabout post, my father has taken care to reduce fire danger on our property. Right across the fence, it is overgrown. To really reduce the danger, it would take everyone working to reduce fire hazard. But there needs to be a sort quid pro quo - for example, if the fire danger is reduced, property insurance must be issued by insurers (instead of what is happening more and more, just dropping because of "Fire Hazard"). At that point there is limited value - beyond avoiding a fire, of course - of putting in the work.