A recent story about the change in ownership that will occur in farmland over the next 20 years – in today’s world it sounds like such a long time, but it isn’t – should make us consider how not just farmland, but how land in general should be used. At times it seems there’s so much land, but for those of us who live in or near congested cities, there doesn’t seem to be enough.
How do we think about land? There are national parks, of course, comprising 52.4 million acres, a number that boggles the mind, but it’s only 3% of our land area. Add to that another 9% of state and other protected areas. How do we think about conserving and protecting this small portion of nature created by God? Usually, we don’t.
How we use land is often reflected in how we treat each other. Securing land, either by violence or expropriation, results in refugee populations and not just in the Third World. Native Americans were driven off their lands and herded into reservations. Many areas sacred to them are now threatened by mining in federally owned land. How we use the land is a justice question with far reaching implications.
Prayer for the Day
Touching the earth, we listen for your voice, O God,
You who live in the soil and the sky above us;
As winds bend tree branches, we look for your presence,
You who are alive in the world around us.
Grant, O Creator of sun and sky, rain and earth,
That we let you touch us in our daily lives.
In the name of the One who is our Model,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
..old Indians still sit upon the earth instead of propping themselves up and away from its life-giving forces. For them to lie or sit upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly; they can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come in closer kinship with other lives around them.
Luther Standing Bear, Ogala Lakota writer (1868-1939)
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
Aldo Leopold, American essayist, conservationist (1887-1948)
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there God put the man. Out of the ground God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2: 8-9