It seems that everything has to pay its own way these days.
Everybody and everything must be able to state its case for its value,
significance and why anybody should pay attention. And, in these days of efficiencies
and effectiveness to determine whether there is value in keeping you, it,
whatever, around, it’s more important than ever to be able to state your case.
Even if you are plants and trees. Maybe, on the planet where
8 billion people and growing means ever shrinking habitat for every other
species (I heard a news blurb this week about how the greatest threat to lions
in Africa is not poaching but rather shrinking habitat…..and I thought to
myself…..”this is news?” loss of habitat as the key threat to all of the animal
life in biodiversity is ecology 101 from the middle part of the 20th
century!) it’s not surprising we need to state the case for plants and trees.
Time (July 25, 2016), in “The Healing Power of Nature,”
cites studies indicating the wellness virtues of spending time outside walking
the forest floor. Ok, if it takes the telling with significant data how the
outdoors increases human serenity and health in order to get us to set policy
that will safeguard greenness, bring it on.
If we can’t see the forest’s intrinsic value and therefore work to not
to destroy it all but rather need to see it’s extrinsic payoff in order to pay
attention, please collect more data and publish more stories like this:
spending time outdoors 1) can lower blood pressure 2) increase awe 3) promote
cancer-fighting cells 4) help with depression and anxiety 5) help with ADHD
symptoms. And then this: even “fake nature has benefits.” If you can’t actually
get outdoors, pictures of it or looking through windows helps too!
To me this is another indication of the new look of how
stewardship of creation that disciples of Jesus do: we don’t so much take care
of creation as it takes care of us. But because we dominate we necessarily do
need to take care so that it can continue to take care of us.
