Wasteful Wardens of the Planet

  This is a hard topic to write about. It's easier to express the ideas in speech, but then the details don't usually all get explored before the conversation wonders. So, in keeping with one of the purposes of this blog, I am going to try again to express the question of "Humans as Wasteful Wardens." I deleted my first attempt a couple years ago, but the idea keeps coming up. So, let me try to outline its key pieces.

1. I believe that humans were designed to be gardeners, stewards of the earth - or, maybe even of the galaxy! There is a care and compassion inherent to gardening that is so natural that it may not get much thought. Gardeners seek fruit or flowers, which requires healthy plants, which require healthy soil, which requires investment of time and work and attention and study. Shouldn't that be us all around the world - each in our own plot of land, seeking healthy provision and beauty and flourishing?
2. I believe that our Maker also designed us to multiply humans who would reflect the Maker's own image partially through elaborating on the designs built into the world. In other words, the world had been designed flawless but still had space for improvement, even in Eden! Shouldn't we be pursuing the development of what was given, whether physical or mental or spiritual or social?
3. I believe in entropy: the world is falling into disorder, and inevitably we are increasing that disorder. Since its goodness was shattered, this universe has been gradually deteriorating. Theologically, we might speak of 'sin'; scientifically, we might speak of 'the second law of thermodynamics'. Both concepts tell us that this world is not what it once was and is headed for destruction. What's worse is that we are involved, as a cause. Shouldn't we be fighting against the destruction?

  To summarize, while the world was designed to be good for humanity, humanity was also designed to be good for the world. However, our daily existence shows us that often the world is not good for us, and we are often not good for it. This should naturally lead to a bad end. Is there another way? 

Turkish kebab

 On the one hand, I'd really like to be 'green,' but I can't commit to greenness as an ideology. I can't get past its meaningless, vicious cycle. Which one? Well, imagine that I ate some kebab... at some point, I would need to wash the plate. Now, I could save it with lots of other dirty dishes and run it through the dishwasher, or I could just wash it by hand. They both consume resources though different amounts of different resources with different fall-out for the health of the earth, its systems, and my co-inhabitants. I also have the option of NOT washing the plate - so as to save water and to prevent chemical pollution. However, that may end up with me in the hospital consuming vastly more resources than I otherwise would have. In fact, no option removes me as a consumer and polluter. (Oh, and we didn't touch on the topic of the good kebab that God provided; that would be another place to consider how we are 'gardening our world'.) In every case, it feels like I am wasting or destroying part of the exact thing that I was to be enhancing, the world that I was made a steward of! I am not suggesting here that this is my only effect on the earth; I am simply suggesting that it seems inevitable that I will have some negative impact. 

 Here's a fascinating case study: This BBC article on deep sea mining shows plainly how we humans struggle to balance exploring, appreciating, and using the resources that we find. So, I am left to wonder: Can we garden without greed? Can we explore without exploitation? Can we contribute while we consume? Can we enhance while we expand? Those who love the God revealed in the Bible should be at the forefront of seeking ways to do this; that was the original design! Of course, we can't "save the planet," but we should certainly care for it as well as we can. As in so many other areas, we must value what we have been given without worshipping it. At the same time, we must engage in brokenness without trying to become the Savior.  

  Graciously, there is a solution from outside the system. If the Designer of the world were to engage the world in healing by sending help from outside the system, healing would become possible at more than a temporary or partial level. The Bible's claim is that such help has and will come. So, while recognizing the temporal hopelessness of saving the environment, it is possible for a person to garden in the world as best as they know how and also to look for a Healer who will bring in the opposite of entropy! Isaiah describes The One who will bring an increase of peace without end (9:7). How will goodness increase forever? I don't know, but I am eager to be shown.

  For thought or comment: 

• How can we apply ourselves (individually or communally) to gardening whatever space we have?
• Where can we create beauty around us?
• What do I see that needs restoring near me?
• What would I do differently if I saw myself as steward of the earth and took responsibility for such a stewardship of land and co-inhabitants?

on Books and Reading - encountering Andrew Peterson's thoughts

  I have really been refreshed and gladdened by Andrew Peterson's book, Adorning the Dark (with the inexplicable exception of chapter 6). There is much to appreciate in this memoir-philosophy of life and art. For now though, I just want to comment on two statements he makes about reading and books.

“Too often we retreat into the pages of our longing only to return disconsolate to the kitchen or the classroom—we’re escaping from and not to.” (66)

  This first comment (and the chapter that precedes it) hints at my reality as a teenager; it describes when books were my refuge in a sense that was nearly ultimate. One of the most significant spiritual battles in my life was quitting a particular book - and series - because of the way it was dominating my time one summer. Books are a beautiful escape unless they become Ultimate; then they can become a prison so lovely that we may not even recognize our cage. 

“[These novels] strike me as a way to pass the time rather than to enrich it.” (66)

  When I was a child, we had a category of books called "Purple Door" books because of a particular book that my sister and I loved so much that we convinced my mom to read it in her rare and valuable reading time. She didn't love it so much. She explained to us that it would never be a classic even though it was a nice read. That categorization has stuck with me ever since. Here Peterson defines that category exactly: 

short words are harder

  A hundred plus years ago, G. K. Chesterton remarked upon the dangerous laziness of long words and the difficulty and effort required to put things into short words. An extract of his thought seem worth sharing. It is worth thinking about how we think (or not), and then how we speak (or not)! 

Most of the machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and it saves mental labour very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railway trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say "The social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment," you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull. But if you begin "I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say when Jones shall come out," you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration."

   But these long comfortable words that save modern people the toil of reasoning have one particular aspect in which they are especially ruinous and confusing. This difficulty occurs when the same long word is used in different connections to mean quite different things. Thus, to take a well-known instance, the word "idealist" has one meaning as a piece of philosophy and quite another as a piece of moral rhetoric. In the same way the scientific materialists have had just reason to complain of people mixing up "materialist" as a term of cosmology with "materialist" as a moral taunt. So, to take a cheaper instance, the man who hates "progressives" in London always calls himself a "progressive" in South Africa.

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, ch. 8. (emphasis added)

A Handout on Linkers or Logical Connectors

  Below is a graphic organizer that I made a few years ago to serve as a guide for how to think about and teach 'linkers' or 'connectors' or whatever you prefer to call them. These devices that help stitch together a text seem to have a million names, confusing for students and confusing for teachers. I suppose this comes from their variety of roles they play and the diversity that is displayed in them. The complexity and richness of linking devices can add much to the power of our writing or speaking, so they are well worth getting to know intimately for any and all of us.

While realizing that it could be much more attractive, I am no longer able to edit the original, so I figured I'd just share it like this.

Is your boss only satisfied with your best work?

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28–30). 

  Discussing Matthew 11:28-30, Tim Keller says the following in regard to working and resting as a follower of Jesus Christ.

[Jesus] is the only boss who will not drive you into the ground, the only audience that does not need your best performance in order to be satisfied with you. Why is this? Because his work for you is finished. 

In fact, the very definition of a Christian is someone who not only admires Jesus, emulates Jesus, and obeys Jesus, but who “rests in the finished work of Christ” instead of his or her own. Remember, God was able to rest in Genesis 2, verses 1–3 only because his creative work was finished. And a Christian is able to rest only because God’s redemptive work is likewise finished in Christ. When the work under the work has been satisfied by the Son, all that’s left for us to do is to serve the work we’ve been given by the Father.

Keller, Timothy. Every Good Endeavor (p. 238). Kindle Edition.  (emphasis added)

Earlier...

All of us are haunted by the work under the work—that need to prove and save ourselves, to gain a sense of worth and identity. (p. 234). 

Jesus' 5 Evidences that God was/is His Father

  A month ago, I posted 8 Arguments for the Bible's Reliability; now I want to share something that is tangentially related, the reasons that Jesus is recorded to have given for being from the Heavenly Father. John 5:18 says, "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." (ESV, emphasis added) In the verses following that, Jesus lists several results of God being his father.  These deal with how his character and his actions reflect those of the Father.

 Then, in John 5:30-47, Jesus gives a series of arguments about why he should be accepted as whom he says he is. These are as follows:

1.  Jesus himself claims God is his father (Jn 5:31, cf vs 17-18).
2.  John the Baptist also attested to this truth (Jn 5:32-36; cf 1:29-35; 3:22ff).
3.  The "works" or actions - including the healing that spawned this discussion - attest to the origin of Jesus (Jn 5:36; cf 3:2; 5:1-17). 
4.  The Father who sent him has also attested to this truth (Jn 5:37-38; cf 12:27-30; Matthew 3:16-17; 17:5).
5.  The Scriptures bear witness to him (Jn 5:39-40; cf Jn 1:45; 2:17).
• Moses' writings, as a subset of Scripture, witness to the person of Jesus (Jn 5:45-47; cf Jn 3:14; 6:32; witnesses about the Christ from Moses' writings).  

  It is interesting that each of these points has support from within the Gospel of John, mostly prior to this account. These are evidences which the listeners could evaluate, events or sayings they were already apparently familiar with. (Mt 3:16-17 shows that God had already spoken from heaven publicly once, in addition to the second-hand recounting of that event that John given in John 1.)

 Now, the connection to the previous posts is a bit clearer. Presuming we accept the Gospel accounts as reliable, then the arguments given here are ones that must be given weight. Jesus did not call on people to embrace his claims in a vacuum or without due consideration. Nor did he simply overwhelm them with the miraculous in such a way that a series of illusions could be the basis of his claim(s). The evidences were varied and often independent. 

  So I ask, what would it take to convince you or I, reasonable people, that the apparently impossible was actually possible? What proofs should we require to believe that God became a man, that the Son of God walked this earth in human flesh? If this is not denied a priori, what would you look for as evidence and how would this relate to the proofs that were given?  

  One final point that should be mentioned is that these are not the only proofs that either the New Testament or Jesus himself is recorded as giving to support who he was and is. The anecdote in John 1:47-51 makes this clear. As well, here's another one I came across in my reading recently.

• Matthew 12:38-41 - Jesus foretold that there would be a parallel between his burial and resurrection and the life of the prophet Jonah. This is not a prophecy by Jonah, but rather Jesus himself prophesying about what will happen and using a familiar story as the pivot point. (cf Mt 17:22-23)