More and More People are Losing Connection with the Land
So what! What does that have to do with you and me? Why should we care?
I realize that many people living in the cities have seen no reason to even think about the land. They may have little awareness of its importance to their very existence, let alone to their personal sense of wellbeing and wholeness.
I grew up in southern Africa. My mother made sure we had a garden, fruit trees, chickens and a Jersey milk cow. Growing up on a small dairy farm herself, she knew the importance of providing a good food supply for her family. In her footsteps, I’ve grown a garden and planted fruit trees nearly everywhere we’ve lived.
However, it’s only been recently that I’ve learned the significance of the land to our wellbeing and very existence. I’ve also been impacted with how seriously God views the land, and how he expects us to respect it, learn from it, care for it, and enjoy it. J
Did you know that God really does care about the land?!
He created the land, with all its diversity, nutritional properties, and astounding beauty. Throughout my life, the beauties and wonders of nature have spoken deeply to my soul. I’m so grateful God created it beautiful ! !
In God’s creation of the land, He put into it all the amazing intelligence it needed to produce the nutrition necessary to nurture and sustain life for all the creatures. As well as more importantly, for people, His crowning creation. And God gave people right from the start, the responsibility to learn the harmonious systems of how the land functions, so that we can understand how to help it best serve the feeding of our earth’s population.
Nature’s balance and harmony can teach us.
Learning how to maximize nature’s resources for the good of society, has been an ongoing learning-curvy-road throughout history, with many ups and downs and roundabouts. People have learned much over the course of time, but they’ve also made many mistakes – even cataclysmic hazards that are now affecting all humanity around the world. We are now learning that what one society does with their ecosystem, actually affects everyone else, as the weather patterns traverse their pathways across the globe.
Government regulations and conditional subsidies to commercial farmers over most of the past century have unfortunately brought serious degradation to the land, and thus to the creatures’ and the humans’ health and wellbeing. And this is happening all over the world. The introduction of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and now GMO’s have thrown off balance the God-created harmony of ecosystems. This is affecting the healthy balance of the land itself, and thus everything else relating to the biosphere.
Lack of critical respect for the land is not new.
While the extensive use of chemicals may be relatively recent, disrespect for the land has been going on throughout history. Across the millennia, empires have risen and fallen, to a significant degree, based on how they respected and cared for their land that nourished them.
When the land is not respected and cared for, it cannot maintain the necessary elements of good health within its root systems, earth creatures, worms, microbes, essential fungi, minerals, etc. And therefore, it can’t grow food and medicinals properly, and so, the people are not well nourished. Animals and livestock are not healthy, so they can’t provide healthy food for the people either. Thus, people get sick more often, and with more and more serious diseases. And then they wonder why.
Trees die because their root systems can’t find the diversity and moisture necessary to support them. Natural forests are cut down for any number of reasons, and this deforestation changes the whole ecosystem of the area, including the balance of the water tables in the earth. Thus, deserts form and expand further and further. And people wonder why.
Cataclysmic weather patterns bring severe flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis. And people wonder why.
We’re learning more from nature’s intrinsic God-given intelligence.
Thankfully, awareness and understanding about how to care for the land is increasing. For those who are listening, nature is teaching us what it needs in order to bring restoration to the land, so that it can provide healthy nourishment to creatures and humans who depend on its provision.
God created the earth beautiful, and in perfect balance and harmony, so that it can provide abundantly everything we need to nourish and maintain life with vibrant vitality. And He declared His creation good! He also entrusted the stewardship of the earth to the people He created – to respect the land, to learn from it, to care for it, to be nourished by it, and to enjoy it!
Participate with and enjoy the beauties of creation around you!
I’ll be writing more about practical ways that every one of us can contribute to the restoration of balance and wholeness of the land around us, and thus enhance our own health and wellbeing.
In the meantime, take a moment to pause and smell the roses! To marvel over the amazing diversity and detailed beauties of God’s creation along your pathway today, and every day.
Enjoy!
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