Not Green

My favorite color is orange.

While I’m like most humans with an aesthetic preference for blue (it has to do with the mechanics of vision in our eyes), I would rather wear orange. That’s because when I’m on my bike, orange makes it easier for drivers to see me. If not, it makes it easier to find the body later on.

And I have come to the point where my bicycle is more important to me than any/all of my computers. Think of it as a wheelchair in effect, in that all the hiking and running I used to do is no longer possible, but biking remains possible. The real issue is getting outside and doing something solitary and physically demanding so that my heart can push through the clutter and get my brain’s attention. It’s a blessing, a means to draw closer to God and hear His voice. His Word promises that He generally encourages that sort of thing and after all these years of riding my bicycle in motor traffic, the Lord still protects me. I suppose angels are riding alongside on ethereal bikes.

A part of me is aware that my bicycle is far less harmful to my fellow humans, in terms of pollution, than my car and all my computers. I’ve already stated bluntly that I like computers as the one means to finding fellowship with my fellow believers. My particular religion is esoteric enough to mean the fellow believers are few and far between. The Internet is the only way we can find each other for the most part, since the same thing that gave us computers is what has made us so rare on this planet. Nothing personal, my sweet parish family, but if there were people in geographical proximity who shared my religion, I wouldn’t have gotten involved with the Internet very much. But you came first, so even if a church grows up now in my area, I’d still keep the channel open.

But let’s be honest: Computers and the Internet are pretty hard on Creation. The economic realities of connecting globally means cranking out some truly nasty toxins into our world. Much less so than a bicycle, but bikes aren’t pure as the driven snow, either.

Unlike the Greens, we do not worship “nature” itself. We do not fall down to the creature (Creation), but to the Creator. We know that He gave us the means to do stuff in this world that allows us to share our devotion to Him. He knows that it means we have to use some of the resources in nature in ways that are distinctly unnatural. He made the world capable of absorbing and self-cleaning a certain amount of that. But does anyone really need to explain that humans have long pushed beyond the limits of what nature can absorb long-term?

When I post pictures on the other blog of the North Canadian River or other water features, I would like to remind you that the beauty of that water, so pleasing to the eyes, always comes with an offense to the nose — the water is polluted somewhat. Always. You can’t drink it safely. In it’s natural state prior to the settler invasion, the natives didn’t have that much trouble drinking it. Yes, some water sources are naturally toxic, but these days most of the water in the world requires some clean-up on a scale unimaginable before massive human exploitation of natural resources.

I imagine we could rediscover some kind of balance, some kind of homeostasis with nature, even with our current world population. But going that route would probably reduce the population somewhat as a natural result. I’m not eager to see a die-off like that, but a part of me knows it’s for the sake of something better. We aren’t likely to see it.

Even less likely are we to see the Green Dream. Theirs is more than a political agenda; it’s a heathen religion. Their religion calls for the extermination of the vast majority of the human race. Only a tiny handful of their religious elite are worthy of living in a pristine natural world, as they view it. Hand them the power and you can be sure wars would ratchet up to a new global density of slaughter that we can’t fathom. They have a jihadi’s zeal for their gods.

For us, the Law Covenants explain what God intended for us. Not so much in the sense of Eden, but in the sense of making the most of what’s left after the Fall. The Laws tend to sound superficially Green to some degree; the Laws reflect a respect for Creation as a living being. While I feel no sense of personal guilt about having computers, I do share in the broad common human guilt of abusing God’s creation — I’m still fallen. But when I’m out riding my bike and hearing the trees and grass alongside the road calling out to me with celebration of God’s living character, I’m far more alive than I am sitting here typing on this keyboard. I have to take that ride so I’ll have something to type when I get back here.

And it’s not so much that I really have to be alone on those rides, but I can’t really share that experience with anyone around here who might be otherwise interested in riding with me. If some of you were cyclists in my area, we could have church on the wheels, worshiping and singing as we pedaled along. No church experience I’ve had would come close to that. I can dream, can’t I?

But I would recommend we all wear orange in such worship, not green.