Seeing My Own Blindness

If saving the earth means fighting the Big Money in Washington, I want out.

I remember the day when I first considered becoming an environmentalist. I was walking down the street in Portland, Maine, considering what kind of job I could get that would let me wear my Birkenstocks and not cut my hair. Then I saw a sign on a telephone post: "Jobs For The Environment, Earn $1,500 to $2,500 for the summer." It must be a scam, I thought. How could doing something for the environment earn so much money? 

I had often considered the beauty of the creation around me, especially when I went up in the mountains, but I had never considered being able to make money off of it. I ended up getting the job, but I found myself in something that resembled a political campaign more than working for the environment. I was intrigued, though, so I went along. My new position was to go door to door, asking people to become members of PIRG, the Public Interest Research Group (a grassroots-supported lobbying group that works to create a public voice in government). We thought that if everyone really knew about all the problems and realized that they could do something about it (that they do have a voice and can make a difference), that the world would be a better place to live. The planet would receive healing, wouldn't it? This is what we were taught to believe, at least. I learned a rap and went door to door repeating it. 

Our supervisors would get us all together and work us up with an inspirational pep talk to get us impassioned and excited to go out and get people involved. Sitting through these sessions concerned me the longer I was around. It wasn't hard to see that the emphasis was being placed on the money and not the issues. We had a quota to raise and if we didn't bring in enough money we would run the risk of getting fired. So the only ones who lasted in the job were the smooth talkers, even if they didn't care about the environment; the awkward, social misfits who really cared to see the world preserved and cleaned up the way it was created, didn't. So who was the true environmentalist? I had a desire to see us humans be friends of the earth, but my original motivation was not very sound.

Three years later I had been promoted to Canvass Director of the Maine PIRG office and was being looked to help head up the National Canvas for the Sierra Club which was asking PIRG to help them. I had been awarded the Most Valuable Canvasser award for the East Coast because I had raised so much money. I found myself living quite well. I didn't even have to speak to many people to raise money, I would just deal with the big spenders, politicians, and the press. 

But the reality of the movement struck me when I became the Canvass Director my third year. We were still working on the same thing that we had worked on the first year I had been with PIRG — the Clean Air Act. Big Industry had all the money and influence in Washington and we knew it. Give up? No! This was our life, our cause, everything that we cared about. How could we turn our backs on the essence of our life — saving the earth? This was our life, wasn't it? I led everyone around me to believe it was. Still, I was going for an economics degree at Boston College (Romans 1:22), and I enjoyed the ease of life that this civilization offered. Even though we had HIGH dreams of going off to the woods, we knew that we weren't ready for it. But who is? Are there any true environmentalists? I claimed to care for the environment but didn't see that I wasn't even obeying what Creation was teaching me. Even though we were conscientious about recycling, the immorality in our midst showed how we weren't very conscientious about our relationships. Casting off conscience was part of the reality of the movement we were involved in. 

I spent the prime years of my life following the Grateful Dead and preaching about Mother Earth, but I was a hypocrite. I came to realize that my true motivation was never to save the world but was to support myself in the rat race doing something I liked. Being an environmentalist and the whole facade that went with it was, for me, no different than all the other masks people wear in society in their desperate effort to fit in in a world full of alienation. I would go out and hug trees in the woods, but I grew to hate the humans. They were the source of the problem and they were so dull that they couldn't even hear what we were trying to say. I was sick of talking to the press and Senators; I wanted to see something get done. 

What I really couldn't see was my own blindness. I couldn't hear what Creation was trying to teach me; my long hair was covering my ears. 

Environmentalists I knew bowed down to the earth while treating the humans like 
dirt. What is really important is how humans treat each other not the earth, or what they worship. It is in how they recognize the Creator's image expressed through His highest creation, man. If men do not respect their fellow man, it is because they do not respect God in their conscience. 

It was only once I realized how much I couldn't see that I really saw something. I met a people who helped me to rethink my empty convictions. When I saw brothers and sisters truly laying down their lives for each other, like Messiah commanded, and loving one another, I could see that God was real. It was totally different than any other experience I had ever had. I seemed to live a life of highs and lows, striving for satisfaction in things that only left me empty. What I saw when I encountered disciples of Yahshua the Messiah was as real as the people who suffered to be obedient to Him like His first disciples did 2000 years ago. They knew Him and they came to understand what they were truly created for.

It became clear that I really wasn't an environmentalist at all. The environmentalists are the ones who are saving the earth the way the Savior of the earth did. They're concerned for the same thing their Master was — the people. Those being gathered are hearing the prophets speak once again like in the days of old. When the prophets start to speak, you had better listen; something is going to happen! 

During my years with PIRG I wanted the earth to have a voice. I suffered that someone would speak for her. I see now that the earth does have a voice. It is the voice of its loving Creator speaking the truth through people who are connected to Him. The earth has friends once again. Come, you may find them to be what you, too, always desired to have.

~ Scott