"TO HELL WITH POSTERITY . . ."

. . . was  the title of an audio lecture that I heard several years ago.  The essence of the message was that there exists within society an attitude of  'get yours while the getting is good and let those who come later get whatever may be leftl'.
There seems to be a lot of that sentiment in the 'air' these days. (Pun intended !)

    During a drought, a tourist asked a farmer, "Think it'll rain?"
The response: "Always has."  In some places in this world, the  more accurate questions are "When" and "If"; and in other parts of the U.S. the question is more like "when will these floods stop?"

    Mark Erelli sang "We are passing this world on to our kids from the moment they step out of their cribs . . . "  If the current pace of consumption, pollution, and pillage continues, what are we 'passing on'?

Planet  Earth as seen from outer space

Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer, novelist, poet, environmental activist  wrote that  "to cherish what remains of the Earth and to further its renewal is our only legitimate hope of  survival."  And another of his poems that I recently saw was even more poignant :   

           

If you believe that 'climate change' or 'global warming' are either hoaxes or much ado about nothing, the purpose of this post is not  to convince you otherwise.  Today I saw three separate items that reenforce my conviction that 'the times, they are a-changing'.  One was from an anonymous  source : "No amount of money, oil, or gold is worth more than the bees, trees, and clean water."  The other was a news release from NOAA noting that July 2019 was the hottest month on record and that 9 of the 10 hottest Julys on record have occurred since 2005.  Furthermore, "the record-warmth shrank Arctic and Antarctic sea ice to historic lows."

Dr. Rachel Cleetus, an economist and policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a New York Times article on August 15, 2019,  said that "this is not a challenge we can overcome as individuals [but only] by pooling collective resources, whether it's time or dollars or political action, that we will get to solutions."

And, while I believe her assessment to be 'spot on', I do not think that it absolves us from our  individual efforts to 'save the planet'.  There is still truth in the admonition that we should plant a tree in whose shade we will never sit.

Years ago I heard Dr. Fred Craddock say that those who cannot see beyond the time of their own birth and death are "orphans in the universe".  Posterity matters !!

Satchel

"SOMEBODY'S DARLING"

          SOMEBODY'S DARLING  was a song from the American Civil War that lamented the deaths of so many young men.  The strong message was that they were not simply an impersonal statistic or collateral damage accompanying the violence and horrors of war.  These were REAL PEOPLE with dreams, hopes, kinships, futures...
And, then, GONE !

     Unfortunately, 'somebody's darlings'  continue to die in combat  that seems universal.  A poignant line in Reuben James  (about an American vessel sunk early in World War II):  "Many years have passed since those brave men  have gone, many years have passed and still I wonder why  the worst of men must fight and the best of men must die ! "

    Warfare while horrific hardly accounts for the deaths of 
Somebody's darling.  TWICE yesterday (August 3, 2019) innocent 'darlings' going about the normal routines of life, minding their own business, wishing no one harm  did not return home.  The latest body count that I have seen indicates  20 deaths in El Paso and 9 in Dayton, Ohio.
Before that, how many ?  If, as is often claimed, 'violence is as American as apple pie', then the time has come for another kind of  pie. 

    ANGUISH  follows this violence.  An online dictionary defines anguish like this: 'severe mental or physical pain or suffering'; 'sorrow, grief, heartache, heartbreak, woe, despair'.  And, while 'thoughts and prayers' has become almost a benign cliche, there is little meaningful effort to address the complicated  matter of guns.

   Another Civil War song, Just Before the Battle, Mother,
indicated that those about to engage in battle knew that "on tomorrow, some may sleep beneath the sod'.  But if you go to the mall to buy school supplies, or go to your holy place to worship, or to a musical concert, or to school to learn, or to . . ., you don't expect such to be your  last ever activity.``

     An anguished Psalmist implored, "How long, O Lord, how long ?" (Psalm 13)  How long will 'somebody's darling' become a statistic ?
   
        Satchel