Murder We Write

"To be convinced of the sanctity of the world, and to be mindful of a human vocation to responsible membership in such a world, must always have been a burden. But it is a burdern that falls with the greatest weight on us humans of the industrial age who have been and are, by any measure, the humans most guilty of desecrating the world and of destroying creation. And we ought to be a little terrified to realize that, for the most part and at least for the time being, we are helplessly guilty. It seems as though industrial humanity has brought about phase two of original sin. We all are now guilty in the murder of creation.

"To Jesus' offer of more abundant life, we have chosen to respond with the economics of extintion.

"How must we live and work so as not to be estranged from God's presence in His work and in all His creatures?"

Wendell Berry, The Way of Ignorance


and I feel the murder for... every plastic-packaged container I open and discard, every unnecessary (and necessary) mile I drive, every piece of overabundance I have and want, each moment of my silence and complacency, each time I fail to notice the beauty around me and my thoughts of thinking our present day Abel is someone else's fault.