Conservation and Conversation
We just came back from a week in California, where we visited the peerless Monterey Bay Aquarium. Conservation is a frequent theme of the aquarium: every exhibit makes some plea to consider how one's personal choices affect the health of the oceans. It's a persuasive appeal in the presence of so many beauties. Why not give up a reliance on ugly plastic bags and bottles if they are hazards to majestic sea turtles and sunfish?
The Aquarium's stance isn't merely political. It participates in rehabilitation and care for injured wildlife as well as research. Part of its facilities inhabit an old canning factory and is situated on Cannery Row: a reminder that once upon a time, fishing defined its existence. Conservation became a necessity when overfishing took down an industry.
The aquarium doesn't demonize seafood lovers: it passes out fliers listing the seafood choices of Good, Better, Best, and Avoid. (Many of which overlap with the recommendations for pregnant and nursing women.)
Much of the dialogue over conservation isn't a conversation. It's an us and them between those that care more about trees and whales than babies and those who's greed and ambition overwhelms any sensitivity to the pain of others. "The free market will take care of it," say those who simultaneously acknowledge that we don't actually live in a free market. The clash falls neatly between the orthodoxy of climate change and the "deniers." Too often conservation pits people against the earth in which we live. Exempla gratia: Bill Nye's recent statement that people ought to be having less children. Who are those people? The homeschooling family of 7? Janet Jackson or Angelina Jolie? The moms on welfare? The couples desperately seeking fertility treatments? The Chinese loosening their One Child policy? The Muslims? The Mormons? What about that oft-cited statistic that fertility goes down as industrialism increases? Isn't conservation really for the sake of humans? So that my children can see beautiful, marvelous, intricate creatures in real life?
Genesis speaks of human stewardship over Creation. Doesn't it seem reasonable that careless or abusive stewardship might have negative consequences? I do deny that humans have ultimate power over Creation. We might have brought the passenger pigeon to extinction and decimated the buffalo but we have feedback loops: a dustbowl, hurricanes, famine, earthquake, wildfires. We live in hurricane country and we know firsthand the power of natural world to destroy our little Babylons. Is the natural world as delicate as asserted? Delicate as a prematurely born infant? Doesn't evolution assert that the natural world is much older than that? Certainly, industrialism is rather new. Why shouldn't the natural world have the resilience that every dystopian story claims for humanity? (If there's a dystopian novel that doesn't make resilience one of its themes, I have yet to find it.)
Stewardship and Conservation do not mean that we must swallow whole the accepted dogmas of our day. We should taste and chew and discern. But are we tasting and discerning? For the Church, conservation is bound up with our eschatology: does the material world really matter in the end. If one looks at a beautiful bird or flower as a waste of time because it's all going to burn . . . well then, I concede we have a problem. If one looks at the vision of Revelation, with the New Jerusalem descending from heaven to earth, well then, we must take stock. Certainly, we're told that the earth will be cleansed and each person's works will be tested. But tested and cleansed are not destruction. When I stood on the California coast and looked at the abundance and love poured out by Yahweh -- the Gulf Coast looks desolate by comparison. He declared it all very good. It still matters to Him. He will resurrect us. Jesus presented His resurrected body with the scars of His passion still present. He reveals Himself as the Lamb that was Slain in Revelation. If His physical scars are still present, what about ours? Why not Creation? Creation groans for deliverance, Paul told us in Romans. It doesn't groan for death; it groans for Life.
America, in particular, seems to have a wild, wasteful element for some time. Intoxicated by the bigness of this continent and the abundance of its resources, we've become known as a people infatuated by gigantism: the biggest bridges and ships, the biggest factories, the longest railroads and highways, the biggest signs on Route 66, etc. My husband learned that the U.S. has found the breed of cattle that makes the most milk and all of our dairy products come from that breed; meanwhile in Europe, the various breeds of cows are valued for the quality of their milk, or for making the best butter, or the best cheese. Or how different it is to stand by a street in London where one can see over all the cars; whereas here I am constantly dwarfed by SUVS and trucks -- it's rather an uncomfortable feeling. Our culture lives by the motto: More is Better! More sex! More food! More drink! More shoes! More minimalism! More likes! More novelty! We're a country of adolescents. We're a people actively seeking to loosen ourselves from history.
I love Creation. Jesus told us that His Father cares for the sparrows. Yahweh's love is revealed in Creation. Sometimes more clearly -- to me, anyway -- than the messy lives around me. So I go outside to be reminded of His love when I am discouraged, when He seems to work more slowly than a stalagmite grows. Jesus said that the Father cares for us more than the sparrows. If He loves the sparrows, so should we. If He loves humanity, so should we. How much falls in between? A whole world.
The Aquarium's stance isn't merely political. It participates in rehabilitation and care for injured wildlife as well as research. Part of its facilities inhabit an old canning factory and is situated on Cannery Row: a reminder that once upon a time, fishing defined its existence. Conservation became a necessity when overfishing took down an industry.
The aquarium doesn't demonize seafood lovers: it passes out fliers listing the seafood choices of Good, Better, Best, and Avoid. (Many of which overlap with the recommendations for pregnant and nursing women.)
Much of the dialogue over conservation isn't a conversation. It's an us and them between those that care more about trees and whales than babies and those who's greed and ambition overwhelms any sensitivity to the pain of others. "The free market will take care of it," say those who simultaneously acknowledge that we don't actually live in a free market. The clash falls neatly between the orthodoxy of climate change and the "deniers." Too often conservation pits people against the earth in which we live. Exempla gratia: Bill Nye's recent statement that people ought to be having less children. Who are those people? The homeschooling family of 7? Janet Jackson or Angelina Jolie? The moms on welfare? The couples desperately seeking fertility treatments? The Chinese loosening their One Child policy? The Muslims? The Mormons? What about that oft-cited statistic that fertility goes down as industrialism increases? Isn't conservation really for the sake of humans? So that my children can see beautiful, marvelous, intricate creatures in real life?
Genesis speaks of human stewardship over Creation. Doesn't it seem reasonable that careless or abusive stewardship might have negative consequences? I do deny that humans have ultimate power over Creation. We might have brought the passenger pigeon to extinction and decimated the buffalo but we have feedback loops: a dustbowl, hurricanes, famine, earthquake, wildfires. We live in hurricane country and we know firsthand the power of natural world to destroy our little Babylons. Is the natural world as delicate as asserted? Delicate as a prematurely born infant? Doesn't evolution assert that the natural world is much older than that? Certainly, industrialism is rather new. Why shouldn't the natural world have the resilience that every dystopian story claims for humanity? (If there's a dystopian novel that doesn't make resilience one of its themes, I have yet to find it.)
Stewardship and Conservation do not mean that we must swallow whole the accepted dogmas of our day. We should taste and chew and discern. But are we tasting and discerning? For the Church, conservation is bound up with our eschatology: does the material world really matter in the end. If one looks at a beautiful bird or flower as a waste of time because it's all going to burn . . . well then, I concede we have a problem. If one looks at the vision of Revelation, with the New Jerusalem descending from heaven to earth, well then, we must take stock. Certainly, we're told that the earth will be cleansed and each person's works will be tested. But tested and cleansed are not destruction. When I stood on the California coast and looked at the abundance and love poured out by Yahweh -- the Gulf Coast looks desolate by comparison. He declared it all very good. It still matters to Him. He will resurrect us. Jesus presented His resurrected body with the scars of His passion still present. He reveals Himself as the Lamb that was Slain in Revelation. If His physical scars are still present, what about ours? Why not Creation? Creation groans for deliverance, Paul told us in Romans. It doesn't groan for death; it groans for Life.
America, in particular, seems to have a wild, wasteful element for some time. Intoxicated by the bigness of this continent and the abundance of its resources, we've become known as a people infatuated by gigantism: the biggest bridges and ships, the biggest factories, the longest railroads and highways, the biggest signs on Route 66, etc. My husband learned that the U.S. has found the breed of cattle that makes the most milk and all of our dairy products come from that breed; meanwhile in Europe, the various breeds of cows are valued for the quality of their milk, or for making the best butter, or the best cheese. Or how different it is to stand by a street in London where one can see over all the cars; whereas here I am constantly dwarfed by SUVS and trucks -- it's rather an uncomfortable feeling. Our culture lives by the motto: More is Better! More sex! More food! More drink! More shoes! More minimalism! More likes! More novelty! We're a country of adolescents. We're a people actively seeking to loosen ourselves from history.
I love Creation. Jesus told us that His Father cares for the sparrows. Yahweh's love is revealed in Creation. Sometimes more clearly -- to me, anyway -- than the messy lives around me. So I go outside to be reminded of His love when I am discouraged, when He seems to work more slowly than a stalagmite grows. Jesus said that the Father cares for us more than the sparrows. If He loves the sparrows, so should we. If He loves humanity, so should we. How much falls in between? A whole world.
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