Midweek
Wednesday, closing in on the end of March. I understand that the east coast is being ripped by the forth Nor’easter this year, more wet snow and high winds. I am sad for those who live along the coast and in New York. I know that climate change is the consequence of the life style which we have chosen. We burn fossil fuels because we are not human enough to say no to ourselves. A less violent and less opulent lifestyle would be the result. We’d have to do without the gargantuan LCD TV screens as the manufacture requires a massive amount of fresh water. We’d live more local, to avoid the heat load imposed by our current forms of travel.
That uncivilized part of us really does prefer the violence, the high-life at the expense of someone else. The logic of this proposition is becoming clear. The bill is now presented randomly by Nature. We can’t externalize the cost to third world societies that suffer from our absence of mercy.
I notice the news feed on my cell phone screen every morning. The headlines that come up appear more and more like something on the front page of a gossip tabloid. More women are filing suit to break confidentiality agreements for which they were paid. They want to talk about affairs with the President. Who is the victim here? Everyone, absolutely everyone, including the President. Only mercy and forgiveness can heal the wound, staunch the bleeding-out, and halt the transmission of this wasting disease.
Fragment of a Wendell Berry poem 1989.
VI
….how
shall we pray to escape the catastrophe
that we have not the vision to oppose and have
therefore deserved, and that many have desired?
