Stewards

Remember when you were a kid and you received a new pair of sneakers? You were thrilled by their newness, how they shone and how you walked a little taller and somehow ran a little faster.

When I would put on a new pair of sneakers I would walk very carefully so as to keep them looking new and shiny as long as possible. I think a lot of kids did this because there was the stupid prank where some idiot kid would spot you sporting your shiny, new sneaks and would come over to you shout.....I cant remember the word....(if you can let me know as I must have blocked it from my memory) and then proceed with his old, dirty shoe to stomp on the top of your unsullied, glistening shoe marking it with a dirty shoe print. I hated that. My spiffy new sneakers would never be quite so new again and it really smarted when the idiot kid did his little prank early on in the school day.

Folks say that today's young adults are part of the "throw away" generation and we build things cheaply on the premise that within five years or so they will break and need replaced or a newer, always smaller, able to do more zips and zings version will appear and one must upgrade. It's not just the younger generation that is prey to this.

I was thinking about these things as I am troubled about the drought burning up and drying out a majority of the United States and especially the midwest. And, as a global citizen, realizing this type of drought is a too frequent occurrence for many of the world's population.

New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, calls the bizarre weather patterns --- the record-setting snows in Europe, our ridiculous heat wave, the rash of tornadoes and earthquakes --- as the "season of global wierding." I can not shake what we are doing to the planet, the only one we get, and doing so without much alarm or shared intent by all of us to reverse course.

Each morning is a new day, glistening, fresh, with soft morning light slowly coming to fullness --- watching this one feels the possibility of new beginnings. Sadly, it doesn't take long for greed, expedience, and control to stomp on it.

Again, there is no new, faster, brighter, more balanced version to upgrade to --- this earth is it. No, I'm not banking on the moon community and residing in lunar land.

We need to be intentional about caring for the planet. It is out of balance because we are out of balance to such a degree that we have made our world out-of-whack. How much more evidence is needed or how much more "global wierding" until we wise-up and take our stewardship seriously?

sj;