One for the Earth

The world is changing, and some of these changes may not be good for our kind - the earthlings, humans. Humans always fear the unfamiliar. Human history is filled with discouraging response to things unfamiliar. It will take courage to try to understand what is unfamiliar and to learn until what is unfamiliar may now be familiar. But how do we fear?

Do we fear like a servant? Are we going to be fearful of the punishment our master will surely hurl upon us once our misdeeds come into light? Should our campaign for the environment be centered on the idea that we will suffer the devastating consequences if we will not protect the environment? Ought we to have that servile fear? Are we servants?

No, we should not have to fear like servants. We are not servants of our environment. We are its stewards. Our vocation is to take care of, and have a care of taking, things around us. Yet, we do have reasons to fear and must allow ourselves to be fearful.

How then do we fear?

I propose that we must have filial fear, the fear that a son has of offending the father or a member of the family. Our fear must be borne out of our sense of responsibility and not out of the consequences of our irresponsibility. Our campaign must be in regaining the honor of each individual as faithful steward. We must acknowledge our stewardship. We must affirm our stewardship. It is in acknowledgment and affirmation of our personal responsibility to each individual earthling that we can truly change the environment. We must tell our stories, stories about taking responsibility and responding to the vocation of being stewards to the environment. We must tell our stories proudly, stories that tells the journey of miscreant community to responsible stewardship. We must tell our stories proudly and at length, stories that explain how injury happens in burst and healing seems but a trickle. We must tell our stories proundly, at length and with self-examination, stories that reveal that we too may be guilty even if we speak against the betrayal of stewardship. We must speak - and we must walk the talk.

We show them what is done. We show them where it is done. We show them how it is done. We show them when it is done. Then, we allow them to show the things they have done themselves. We learn from every steward. We promote best practices - but we always take our cue with each steward on the ground. It is them that live with the ground. It is their response that will decide the fate of that ground. We have, at our disposal, the vast and active world of a virtual environment - the internet. We need to get our message across this portal of the current generation. We must learn how best to make use of this new resource to protect the natural resource we have in the physical world. We need to connect and re-connect with people. We must engage them and get them off their seats and on their feet to help us heal the land.

It will take years to reverse the consequences but stewards have only certain years to live. We then must remain vigilant of earthlings who have heard the same call and responded creatively. It is in finding them that we can keep our effort sustainable. Only when we are assured that there will be hands to receive the baton when we passed it on can we hope for change to happen.

Then ... we need not fear for that change when it happens.