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.
