MAN: THE WORLD’S HIGH PRIEST.

AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH

By: Michael Paternoster

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The view of the Bible is that the inhabitants of the earth are tenants of the owner and landlord, God. While other mythologies tend to regard the Gods as more powerful fellow citizens the Bible is unambigious about God the creator of both the earth and its inhabitants. It also anchors spirituality firmly in the reality of the physical world that we inhabit. Michael Paternoster’s stingingly relevant essay on our moral responsibility to the ecology takes William Blake’s statement that the ‘tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way’ as it’s starting point and draws the parallel of a society without religion as one experiencing an ‘ecological’ disaster of the spirit. As mankind abandons God to habitual selfishness, quarrelsomeness and short-sightedness the effects are visible all around us in environmental pollution and the spectre of over-population. This short text speaks of man’s pursuit of self-interest to the point of self-destruction, but suggests this anguish is a trigger for a stronger priestly and contemplative example that may eventually redeem our physical world.