June 2010 Editorial

The United Nations (I am not sure who specifically to blame or congratulate) has decided that 2010 should be known as The Year Of The Forest. It seems apt especially in light of the growing awareness and alarm concerning global warming and the steady destruction of earth’s natural resources. I am a firm supporter and believer that we are to protect and nurture our environment, not only because I consider it a Godly mandate, but also because we only have one earth! To my knowledge all our space explorations have yet to find us an alternative to this beautiful blue planet! So, what I do with my surroundings and environment really becomes my legacy to my children, and a part of my inheritance to my grandchildren.

The cycle of time has always fascinated me; time is “invented” and put in place by God when he created earth and decided that seasons should govern this globe. The place God decides to start implementing this temporary tick-tock is in a garden; this garden becomes the personification of a Divine design in earthly perfection… until humankind redesigns, redraws and alters the original blueprint. Part of my fascination lie with the fact that God created everything for us (humans) to enjoy, yet we are not created, but fashioned! Fashioned speaks to me of a “personal touch” – you may or may not agree with me on this, but consider for a moment the truth that each person’s DNA is unique!

Now in this time-space continuum God keeps on drawing analogies between what He created (let me call it Nature) and what He fashioned! So when God speaks I find myself compared to trees, streams, grass, flowers, gazelles, rocks and many other things. I find it significant that all humans are eternally spirit, yet the shell (body) dies, and at the same time that God promises to destroy our current habitation and create for us a New Earth.

With all the analogies and comparisons, what are we doing to preserve our environment, both the environment bound to time and the environment bound to that which is outside of our 3D perceived world? Are we neglecting the one for the sake of the other? Should we even bother if fatalistically we can say, “Earth has to come to an end anyway?”

This month we explore these and other critical issues… if all humanity were a forest, what would we do to preserve that place, and how would we tend it so that all trees were able to enthusiastically clap their hands? As I said, just another schplurb about some really significant things.

Waldo

PS: “schplurb” – when I was a student we used this word as a derivative of the Yiddish expression “schpiel”, meaning the whole thing, or play; schplurb therefore denotes conscious ramblings that may or may not make sense, depending on the company, situation, location and time of day! Much later, the X-generation stole the term and rephrased it “blurp”, only to be made popular by the Y-generation as “blog”. I am sure that if I could speak with my grandparents today, they would say that my generation (baby boomers) stole the word from them and that it used to be…