Peter Ole Kukan is a long-time Maasai friend of ours.  He sat on our porch yesterday morning and, in the process of chewing the news, let us know that women in his village are walking 2 hours each direction for water these days.  They fill jerry cans on the backs of donkeys then begin the 2 hour journey home again. Over the next couple of days, the water is doled out like the precious commodity it is.  Not a drop is wasted.  

 

A comment to my post on Elmo caused me to consider the “heart” of environmentalism.  I am by no means an expert on the topic, but for me, as a follower of Christ, my heart for the environment begins with an understanding of where creation fits in God’s greater plan of redemption.   

 

A while back I was given the chance to publish an article online at Flourish responding to Wendell Berry’s great work “The Gift of Good Land.”  Looking back, I think it really sets forth my thinking in this area:

 

“The Gift of Good Land,” was published 30 years ago, and we reprinted it in the Fall 2009 issue of Flourish Magazine to celebrate Mr. Berry’s work, but also to provoke some questions: How has the natural world, and efforts to steward it, changed in these 30 years? How has Christianity changed? What is still relevant about Mr. Berry’s words today? What have been our successes and failures as creation’s stewards in these three decades? Where do we go from here?

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wendell and i commune outside the laundry door

my feet planted softy in the dewey grass

back warming in the gentle morning sun

 

i move up and down by the basket

spreading wide sheets and

smoothing faded t-shirts

across the sagging lines

 

from somewhere in my memory

wendell speaks

lilting lines

songs of earth and sun and field

 

in the rhythm of my work

i take pleasure

and feel joy

 

these damp garments

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