My senior year of high school I took the newly created class of AP Environmental Science. Every 3 weeks we were supposed to bring in a current event and lead a mini-class discussion on it. Though I was good friends with many of my classmates and enjoyed the class immensely, I found myself slowly getting more and more depressed. Every story we could possibly find was about the destruction of the world around us. Every once and a while we'd get something on green technology but the future engineers among us would poke so many holes in it that it became swiss cheese. And that was looking at a global level. Eventually I started to feel it hit closer to home.
"Grief for trees becomes a lament for the loss of the sacred." (189)
I know I felt this quote in more ways than one. I'm from the small town of Dripping Springs which has slowly begun to grow bigger and bigger. At first it was barely noticeable because businesses just filled empty store fronts. But then the clear cutting began and the new strip centers showed up. We only have 2 so far but I know it's only going to continue to get worse. But the first personal, religious impact I felt is when my episcopal church moved locations. For my entire childhood I had gone to a double-wide trailer next to a goat farmer with my Mom and little brother. We used to get out of service sometimes only to discover that some of the goats had gotten lose. It would start a merry chase of the older kids trying to help round them back up while I chased the older kids.
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| This is home to me (quite literally). I love the trees and the unkempt grass and the general beauty of nature. |
But the congregation got bigger and we needed a bigger church so we bought a larger chunk of land up on a beautiful hill and constructed a lovely building. Except, it isn't really my home. I still think back to my old church where the sunday school was in a little temporary building and there was no paved road. But I can't even visit anymore because the "paved paradise and put up a parking lot." My town is growing up so fast that they paved over the old goat farm and church location to make room for a Home Depot and HEB. How commercial is that? And now I feel like I've lost a part of myself in the disappearing landscape. It seems the West is all about advancement and that sort of thought of manifest destiny yet I feel that a lot of the time we're just spinning our wheels.
"The third point that the West can learn from the East is a feeling of mildness and compassion." (207)
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| Shinto shrines try to simply blend with the surrounding natural beauty. |
I will admit, it seems that the West is obsessed with organized religion and following a set of specific rules for which ever doctrine you believe in. You're either Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, etc. but never do they just say "be kind to your fellow man no matter what they believe." I feel like each has a very strict code you must adhere to if you want to go to heaven. It may not be the most accurate picture but that's how I've always seen it. However, in the East it's not so much about religion as it is a philosophy. Shintoism and Confucianism are examples of philosophies- bot organized religion. They simply ask you respect our home-this planet earth- and treat all living things with respect. That seems to make a lot more sense to me. But then again, no one is perfect.
"It is ironical that such practices have been stopped in India, but in our own Land of Buddha, people are taking to violence in such cold-blooded manner in the name of religion." (203/web article)
This quote refers to the mass animal sacrifice made in Nepal every 5 years to a Hindu goddess. The extent of the carnage is unbelievable and the means by which they kill the animals is brutal to say the least. Even in my wish to idealize the East as having a solution to the current problems we face in expressing compassion, I have to be wary that the reality isn't always so rosy.
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