Greetings and Blessings on this beautiful day here in New Mexico. This morning’s Fr Richard Rohr Meditation had an important question I’d like to ponder with you. This one is a little lengthy but I ask you to read it when you can. Let’s dive in….
People do some wonderful things, to the Earth and to other people. There is no doubt of that fact. At the same time, Author Debra Rienstra considers the destructive role humanity has often played in relation to the earth:
“If humans didn’t exist at all, life would continue on earth. Let’s not flatter ourselves: biologically speaking, the earth does not need us to tend and care for it. Life on earth existed for eons before we arrived. Have we made the earth better by our arrival? Theologians have long interpreted Genesis 1:26–28 [“be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it”] as God’s instruction to humans to unfold the potential of creation. Very well, but in our unfolding of potentials, we can also destroy, especially now that we have become so very fruitful and multiplied to so many billions. “Stewarding” and “caring” are only necessary because humans take things from the earth to survive.
Rienstra responds to Christians who do not take responsibility to care for the earth, believing “God will do something” to rescue us:
God allows people a great deal of freedom to do evil and ruinous things. Giving humans moral responsibility entails allowing us to act immorally and to suffer the consequences of our actions—or in the case of climate change, to let other people to suffer the consequences, at least at first. Do we really want to find out just how far God will let this go before God “does something”?
I struggle with this question every day with regard to what is happening in Gaza. When will this tragedy stop? Will God ever intervene? Yesterday it was reported that 15 Palestinian children died of malnutrition in a hospital there. Their little bodies were emaciated, which is to say skin and bones. If pictures of these broken little bodies were plastered across the media for people to see, I believe there would be worldwide outrage, and maybe something then would be done. How can the Israeli Military keep preventing food and medicine into Gaza? There are hundreds of huge trucks filled with food waiting to be allowed in, yet they are not. UN representatives on the ground there are now saying what has been obvious for awhile: Israel’s actions in preventing aid into Gaza are deliberately starving Palestinians.
I’m just asking for your prayers, not just for the people of Gaza, but for the people of Israel too. It is reported by Israeli Journalists that Israelis are so traumatized by the horrible events of October 7th that they are not even seeing what is happening in Gaza. It is not being reported. I have faith in Jewish people such that if they did see it, they would rise up themselves and put a stop to it. The rest of the world would demand a stop to this horrible conflict, too, if they saw what it was doing to these children and adults there.
Will God intervene? Is God intervening? Can something happen to make this horror known so that people worldwide demand change?
For this I pray…fervently, daily.
Peace,
Peter