The Significance of Being Human

by Barbara Allen

Humans now have the power and capability to literally destroy the earth – or at any rate to annihilate all life on the planet. Between the nuclear weapons, biological weapons and chemicals for killing we could very quickly wipe out most, if not all living things on the planet. We have been working at doing that in bits and pieces for some time now.

According to many Biblical interpretations man has dominion over the other living things on the Earth. It somehow strikes me as unlikely that God created humans in order that we might destroy His other creations. And yet that is what we do every day.

It’s not as though we haven’t a choice. We do. Every day in many small and seemingly insignificant ways and large and important ways we choose destruction over creation.

We have somehow managed to forget or ignore the fact that our lives are utterly bound and connected to this planet and everything on it. The science that we worship proves more every day the great depth and complexity of the deep interconnectedness of all life on this planet. Quantum physics has even proven that our very thoughts effect the life around us. And yet we continue to choose death over life, hate over love, greed and power over compassion. Our lives are filled with choices and one of those choices is to forget that we have a choice. We convince ourselves that we don’t have the time or the money or the knowledge – or something – to do what we know is right. And bit by bit we give our lives over to what’s easiest and fastest and cheapest instead of what’s right. And it eats away at our very soul. As a friend of mine recently said in a talk to a group in Los Angeles; “ If we do not find the courage to act, and sooner rather than later, the crisis humanity is facing will be decided by our inaction.”

We lead such comfortable lives here. And we dislike the thought of discomfort or inconvenience or hardship of any kind. Or even the bother of speaking out when we see things happening in our town or state or Nation that we feel are wrong. We have become so accustomed to inaction that it has become a deeply ingrained habit. The popularity of fast food restaurants is somehow symbolic of this need for something that is effortless, fast and cheap. We have, in huge numbers, chosen these qualities over health, sustainability, and what is good for the planet – to the point where obesity has become our number one health crisis. It’s all about choice – about whether to do the Right thing – or the easy, comfortable, cheap thing.

For a long time in our history the virtues of cooperative service, of love and freedom for all, of sacrifice, compassion and courage were the backbone and driving force of our country. But it seems that exclusivity and pride, hate and the all-mighty dollar are moving ahead of these. In this worldview man is dominant over nature – meaning he can use nature as he pleases – “conquering” nature and bending it to his desires. As my friend went on to say in his talk; “In the paradigm of exclusivity where man is king of the world, the resources of the planet “belong to mankind, to the superior beings on the planet, those who are superior within the race of man also, rightly and justly deserve the fruits of the system, Well, so much for women…..

In this paradigm, being human, that is exercising normal human traits, means being on top. It means winning. Winning of course, means beating everyone else. The goal, as is often mentioned, is to get the most toys; “for the one with the most toys wins. That there are some who have no toys, or food, or clothes, or houses, or education, or medical care is not only too bad, it is just and right and good because in this paradigm, “to the victor goes the spoils.” Poverty and illiteracy are the problems of the poor and illiterate.

This sounds really bizarre to some of us, and it should.”

One of the ways we can change this is to become vocal. Let our representatives in government, local and national – know how you feel. They need our support and encouragement to do the right thing. They are pressured continually by very powerful corporate entities on every side whose bottom line is profit. They need to hear from us.

The other thing we can do, of course, is to have the courage to do the right things in our own lives. And to look closely and objectively at each small and large choice we make in our lives and how they effect the planet and have the courage to make those changes we need to make – before the choices are taken out of our hands.
 

This column comes to you courtesy of the Environmental Concerns Group of the DeFuniak Springs Garden Club.