Musings on creation’s final groan

Will the day ever come when I will be able to look at the beauty of a flower in its original home without feeling the urge to pluck and pull and cut until it is firmly forced into a contrived bouquet, and nature is left bereft of its glory?

Will the day ever come when I will be able to look at the gold in the ground and resist the impulse to extract and refine and polish it for my own economic adornment?

Will the day ever come when I will be able to look at the passive serenity of a gentle bovine without being overcome with an aggressive appetite for meat and money?

Will the day ever come when I will be able to look at a beautiful, firm, young body without a yearning to turn it into a commodity of competition and entertainment?

Will the day ever come when I will be able to look at the divinely sanctioned lives of the least desirable of creatures without harbouring dark thoughts of how they intrude on my habitat?

Will the day ever come when I will share with an innocent mosquito a tiny portion of my blood without paying back a mild sting with a slap of death?

Will the day ever come when I will be able to look at creation and hold it in a gentle and loving embrace without causing harm?

Must I really wait until I see the wolf living with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child leading them?

Must I really wait until all of this beauty can only be seen dimly in the mirror of a museum?

Must I really wait until my heart is pierced with the voices of my children’s children wondering at my exploiting silence, when the earth needed an advocate?

Must I really?

Jerry Buhler is area church minister of Mennonite Church Saskatchewan.

--Posted August 13, 2014