punctured from within
by Elouise
The photo above haunts me. Every time I look at it, I imagine us in the context of nature’s beautiful yet unpredictable fury. This is Indonesia’s Mt. Bromo. Tourists and local visitors gather around the Sea of Sand near the heart of a volcano. Steam makes its way through the upper crust and into the atmosphere.
The volcano itself is not shown in this photo. The volcano is live, though not with regular predictability. Still, its strange power draws people to it.
I can’t help feeling I’m an onlooker here in the USA to an unpredictable volcano that’s eroding our nation and our planet, with spill-over to other nations. Sometimes via spectacular eruptions. More often via mesmerizing, self-destructive behavior.
We’re being sold to the highest bidder, and our planet is grieving. As am I.
Seeping wounds drip into the atmosphere. Contempt for us and for the environment spills out. Are they signs of a future meltdown?
The sad outcomes of inhumane legislation and environmental degradation cannot be undone. The fabric of society and this globe are being punctured from within and without.
I won’t sit idly by, watching the growing head of steam. Nor will I deny its destructive power. Especially the power to destroy our planet and us in return for ill-gotten gains.
No solutions here. Just a commitment not to look the other way or sit idly by waiting for the next eruption.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 June 2017
Photo found at Pixabay.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Puncture
Telling the Truth 
I read most of, but never finished, Os Guinness’s A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future. Makes me think the time has come to circle back to that book and engage it again. Scary day.
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Yes it is, Meg. Sobering, too. Thanks for your comment and the book title.
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Nature is not furious, exactly, but is always seeking equilibrium. Anything that disrupts that, gives nature more to do, but in the end, our failures will not stop earth from correcting itself, if it needs to. From that POV earth is truly eternal. We are not.
Only question is, do we want to live on a lovely planet, or not.
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Fran, Thanks for your thought-provoking comments. I agree that nature isn’t furious in the way human beings are, for example. It is, however, responding to the way we treat and/or neglect it.
I wonder whether earth would be earth (as we know it) without the presence of diverse life forms including human beings. Also, I can’t helping noticing the strange parallel between our growing inability to relate in healthy ways toward each other (including our so-called ‘enemies’), and our growing inability and reluctance to care for our physical environment.
Obviously I’m not a scientist. Yet I observe that the way we treat our planet is linked to the way treat or regard each other, and to our seemingly unstoppable lust for more than we need, no matter the cost to other human beings, much less to our natural environment and resources. Just so long as my piece of the planet is lovely to me.
Didn’t mean to go on like this. Thanks again for your thought-provoking comments! 🙂
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I echo everything you say, thank you so much, so true.
I was struck this morning at breakfast that although I had a small supper last night and have been extremely and very active physically, I was not especially hungry.
And I remembered somewhere, the notion that physical activity out of doors, among trees and hills, moderates our appetites. Maybe that could be a key to moderating our acquisitive appetites too. The less time we spend with our feet on the ground, the more we yearn to replace that solidity with something like a thing. 🙂 XXX
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Great comment! I think the analogy with acquiring things is right on target. And all the sweet stuff is immediately available online the minute we park our butts. Or turn on our devices instead of getting up and out into nature, or even taking a few turns up and down the stairs or what have you. Or picking up the telephone and making a call to a friend or neighbor….:)
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I’ll wager those folks would make a bolt for it, if that thing starts a rumbling, like I do with my posts, rumble and ramble that is 🙂
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I know I would, though you wouldn’t catch me that close in the first place! To the volcano 🌋 that is. 😄💥⚡️🔥
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Elouise, do you not have faith in the inherent goodness of the American people?. Is this time an aberration that will pass?
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Thanks for your questions. I encounter good in many people. Not just here, but around the globe. If there is inherent goodness, it doesn’t belong to us as a nation. We’re as human as everyone else–a mixture of good and ill with the capacity to make choices for good and for evil. Frequently what we consider the good choices turn out to have bad consequences.
As for faith, I trust God more than I trust myself or any other human being. I don’t expect God to wave a magic wand for me or for others. Our Creator made us co-creators. We live with our choices for good and for evil. The consequences are passed along to our children who add their own good and ill to the mix. We can recover from poor choices, but we can’t change them or fully recover what we’ve lost.
Nonetheless, I don’t despair. All nations come and go, as do human beings. As a citizen, I’m responsible for making the best possible choices I can today, in light of their anticipated impact on other human beings and on the planet. It isn’t easy now and I don’t expect it to be easier later.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Elouise
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The only answer is for every human being to take responsibility for his or her choices and actions.
Action does matter. Last week, a campaign of which I was a part succeeded in freeing a magnificent elephant who had been abused and chained for 51 years. I cried with joy. Action matters.
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Yes! Great comment. Thanks, Pamela.
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And may I add that right actions can seem small, because we have been collectively conditioned to think that the only worthwhile actions are huge things that catch the attention of and engender respect or at least fear from others. But a helpful action done with an open, living spirit that seeks the highest good for all creatures and for the planet is powerful. Period.
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Absolutely! 💐
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