How did we get to this place? I’m sitting on my patio, taking in the flowers and warm air on an early fall day. I look up at the blue skies and see a hazy, slight cloudy layer in the atmosphere even though it mostly looks blue. But not the true blue. A slightly whitened blue. And I think, that’s okay. It’s still blue. I hear a car pass by in the front of the house and then the cars in the background on the highway a block away steal my lovely moment, and I think, yeah, sorry, God, we’re wrecking the planet you gave us. Slowly degrading it with our pollutants, our cutting down of needed forests, our lack of respect for the gift you gave us. (As we do in so many other areas of our lives: treat our gifts with a lack of respect.) And for what? For bigger, noisier, more fun “toys” to drive, to fly, to utilize? For money and power? Whoever has the most, controls the most? For “the grass is greener” things and people?
This is not new. But how the hell did we get here? Was there ever a time when we were not “here”? How did we create such a monstrous base of needing to impress our fellow humans with more. More me, more stuff, more power, bigger, better, to have the “I’m better than you” mentality? Apparently, it was inbred in us, because after thousands of years of humans running the planet (or so we like to think), the bulk of us still haven’t learned to give back to what we take, to appreciate what we have, to soak in life rather than suck it up and spit it out. Building mega corporations, powerful governments, having wars, killing innocent people, money, money, money – and not caring about the places or people around us. All for this sense that we must control everyone else or to have so much in order to feel more important?
How did we get to this place? Will it take an apocalypse to restart everything? Would we get it right with a new try? Some sci-fi shows have the peaceful, non-violent in-the-future scenes of how we will evolve. Can that actually happen? Doesn’t sound like I have a lot of in faith my fellow humans – and I don’t when it comes to some of them. But I do believe we could change our attitude of how life should be. Helping people instead of pulling them down. Feeding the planet – and people – as we take from it. Choosing love instead of craving money, acceptance in place of power and fear – because often the need for power is covering our fear of others having power over us.
What can we do? We can bring our own style of sunshine and blue skies in the place we live. We can smile, we can help, we can hug, we can listen, we can make decisions that benefit everyone not just ourselves, we can even recycle, choose to walk instead of drive, etc. We can live lives of integrity, of goodness, knowing that we will be feeding what we have on this earth. For ourselves and for future generations - knowing every piece of plastic I recycle aids my grandchildren's lives. Let’s stop striving against each other and start working with and for each other. Let’s be the person everyone is impressed by because we are always willing to help, to love, to be a team, (let’s be impressed by it in others!) rather than the person who has achieved great wealth and “made something” for themselves. In the end, not one penny or ounce of earthly “power” will matter. We can’t take it with us. But the lives we touch with love and acceptance will matter. That will be the real legacy we leave behind. Not us.
Comments