March 13, 2006
Eden
Pathos is a quality that moves one to pity or sorrow. There is little comfort in it. It is not a state that one healthy of mind might favor. And yet, when reaching for a way to describe the sadness of our time both in church and state, it is pathos that covers the scene. The further tragedy is that it is so unnecessarily brought upon ourselves.
The sophisticated often cast aside the myth of Eden and the profound truth about us which that story embodies. And yet, generation after generation do we little more than repeat it, not merely to reenact it as some drama on the world’s stage, but to realize it again and again. Any careful thought about the season of spring would comprehend creation’s eternal cycle of welcome that every gardener and farmer already knows deep within. God wants us not merely as stewards of Eden, but as servant leaders mutually inspiriting and offering back the benefits of our share in all of God’s creation.
If for no other reason, God wants that offering not because of any need of hers, but because of every need of ours. All this as in order that we might attend to what was never really ours at all, but of how much of it we are allowed to enjoy as sheer grace in return for our pathetic care. Perhaps that is the sadness.