Bible
Humanity is gravely threatened.
May 6, 2019‘The city we now live will not last.’ [Heb 13:14]
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‘Yes, to go forth, hand pulling away from hand.
Go forth to what? To uncertainty,
to a country with no connections to us
and indifferent to the dramas of our life.
What drives you to go forth? Impatience, instinct,
a dark need, the incapacity to understand.
To bow to all this.
To let go-
even if you have to die alone.
Is this the start of a new life?’ -Rilke
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‘The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints. The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God.The leaf has its own texture and its own pattern of veins and its own holy shape and the bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength.
The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance.
The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s natural saints. There is no other like him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did, or ever will, imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity. -Thomas Merton
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The Guardian
Human society under urgent threat from loss of Earth’s natural life
Scientists reveal 1 million species at risk of extinction in damning UN report
“Human society is in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems, the world’s leading scientists have warned, as they announced the results of the most thorough planetary health check ever undertaken.”
The knock-on impacts on humankind, including freshwater shortages and climate instability, are already “ominous” and will worsen without drastic remedial action, the authors said.”
AP
“The research included more than 450 researchers who used 15,000 scientific and government reports.
A new United Nations science report says nature is in trouble and 1 million species of plants and animals are at risk of going extinct. [May 6]
The report’s summary had to be approved by representatives of all 109 nations.
The findings are not just about saving plants and animals, but about preserving a world that’s becoming harder for humans to live in, said Robert Watson, a former top NASA and British scientist who headed the report.
“We are indeed threatening the potential food security, water security, human health and social fabric” of humanity, Watson told The Associated Press.
It’s also an economic and security issue as countries fight over scarcer resources. Watson said the poor in less developed countries bear the greatest burden.”
Atticus!
July 2, 2015