A friend of
mine from Atlanta sent me a series of photos this morning of beautiful trees
from around the world with the suggestion that perhaps I should get one of them
for my downtown jungle yard. They are beautiful specimens of flora from a good
Creation for sure.
1000 year old olive
tree, Greek island Aegina
One of the
things that struck me as I read the descriptions was that many of the trees were
over 100 years of age. To have attained such a venerable age says much about
the interaction of the tree with the animal species in its vicinity, most
importantly the human animal. The presence of a century old tree points toward
a recognition of the inherent (as opposed to instrumental) value of the trees,
a reverence for life found in a different species but essential to the life of
the planet we share. There are very few things more awe-inspiring than standing
at the foot of a giant sequoia which was a good sized tree well before the life
of a Jewish prophet named Jeshua (Latinized: Jesus) would change the western world.
Periodically
issues of development came up in the classes I once taught. Confessing up front
that I am a fifth generation Floridian with deep roots in a state which has
endured more than one round of destructive practices which often hide behind
benign labels such as “development,” I then regaled my students with this
excerpt from the Handbook on How to
Create a Florida Development.
Literalist Alert: This
is satire.
First you use a
bulldozer to scrape every living being from the face of the earth for your new
“development.”
Then you create
a system of asphalt streets with no curbs or storm sewers ending in cul-de-sacs
with one street connecting the entire development to the main highway. Things
will get real chummy with the driver of car number 12 in line ahead of you turning left
across traffic at the egress from this development about 7:30 AM.
Next a large
hovering machine looms overhead and from the nozzle on the bottom of the
craft begins to excrete houses made of particle board covered with plaster, each almost
exactly like the other, in rows down the new streets now bearing exotic names:
Balboa Parkway, Muir Woods Drive, Fairway Lane.
The houses are then
painted different colors and some superficial stone work provides a façade of
diversity but they’re the same houses.
Then, a stick
with a couple of leaves is planted by the street so it can be advertised as a
tree-lined street and sod is unrolled to give the appearance of a yard.
Finally, the
“development” is given an inspirational name: Osprey Landing or some such...
...recognizing that the only place for an osprey to land here anymore is the satellite dish out back.
Something to
think about as you sit in traffic creeping along the expressway into town at
rush hour, whiffing the tail pipes of several thousand of your most intimate friends from out in the
suburbs.
Osceola wept.
[All photos
taken from Google images]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Harry
Scott Coverston
Orlando,
Florida
If the unexamined life is not worth
living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is
not worth holding.
Most things worth considering do not
come in sound bites.
For what does G-d require of you but to
do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d? (Micah
6:8, Hebrew Scriptures)
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