Sunday, October 12, 2008

little flock


"Just as we show respect for the vulnerability of the deaf and blind (Lev.19:14), we are not to take a mother bird away from her vulnerable fledglings (Deut. 22:6). Newly planted fruit trees must be given three years to bear fruit before we may enjoy the fruit (Lev. 19:23). Even in wartime, we are not to harm a town's orchards. A besieging army may help themselves to the fruit, but "you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you?" (Deut. 20:19). Finally, in response to the primal instruction to "replenish" the earth (Gen. 1:28, kjv), the land is to "rest" from cultivation every seven years, lest the soil become depleted (Lev. 25:4). The world and all the creatures are God's, and we are the stewards, the "husbandmen" - a wonderful archaic term designating the love and care with which we are to care for soil and water, all creatures, and each other."

- Robert Corin Morris, in "An Altar of Earth: The Bible as Earth-Book" from Weavings - September/October 2008

1 Comments:

Blogger Danny Ray said...

It's interesting that you wrote about the fruit trees as this is something that always bothers me. I was just reading about how the US Army killed all of the fruit trees of the Navajo in Canyon de Chelle, Arizona in the 1870's when the army decided to take the native land there. I'm also always grieved when the Israeli military bulldoze olive groves in the West Bank. It feels like you are denigrating a person's past works and their hope for the future in one swoop.

October 13, 2008 at 5:31 PM  

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