Friday, September 21, 2007

This evening my children and I were treated to glance inside a glossy window pane into the life of Rachel Carson's astounding life via PBS's Bill Moyer. I'd only read and thoroughly enjoyed a few of Rachel's quotes and have never read A Silent Spring . Perhaps I will get to know her better through her writing now that we've been introduced. I was not aware that she was a poetic writer, an invested scientist, and a radical preservationist in her time. She was the first to publicly question the satiating use of new pesticides in homes, farms, and wars during the 1950's, thus the title of her book. Carson achieved the attention of the nation including President Kennedy on the topics and was mercilessly criticized by a small but rich minority- the prosperous chemical companies who wanted her observations silenced at any cost.

Rachel Carson existed in wonder and respect of God's handiwork the way I'd like to live. Here's a marvelous quote into which I was drawn deeply:

"I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, or whenever we substitute something man made and artificial for a natural feature on the earth, we have retarded some part of man's spiritual growth."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sounds like a cool spring running over my soul! I just took the kids to a wild life habitat by our home and posted a photo journal about it at our nature blog. http://ournatureblog.wordpress.com/2007/09/22/weekly-nature-study/
In it I talked about how conservation is a part of our discipleship to Jesus. Just look at my last two pics:-) I have never heard of this so I will have to check this out! Our whole life needs to bow to the king including what we do with our trash. OK - I am off my soap box now:-)
Peace to you dear one!

truevyne said...

Peace to you Amber. Right after the Rachel Carson show was a spot on an artist, Chris Jensen, who photoshopped the amount of water bottle the U.S. uses in five minutes, same for plastic bags, batteries. The one I found most striking was the millions of prison uniforms folded to represent each prisoner in the U.S.