Lots has been going on in Preuett land here lately: preparing for a move, getting back into productive routine, playing, and developing social skills (you know, like communicating what is frustrating you before getting angry or acting out of anger, focusing on doing your task to the best of your ability, instead of on what the person next to you isn’t doing right, folding your laundry, asking for help when you need it, etc…). In addition to these things and many others, I have still been writing, but not on my blog. It feels good now to sit down again to share some thoughts with, well, myself, but also with you.
Let’s start off with some definitions, taken from the Britannica Dictionary:
Environment: the conditions and influences that affect the growth, progress, etc. of someone or something.
Environment: the natural world
Environmentalist: A person who works to protect the natural world from pollution and other threats
When I speak about the environment in this post, I am using the word in relation to the natural world, but also in relation to our own personal environments as fits within the scope of the natural world. Which is, entirely.
Environmentalism isn’t my specialty. I’ve read books on waterways and the history of waterways and systems in America (which, by the way, was very disturbing), and have studied up on some ways that certain environmental pollutants affect our bodies and the world around us. I’ve also done some composting and recycling, but that’s about it. Let me say right now, it’s a relief to know that there are environmentally conscious people who are unreservedly researching and developing practices and laws directly concerned with stewarding our world and our bodies better. I want to be more in tune with what’s going on in these spheres, but first I must learn to be more in touch with what’s going on right around me, in the world that I touch every day, in the inputs and outputs of mine and my family’s daily life.
Here in the South, environmentalism could be synonymous to them crazy yanks still tryna take what’s rightfully ours. The words “all natural,” “organic,” “antibiotic free,” “dye free,” “naturally sourced,” can hit certain groups of us the wrong way. Then there are phrases like “agricultural toxins,” which absolutely raise the hair on our hackles. Another side of the conversation down here is the health industry, which will dish out meds in abundance, and which is content to treat patients without a properly thorough knowledge of their individual environments and whole person issues. In the defense of the medical system’s general method of practice in these here parts, treating isolated symptoms is what most folks probably prefer, because it means we can go on with life as usual, without questioning decisions we’ve made, lifestyles we’ve chosen, environmental agendas we’ve supported, and generations of occupational practices that depend on the exploitation of the natural world.
Now that I’ve indirectly questioned some of the values of half of my readers, not to mention part of my own heritage, and the industry that sustains many of my favorite places and dietary privileges, let’s continue. Regardless of our feelings and convictions, the Creator of this world has some things to say:
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’”
So God created man in His own image,
In the image of God He created him;
Male and female He created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ and God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ and it was so. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.”
(Genesis 1:26-31, ESV)
“Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
(Genesis 2:7)
“The LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”
(Genesis 2:15)
First of all, this world is the living masterwork of God.
When we notice that this creation is in distress, we shouldn’t hesitate to assess the situation we’ve noticed, and we shouldn’t hesitate to thoughtfully act in a way that protects the life remaining and prevents further desecration. Sometimes it gets complicated, but this reality applies to both natural and social environmental issues, and is, in my opinion, the lens through which we should view the people and world around us.
Secondly, God created the living systems of this world to grow, thrive, bear fruit, and sustain one-another.
Thirdly, God created humankind from the earth itself, then He put the breath of life in them, for the purpose of ruling the earth, keeping and working (we could say maintaining, guarding, and tending) the earth.
I’m going to take point 2 and 3 together. The world was made by God, and we were given to it. Yep. We were given to it. He gave us its fruit for food, and he gave it us as nurturers and protectors. God gave the produce of the earth to the animals too. It could be argued that if our method of usage of the earth’s resources results in a degenerating cycle of depletion of the earth’s fruitfulness and health, and leaves many of the earth’s creatures (including mankind) without sustainable food and shelter, we are violating both creation and God’s intended purpose for ourselves. There are countless practical applications.
Now brace yourself, because the next part is likely to be offensive to you. Actually, maybe just stop reading now.
I live in the rural south. I love the hills, the farms, the old farmhouses and barns, and the people. I love how life out here often times feels more simple, closer to nature, closer to God. I believe that many people here love farming, because they love the land, and they love developing it and seeing it produce seed and fruit that can benefit others.
As much as I’d like to be all sunshine in the hay field and good-ole’ boyin, if the crop is diseased, you can’t sell it. While there is good in folks and their practices that should be noted, when good things are used as fodder for our turn-a-blind-eye machine (a more subtle version of ends-justify-the-means, in which the person or group of people involved don’t even necessarily fully acknowledge the means), we should take a heavy minute to think through things.
Some of us within conservative Christian circles like to make the creation accounts of Genesis 1-2, whether directly or by logical implication of our arguments, about some perverse dialogue on how and why we should oppress and exploit the people and things within our particular environments. I’m not innocent. The lies of Satan are subtle and alluring. And they start in the garden. There is reason for personal conviction and belief inspection if the conclusions of your self-justifications or religious validations in connection with the creation account and your environment, result in intentional, unintentional, careful, or careless tyrannizing of others and the natural world around you.
When the developing, tending, and sustaining of our personal wealth is our driving directive, rather than the nurturing of the world and people within our care, everything and everyone eventually becomes little more than fuel for our machine. When our hunger for power, wealth, or even for basic needs becomes the sustenance of our identity, everything and everyone eventually becomes material for our consumption. Eventually, we too must be consumed.
Let me flesh this out a little bit. Take, as a quick example, water pollution. There are plenty of varieties of destructive water pollution, but let's just consider mercury: we dump mercury waist in the ocean, and in our rivers and streams. That mercury eventually works its way into water sources and fish. Then what happens? We eat it. Mercury poisoning is a real thing, that messes with the female reproductive system in multiple ways, along with all sorts of other health issues. That's just one example. There are so many others that reinforce my consumption cycle hypothesis.
I grimace to write this, but again the practical issue of agricultural practices, in the south in particular, is another, more offensive example, both in its history, and in its present day reality. The mass exploitation of humans for the purpose of sustaining our wallets, instead of using our wallets to sustain humans, defined the most successful, culture-influencing farming market of our heritage. Jump ahead to present day mass crop production, and see the exploitation of soil, the poisoning of ground water and the air we breathe, and the monopolization of the agricultural market (shared by the Big Meat Production industry).
Both practices emphasize using everything within the owner’s power to maximize his or her own personal inputs, while turning a blind eye to the generational, societal, and environmental havoc wreaked by unmanaged, self-serving power. The reality of current day cancer rates in the southern and midwestern agricultural states is horrifying. The offspring of the Africans who were enslaved here, now find themselves, along with the offspring of slave-owners, and everyone else, in the bitter dregs of a culture and natural world that was laboriously developed on greed and self-indulgence, under false pretensions of Christianity.* Hear me. There absolutely are other components to our cultural history of caring for the people and environments in which we find ourselves. Good components. Were there many hard-working farming families that helped tend the land and build communities? Were there Christian men and women who advocated for the exploited? Undoubtedly.
I would argue, however, that we here in the USA have developed a food production system that marginalizes more sustainable, ethically operating, small-operation farmers, while simultaneously poisoning our own people, whether intentionally or not. It seems obvious to me when reflecting on generations past and present, that greed does not sustain anything but a cycle of death.
I don’t think farmers are evil, don’t miss my point: We are all in positions of power over some aspect of our environment, whether in our homes, yards, or grocery stores. If our approach to interacting with creation and people is driven by personal gluttony and money or stuff-lust (which I personally believe is going to be true to a certain extent in every single one of us), there are going to be warped areas in our thinking and living that we absolutely must be held accountable for if we are to live in creation in the way we were meant to. Which brings me to my last point.
There is a fourth and final point that I would argue is a central, though generally disregarded, theme of Genesis 1-2. We were created to delight in the creation. The earth was presented to us and the rest of the creatures formed of it, for our delight.
We were created to find joy in this earth; to delight in the fruit and grass and the sky, to tend and nurture the living things with joy. We were created to delight in one-another.
How can we properly tend the earth, how can we properly use the power we have to bring life-giving order on this earth if we don’t delight in the creatures and creation around us? If you delight in someone, you love them, and you seek their health, happiness, and growth. Same goes for the natural world. This world is broken and difficult. Distortions are all around us and in us. Death and hunger is everywhere. But y’all, there is also so much beautiful, so much living, and so much worth advocating for, protecting, and tending.
In a world that runs off of the systemic exploitation of people and resources, choose to find your delight in the justice of joy: the justice that sees every human being, and all of creation, as worth delighting in.
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