Spring has come to the mountains, and that prompts ideas.
Do you think we can tolerate a few more? Especially about race?
Splendid revival is underway in the western Sierra. New life buds and blooms, rivers are swift, despite a low snow pack, and the Red Bud trees are painting the mountains.
Warnings were posted about the cold and dangerous currents, but riparian life is thriving.
Some ideas are simple, but in the mountains they seem more grand, at least to this scribe.
Could we begin to "solve" racism, or even awaken ourselves to how deep and systemic it is, if we elevated our view?
If we could manage a cosmic perspective, seeing planet earth from a vast distance, would it have an ameliorative impact?
If we had the capacity to see our blue and mostly water planet in the context of a milieu that embraced galaxies, even rich with life, would we see life here, differently?
For the sake of this post, assume life exists in some form elsewhere in the known and unknown reaches of all creation.
How would we think about each other down here, if "we" realized how same and alike we are, compared to another life form from out there?
Do you think we can or should be trusted in space bustling with life, or might we disdain that not like us, be it any image of an "alien" you can imagine? And see, right here from the start, we have this problem of calling it or them or they, an "alien." Alien connotes something other than relationship.
If you are a person of faith and discover there is indeed life, then do you have any other choice than to recognize a spiritual kinship with that life, also a product of the forces of creation. C.S. Lewis nailed the idea when he said, "Our loyalty is not due our species, but rather our God."
So with that as a frame, could we not better see how much alike we truly are, down here on planet earth as we travel the highway of life?
I've driven these roads in Sequoia but never before when the Red Buds were blooming. Another cosmic treat.
Be kind to each other. Offer hospitality to strangers.
See you down the trail.
Speaking of offering hospitality to strangers, the Sunday New York Times has a wonderful article about the city of San Francisco buying up hotels to offer homeless people a place to stay and a chance at a life that has passed them by.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the lead. Will look for that piece.
DeleteThanks Tom.
ReplyDeleteA pleasure indeed.
DeleteI've read that all the astronauts who've been to the moon and seen our green and blue planet from afar have had the same thought of how meaningless nationalism is (my phrasing). Beautiful pictures, and some of the river looks a bit fishy, are there trout in there?
ReplyDeleteI interviewed some of the Apollo astronauts and later ISS or Skylab crews and to a person they had their views altered by that perspective.
DeleteA buddy out here, a fishing veteran, pondered the same thing. He even went so far as to say he "saw" flashes of color near some of the structure. In one of the pools we saw along the trail, we did see fish!
Yeah, I saw some 'pocket hole' areas that a nymph might work well, that area is where the breed of rainbow trout that now populate most western streams came from. McCloud rainbows.
DeleteIf everyone could just grab a lawn chair and spend a day on the moon gazing at Earth. Or better yet, have that perspective without needing to make the trip.
ReplyDeleteTo quote John of Liverpool, "...it's easy if you try...." Imagine that!
Delete