Masochist

I can remember, I was in junior high then, going to the airport to pick up a family friend.  He was travelling a long way to visit us in America.  It was a first-time visit.  Even though he had already been to New York, travelling through Queens and Brooklyn, Dad wanted to make sure his impression of our country was positive.  We were travelling the long way round to the airport.  I couldn’t understand the point.
 
“Why do we need to go this way?”
“Because it is prettier this way.”
“Yeah, and the point is?”
“We want to look good.”
“He knows the truth.”
“I know that.  However you always feel better when you see something beautiful.”
 
Even though a lot of time has gone by, almost forty years, I still remember the conversation.  When I see pollution, I remember.  When I watch litter carelessly flutter from a person’s hand, I want to confront.  What I realize I am falling into a thoughtless act of abuse towards my world, I think of feeling better in the presence of beauty.  I wonder if we realize what we are doing to our self? 
 
History records God acts towards a culture of evil.  The record is bleak, almost as if it was the scene of a futuristic science fiction movie.  “Edom's streams will flow sluggish, thick with pollution, the soil sterile, poisoned with waste, the whole country a smoking, stinking garbage dump—the fires burning day and night, the skies black with endless smoke.  Generation after generation of wasteland—no more travelers through this country!”  (Isaiah 34.9, 10)
 
I listen and wonder; are we masochists?  Do we realize how an act of vengeance is a pattern we accept for living, especially if we are the guilty party?  Are we doomed to continue the patter set for us by culture and tradition?
 
I may not be able to deal with the industrial pollution city but I can do something about my world.  I can act with respect.  I can take care with what I consume.  I can be a caretaker.