When I read Miles's letter I also
remembered a quotation from a book by Charles de Lint:
"... he had understood, better
than anyone ... the beauty that grew out of the simple knowledge that
everything, no matter how small or large it might be, was a perfect example of
what it was."
How wonderful it would be if every
day each of us could open our hearts to at least one newly met thing.
*****
HURRICANE KATRINA
I've spent each of my last ten or
so summers in the woods outside Natchez,
Mississippi. If I had stayed
there this summer today's Newsletter wouldn't have been issued, for there'd be
no electricity to power the computer and maybe no phone.
My heart goes out to everyone whose
lives were upset by Hurricane Katrina, and I know that a goodly number of
Newsletter readers find themselves in that group.
I think that this is a good time in
which to reflect on that feature of human nature which made this disaster worse
than it had to be. This is an important subject because the same tendencies are
directing us all toward even greater disasters.
When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Sieur de
Bienville, engineers on the scene said from the very beginning that it was a
bad location. It was a classic case of science being overruled by politics and
big business.
Today science points to water
tables already too low in places where politicians encourage more growth and
big business builds new homes. Science shows that wetlands are vital to Earth's
Web of Life, but politicians and big business drain swamps and pave them over.
Science says that global warming will cause catastrophic consequences for the
entire Earth, but the President says that dealing with it would be bad for
American business.
At some point we must begin
respecting the fact that when it comes to something as important as the
continuation of Life on Earth, the ephemeral concerns of politics and big
business should not be allowed to trump the hard-won, eternal facts of science.
The thinking process must not stop
there, however. The next insight to face is this: Politicians and big business
are doing no more than providing the goods and services demanded by the general
public.