I just got back from spending three wonderful days immersed in the beauty of the redrock desert near Moab, Utah. On one of my hikes, I found these Claret Cup Cactus blooms glowing in all of their backlit splendor just before sunset. This Earth Day, they remind me that merely having a sense that we "should" take care of the Earth is generally not enough to motivate us to make sustainable life changes. In other words, a "moral" or "ethical" approach is not sufficient. What we really need is a PASSION for the Earth and its beauty. That means that we are called to engage in a love affair with more than just another human being. What we are really called to do is to maintain what Terry Tempest Williams calls "an erotics of place." As Mattew Fox puts it, “We have to de-anthropocentrize this thing about falling
in love, which our culture reduces to soap operas and finding a mate.
We have to realize that we fall in love with creation.”
Photo: Claret Cup Cactus blooming on the Corona Arch Trail near Moab, Utah; April 20, 2013
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