A species of f***ups

I'm thinking about this disaster with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I've been doing some reading which has somewhat mitigated my apocaplyptic impulses—believe it or not, there have been worse spills in history. Not that that's all that reassuring, of course.

I know it's a cliché to talk about human beings "killing" the planet. But . . . we're killing the planet. Civilizations before ours have collapsed because they destroyed their environments; we have the technology to do damage on an even bigger scale. God made us stewards and free agents, and if we f*** it up, there's no divine bailout, no deus ex machina to rescue us from ourselves at the last minute. We're on our own, except to the extent that we open ourselves up to the guiding, transforming influence of the Spirit. Those are the terms of our existence in this lone and dreary—and dangerous—world. A combination of literalist Christian fantasies about the millennium and a secularized myth of progress have lulled Americans into what the Book of Mormon calls carnal security. We're like kids playing with guns—and in this case we ended up shooting a big hole in the bottom of the ocean, and now we can't stop the bleeding. And Mom and Dad aren't coming home anytime soon.

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Enoch heard a voice from the bowels of the earth:
"Woe is me, the mother of humanity!
I am pained, I am weary,
because of my children's atrocities.
When shall I rest
and be cleansed from the filthiness that has gone forth out of me?"

When Enoch heard the earth mourn, he wept.
He cried to the God of heaven:
"Sovereign One! Will you not have compassion on the earth?
When will the earth rest?"

(Moses 7)