Our beloved earth (7/16/2021)

In a recent post I asked the question if the earth loved us. This was not an original question, but something that was asked in a book I am reading. Now, I read multiple books at the same time, and in my last post I mentioned reading about the need for humans on this earth. In the same book, Wendell Berry introduced the term beloved country when he writes about taking care of the earth and the environment, so maybe I need to start calling it beloved earth, although I am probably not as spiritual as Mr. Berry.

I realize when I would be doing that, I would not very original; however, my heart is in the right place and I am giving credit where it is due. In an other quote by Mr. Berry he writes:

The standard – the physical, intellectual, political, ecological, economic, and spiritual health of this country – cannot be too high; it will be as high, simply, as we have the love, the vision, and the courage to make it.

I honestly think we can and should substitute the word earth for the word country and the sentence would and should read exactly the same. We should expect the highest physical, intellectual, ecological, environmental, economic, and spiritual ethics from every person on this earth if want to save some semblance of what we have right now for future generations. Surprise, surprise, we can only do this by truly loving this earth, our or your beloved earth.

You can just imagine how disturbed I was when I saw on a church billboard in a county just north of us a notice that read something like (I am paraphrasing here): “Join in us to prepare for what is to come next, since life here on earth is so horrible.” In other words, life sucks here on earth, join our church to get ready for heaven. Those folks do not get it; they only have one life! Let’s make heaven here on earth.

Mr. Berry argues in his book about the need to more tightly integrate the sciences and the humanities in order to achieve this. I hope that many of you have noticed by now, that I am a huge proponent of that. I do not want to call myself a philosopher scientist/naturalist, but I have argued for a long time that biologist or ecologists would make great economist and the other way around (maybe). I am a strong believer in the parsimony of nature and now of the mutuality and maybe even empathy, all things being studied by certain branches of the humanities. But I digress. I want to make this a short post, since I wanted to get this of my chest that I love the earth and I still hope she loves me.

Earlier this summer, when the temperatures were still cool in the morning, I loved to go on extended hikes in the national park near my home and explore the sites.  Sites that not many people get to see; off the beaten path.  It is nice to be out on solitude and meditate out there, away from the crowds.  

(a quick post script:

1. While writing this, the door bell rang, and a young, well dressed gentleman was at the door trying to sell pesticide treatments for my yard to me.  Poor guy, I lost it!  Another person who has no regard for mother earth, he probably goes to church and complains how bad it is here on earth and how he looks forward to going to heaven.
2. I purposely did not write about the current disaster in Europe, including my home country of the Netherlands.  Is this think mother earth is getting angry and the love hate relationship is really showing lately, but I write that in the blog post I reference above.)