Once upon a time there was a mother with many children. Like most parents, this mother loved her children and did all she could to provide for, care for, and nurture them. She gave sacrificially of herself year after year. Not all of her children, however, followed her example. Some proved to be very selfish, demanding, arrogant, and inconsiderate of their siblings and of their mother. The stronger children ran roughshod over the weaker ones, taking more than their share of the bounty their mother provided them. But even that was not enough to satisfy their greed and pride. So, they demanded even more from their mother while denying their brothers and sisters what was rightfully theirs.
The mother continued to provide for all her children as best she could, but she was being taxed to the limit by their incessant demands. Her health began to fail, and she began to grow tired. But her children went even further in their demands. And some of the strongest began to violate her in the most horrible and intimate of ways. She was abused body and soul. The weaker children, hungry and suffering because of the inadequate resources they were allowed by their stronger brothers, in desperation also demanded more from their mother and in anger abused her in their own ways. But through all this, the mother did not try to defend herself. It was not in her nature to do so. She could only love. She could only give. But she quietly wept over the broken family she so deeply loved and desperately tried to keep together.
One day one of her daughters, who loved her mother and grieved to see her so abused, asked all her siblings to gather together to consider the plight of the one who had given them life. As the children came together, the daughter placed before them in a passionate appeal the suffering and exhaustion of their mother. But the discussion proceeded along predictable lines. The stronger children refused to give up their advantage, refused to share their surplus with their weaker siblings, and refused to demand less so that their mother could refresh herself and be renewed. And the weaker children cried out that they could not be expected to change their ways, for those ways, pitiful though they may be, kept them from immediate death. And some children even doubted that their mother was as weak and ill as had been proposed. Who really knew how long she could continue to provide for her children? She had never failed in the past, and the scare tactics of some were not sufficient for all the children to change their ways of living. The gathering thus ended with nothing substantially changed. Oh, each child came up to their mother, hugged her, told her how much they loved her, but there was no intention on the part of many to change their greedy, demanding, and abusive ways. The daughter who had called the gathering together and the mother were left alone, holding one another and weeping over the mother’s plight and fractured family.
The days and years passed, with even more being demanded of the mother. Finally, one day something happened which everyone knew could happen but no one believed would happen. Mother Earth died and all her children with her. And this time heaven wept.
(I plead with you to read Bill McKibben’s new book entitled Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? I have read most of McKibben’s books beginning with The End of Nature which he wrote in 1989. He has been proven correct in his analyses and predictions time and time again. His 2011 book entitled EAARTH shook me to the core of my being. Falter is his latest book with the latest info about the fate of the earth. Considering the topic and what he says, it may well be the most important book I’ve ever read. Please read it. Once you do, you will realize why I am asking this of you. Perhaps we can join the movement to save Mother Earth before it’s too late.)
