Paradise lost?
Hello again
I read an article about Sicily this week. It was full of glowing praise for the island’s beauty, but finished on a sombre note when the author, Sean Thomas, commented on the vast amount of rubbish he saw everywhere.
“For mile after mile…every yard of roadside is crusted with litter. Plastic bags, metal cans, fast food trash; rotting bricks, half burnt tyres, incoherent dust; baby strollers, old hairdryers, entire car engines: if the Sicilians can dump it by a road, they will do so.”
As I read this, I was reminded of my own home town in Edinburgh. Visiting there early in the New Year with family who were over from Canada, you couldn’t help noticing the rubbish bins, unemptied and overflowing onto the street. It made me ashamed to be Scottish.
The litter Sean Thomas encountered in Sicily also reminded him of his home in the UK. “When did we cease to care about our own cities”, he asked, “that we foul them as we do? Litter and graffiti are the epidermal symptoms of a deeper, dangerous, internal disease.”
Is he overreacting? I don’t think so. Although it can’t be found in the Bible, the phrase “cleanliness is next to Godliness” is a Biblical principle, espoused by verses such as Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it”. Caring about the litter problem is a part of caring for the creation.
As Christians, I hope we aren’t part of the problem, but we can be part of the solution. Picking up rubbish on the streets outside our houses. Teaching our children and grandchildren to care for their environment. Organising a litter picking event as part of our church’s outreach programme. I’m sure you have your own ideas.
Or am I just talking rubbish again?
Kind regards,
Peter
About the Writer:
Peter Mill is a Minister and Regional Pastor for Scotland, Ireland and the North of England.