What if we loved the world?

Loving the world, all of it

What if we loved the world today? I mean each day, every day, we lived as if we were in love with the world, and treated it as a sacred gift?

I’m not talking about spiritual bypassing (whatever that really means exactly), nor positive thinking for positive thinking’s sake. The well intentioned concept of positive thinking has deteriorated into pretty much the same thing as spiritual bypassing, from what I can gather from the various uses and misuses of both those terms.  They’ve become hashtag short-cuts that have been watered down so much that they might as well be part of a teenager’s wall poster collection, next to that magazine cut-out of their favorite pop star.

Too harsh? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps I’m simply in a “let’s get down to the roots” kind of mood. Neither Pollyanna (and definitely not Aunt Polly) nor Debbie Downer…simply Rueful Reflector. I’m not talking about reducing everything down to the Glad Game that Pollyanna’s father taught her. Although when you think about it, the Glad Game did help out Pollyanna and her townspeople cope with some of life’s harsh realities. That novel explored some of the meanest of the mean, as exemplified by the character Aunt Polly. It’s the modern-day cutesiness of that phrase that I’m contesting here.  As in “just love the world, be happy, everything’s fine” sort of way…which is not actually the true meaning of the original story, anyway.

Back to my main point: Enough of this “otherness.” It’s time for an all-in-this-ness. Did I coin a new phrase, just now?

The indigenous peoples understood this. Not only the covenant of an all-in-this-ness among peoples, but also among non-peoples. We are all guests on this planet, passing through: The humans, the plants, the trees (many of whom have and will outlast us), the winged ones, the finned ones, the creepy-crawlers. The air, the fire, the water, the earth. They work together in a circle of creation and sometimes helpful recreation, even through their strategically destructive forces. They all play an interconnected part, and not apart (deliberate play on words) from the whole.

Do we? With each other? With them? The elements? The other inhabitants of this planet we share? Or, are we purely the destroyers?  What is it that we as a species contribute to the planet and its inhabitants? What’s progress?  What are advancements? Are they what help sustain all of us, or only some of us…only to destroy all of us, ultimately?

What arrogance to assume that we as a species are the ones who “know better”. If we truly know better, then why are we allowing our species to be responsible for the ecosystems’ (and our own) undoing and eventual demise?

For your consideration

My provocative proposal (I wish it weren’t so provocative) is this: Let’s be in love with the world. Let’s take that to be a sacred responsibility, and not something to be summarily dismissed as a kooky granola crunching adage. Instead, consider it a rallying cry!

Okay, your turn:

What is our role as human beings, living on this planet? Do we have a responsibility to care for it and each other – now and for future generations? Or, is it all simply “ours for the taking”?

I invite you to share your thoughts, feelings, and experiences by leaving a Reply in the Comments section, below. Soul-to-soul!

© 2020 Lori A. Noonan. All Rights Reserved.