Letter - A confluence of science and soul

To the editor:

April 19, a day of ominous memorials like the bombing of federal buildings and the birth of historical monsters, was bright and beautiful in Alexandria this year as a “well appareled” April day should be.

Some recognition goes to Jeanne Johnson’s sense of citizenship and the Climate Lobby efforts, some to the remarkable guests that were about in the community, on the radio, at senior college and the eco fair at Discovery School. The events of the day were a confluence of science and soul, rare in our society that denigrates both.

Don Shelby came as a prophet to remind us of our need for the earth in its natural state with its healings and silences, awakenings, seeings and hearings. His remarks at the eco fair at the Discovery School were insightful and profound. If only we could hear such meditations on God’s first gift in our churches!

John Abraham’s enthusiasm for the principles of heat transfer and fluid flow, of warm air rising, cooling and condensing, of the persistence of carbon dioxide molecules, of geologic time, and many other laws of science and physics was entertaining and infectious.

It was a wonderful day, but there was a morning after. Yammering politicians were glad to offer us life on the cheap if only we would tear up the earth. After all, aren’t we the generation entitled to the fruits of geologic time? They wanted to call us back to a failed economy as valid as the economy of the slave trade, but this time the trade was the earth itself.

It is my hope that any citizen anywhere will see the prairie, the desert, the fjord, the mountain top, the ice flow, the rain forest, their place in the universe for the treasure that it is.

Judith S. Rose

Alexandria, MN

Tags: opinion, letters