"All you need is love."

The benches were uncomfortable; the air, stifling. Up at 3 AM, we climbed the school bus for our last ride and left Sahsa and our week of medical work and construction behind. We traveled past fields of cattle and areas denuded by Hurricane Felix.We caught glimpses of the dry tropical forest which once covered the entire area. Wooden houses where children in tatters stared at us,and laundry hung on barbed wire fences often had brand new latrines with smart cement block steps, recently built by some visiting NGO.
At 8 AM we ate stomach churning food in Comida Abril where we had eaten on our journey in; in 2 small crowded planes we flew West acoss the rolling green mountains and finally arrived back at our base, Casa Nehemiah,in Managua. We ate a delightful meal the cook had prepared for our return, showered, and finally came to this place for evening Mass on Sunday, Valentine’s Day.
The benches were uncomfortable; the air stifling. The priest, accustomed to having pale gringo faces amongst his bronze congregation, welcomed us, asked us where we had been, what we had done. Later, when we greeted each other with the peace of God the warm smiles and handshakes of the congregation blessed us.
This place, Batahola Norte, a sanctuary of learning and peace in the midst of great poverty, is noted for its beautiful music--both classical and folk. The evening Mass was filled with music of young people, and the whole service brought us welcome and peace and a deep sense of Gd’s presence.
At the end of Mass a young girl, who I would guess didn’t know there would be English speaking gringos in the audience, stood next to the piano and in a voice high and sweet began to sing:
“Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.”
Stumbling over the last lines, she smiled and began again.

all you need is love,love is all you need, love.

Indeed, as Paul said to the Corinthians, we may be talented, rich, skillful, acclaimed, but if we have not love, we are nothing.
When we recite the oft quoted John 3:16 “for God so loved the world that he sent his son..,” we are so delighted to hear the God loved us..sending Jesus to redeem us from ourselves, that we miss the very significant opening: God so loved the world.
That statement of love goes hand in hand with the opening of the entire Bible....--In the beginning God created... Those of us who know artists or composers or writers or who have read about their lives, know that creating a work of art is a challenge and a struggle, a compulsion, a chore, but is also an act of love.
--Genesis 1-the most familiar creation story--is a day by day description of the creation, and the refrain kee tov How Good! follows many of the days of creation. Imagine an exclamation point after those words: feel the delight and pride implicit in those words.
Genesis 2, is a creation story different in tone and style than the first. It is a more personal image of Gd as farmer, husbander of plants and animals and earth. In it God first plants a garden; then creates man by breathing on the dust of the ground and then he plants trees--both pleasing to the eye and good for food. God forms the wild animals and the birds of the sky out of the ground, and God brings them to Adam to name.There is an implicit sense of delight and intimacy here between God and all his creatures; God couldn’t just let them roam un-named, so he gave them to Adam to name. Their names identified them gave them status and purpose and meaning. And God, concerned for poor solitary man, creates woman; the beauty of the Garden is to be shared. Perhaps if we read this more personal and intimate creation story first our beloved planet wouldn’t be so beleaguered.
The ancient poet who wrote this delightful story is not concerned so much about the creative process, the time events happened, or the order in which they happened, but the relationship between Creator and created. There is tenderness; there is personal engagement; God is not dispassionate, but fully involved
Read these little details; realize how deeply Gd enjoyed the process of creation, and more significantly; realize how God so loved the world.
In a different time and place God confronted Job, with one of God’s most famous questions: “Where were you when I lay the foundations of the earth?” Speaking out of the whirlwind God challenges Job to reorient his thinking and perspective about himself and his place in Gd’s world.
What follows that brain rattling, thundering question is an exquisite poem to the beauty and mystery of the natural world and Gd’s hand in it.
Perhaps we all need to hear that question again; chastising us; challenging us; and reminding us, God so loved the world.
All of us--many of us at least--have deep and fond memories of time spent out of doors. It was what we did; it provided both delight and wonder.
And we took it for granted. We never thought we would have to wonder if there was a place for the orioles to return to during our winter;
We never wondered if the monarchs would come back to pollinate the milk weed. We didn’t think that the flyways would become so over-developed; that the pipe lines would be so intrusive, that the birds and animals could no longer continue their ancient and instinctive patterns of life.
We thought that we could keep pumping and fishing and building and squandering and somehow it would all still be there. We never really thought that we might run out of oil; that coal was a serious pollutant, that Byron’s line “Man marks the earth with ruin; his control stops with the shore,”. would prove to be a lie We thought science could solve it all; we thought monoculture was the way forward; that the right chemicals would help feed the world; save the planet.
We can all say: I remember when: winters weren’t so mild; summers weren’t so hot; hurricanes weren’t so fierce; floods weren’t so powerful...We all remember when there was no pollution index to warn those with breathing problems not to go outside..
We have all witnessed changes in our natural environment that are unsettling and make us fearful for our future generations.I don’t have to detail what is happening to our planet; to this world God created with love and delight. You know that in the past 200 years the amount of C02 in the atmosphere has increased drastically, effecting weather, sea level, and the spread of insects and other creatures outside their normal habitat.
You know hurricanes are more severe, drought is more severe, and desertification is spreading, as is sudden and abrupt flooding.
You know that the Artic is warming to the point where soon there will be year round navigable channels through it and already nations are arguing over rights to the area.
You know that someday someone will read Hemingway’s “Snows of Kilamanjaro” and wonder that there ever was snow there.You know that we in the U.S. are 5% of the world’s population, yet cause a quarter of all climate pollution.
As general public we were so unaware; so oblivious;and perhaps so indifferent. But now we do know; we are aware; we have no reason not to be engaged; concerned,
The urgent need for us to care for the earth has been so politicized, so polarized that we miss the point of it all: it has become red or blue; conservative or liberal; left or right; pro or anti; we, like that naked emperor, refuse to see what is right in front of us.Attention must be paid.
What should happen is that the urgent need for us to care for the earth shold be theologized not politicized.
Gus Speth, dean of the school of forestry at Yale University speaking to a group of religious leaders said. “I used to think the top environmental problems facing the world were global warming, environmental degradation and ecosystem collapse,” he said, “and that we scientists could fix those problems with enough science. But I was wrong. The real problem is not those three items but greed, selfishness and apathy. And for that, we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that. We need your help.”(quoted in Naked Vegetarianism by Rev Pat Watkins)
A wonderful story about the Garden of Eden goes thusly:
“G-d led Adam around all the trees of the Garden of Eden. And G-d said to Adam: 'See My works, how good and praiseworthy they are?! And all that I have created, I made for you. [But,] be mindful then that you do
not spoil and destroy My world - for if you spoil it, there is no one after you to repair it.’”
We are stewards of the earth and its resources and we have not been mindful; we done a bad job of it; we have let greed; individualism; supernationalism and love of the bottom line dominate our relationship with the natural world that God established when he brought the creatures to Adam to be named.
And God must weep. Because God so loved the world.
--God ‘took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.--”--and it is not too late to work it and take care of it; ..
“Righteous people ... do not waste in this world even a mustard seed. They become sorrowful with every wasteful and destructive act that they see, and if they can, they use all their strength to save everything
possible from destruction. —(Sefer HaChinuch 529; 13th Century)
From not idling your car for half an hour; to turning off lights; to disconnecting all those electronics; to growing your own food; to recycling all that you can; to sharing your concern and love for the world with others; to speaking out when the occasion warrents it--we all need to do our part to save everything from possible destruction.
We are all responsible--both for the problems and the solutions.
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."- 1 John 3:18
Can we decide to love this world, not just with words that celebrate its beauty, its riches, but with deeds that conserve, repair, restore; rather than exploit and , exhaust? Can we love the world as God loved the world?
Afterall, all we need is love. love is all we need, love.