Baby, it's hot outside...

As I'm writing this the temperature outside is scurrying towards the middle 90's where it's been for most of the last few weeks. And it should be that way for a while yet.

We haven't had a warm one like this for a while but temperatures this high are not unusual here in Minnesota. They were worse in the 30's. Regardless, though, the hysteria is at least as high as the temperature and therein, as they say, lies the rub.

We're different now, we've just gotten so used to having everything air conditioned that temperatures our grandparents simply accomodated are now horrid to us. It causes us panic when we can't live full time in a climate controlled environment and God forbid we would even have to be outside and work in such a world. Simple physical endurance has left us and we've become fragile.

And its at this point where the fear mongers come in, entrance stage left, and start thier path to power via fear.

I remember the 70's and the titles of major magazines breathlessly warning us about the coming global ice age. Ice age you say? Yes, that was the fear back then and now its flopped over to global warming although there are some who have been saying that global warming is responsible for some place's colder winters, unless, of course, the winter is not actually colder and that's also about global warming.

So I'm kind of skeptical about it all because frankly scientists can be just as irrational and political and agenda driven as anyone else. A simple question helps to clarify things. Who is getting what out of the latest claims about the weather? Who gets power? Who gets money? Who gets influence? Who gets control? Ask these things and start following the paper trail. You may be suprised at what you find.

In all of this Christianity presents a remarkably calm and consistent vision, unswayed by the latest sirroco winds. We are called to live simply, naturally, and with a view to stewardship of the Earth because it is God's creation and we are temporary caretakers of it all, born owning nothing, departing the same, and accountable for everything in between.

We are environmentalists not out of fear, unswayed by hysterias, and desiring no power but out of love for the Creator and His handiwork and rejoicing in the priviledge of living on this unique blue orb in the middle of light years of space. Broken as it has been by sin our island home is still full of the presence of God and reflects the unmatched artistry of the One who holds all things together over the eons. To live in harmony with nature as simply as possible, and to return as much as we can is, in its own kind of way, an act of worship, a recognition of the Creator's greatness and our response of gratitude for all this world has given us by its Framer.

Next year, perhaps, there will be a new set of headlines warning of this or that new potential catastrophe. But in the end it will be the memory of Eden and that primal call to care for this garden that will endure and we who have been given that vision would be wise to remember it always.