Apocalypse!

Sometimes I feel like the world is ending.

Global warming. Gas at $4.15. Are these not signs of the apocalypse? Our apocalypse. It’s the end of the world as we know it.

We are all going to die and it will be our own doing.

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Either that, or this way of living must die.

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So here is the apocalypse.

What was our sin? Was it sex? Was it homosexuality? Was it cussing or guns or rated-r movies? Was it video games or rap music or drugs?

No.

We did not destroy the world with “gayness” or abortion. We destroyed it with cars. We destroyed it with chemicals. We destroyed it with cities.

We destroyed it with arrogance.

Here is my midrash:

God gave us Eden and said, “This tree is forbidden. I gave you beautiful minds, beautiful bodies, a beautiful world. Please, do not eat from this tree… Do not be selfish. Remember my words and the words of others. Do not give into greed and eat the fruits you do not need.”

How arrogant we were. We said, “We can take this fruit! We can take our knowledge and make a better world! We can build tall buildings and make cars that can drive us places so quickly! Everyone will have cars! Cars for the world! Buildings for the world! Fields of stone and metal! We will genetically engineer food to be better! We will clone animals to be better! Who needs Love? Who needs compassion? We can make a better world with OBJECTS! ”

We thought we could create things outside the walls of Love. And we did. We created a world of meaningless materialism. We needed no Love to create such things.

God cried, but we did not hear God over our ipods and televisions.

We took the beautiful minds that God gave us, thanked God for God’s work in the most polite and ritualized ways. “Thank you, God. Thank you for the world you have given us to mold and play with. We looked at your plan, but we think we have a better one.”

God didn’t ban us from the garden. We marched out in the name of progress! Expansion! Westward, ho! We abandoned God in the garden. God stayed and watered the Tree of Life with God’s tears. God said, “I will keep watering this garden. I will keep crying.”

We dig into the Earth that is God’s body and God bleeds the oil. The Earth will die; it will run out of blood.

God cries and we dig into God’s body. Hurricanes moan through the sky as God cries out in pain, “Stop! Stop! You are hurting me!”

We cry back, “God, why do you destroy us?!”

We do not see that it is we who destroy God.

Maybe, if we are willing to be silent,

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if we are willing to place our hands to the Earth, to place our hands on God, we will hear God crying in the garden. Maybe we can learn to help God water the Tree of Life.

First with our tears, as we understand the weight of our abuse.

Then with the warm sunlight of Love.

We will listen to God and do God’s work. Turn off our televisions… and listen to God, look at God. Be in God and with God in the garden, nurturing the Tree of Life.