A Proverb

The Devil and His Friend

The devil once went for a walk

with a friend. They saw a man

ahead of them stoop down and

pick up something from the ground.



“What did that man find?” asked

the friend.



“A piece of truth,” said the devil.



“Doesn’t that disturb you?” asked the

friend.



“No,” said the devil,

“I shall let him make

a belief out of it.”

I ran across the above story in a book of proverbs and it struck a chord. It seems to me that when I begin to read about "dead zones” in the seas, for example, my feeling of helplessness and disempowerment stem somewhat from a mistaken understanding of the divine. As the devil character in this proverb so intelligently points out, we as humans can perceive very real truths about the world and then take those truths to form beliefs that are untrue.

For example: Being a student of contemporary environmental issues I read about the destruction of natural systems often. I hear the facts of global climate change and fish populations on the brink of collapse and somehow turn these facts into beliefs about God and about my identity. What are these beliefs? They are not fully articulated yet, but I know that they affect the way I live. Here are two ideas to start with:

Truth: There is a large scale break down of the earth's ability to co-exist sustainably with human resource use as we know it.

Belief: Perhaps the divine is not as powerful as the forces causing the destruction of the earth.

Belief: Perhaps the experience of the divine is diminished in a world with diminishing natural beauty. (This thought is set forth briefly and then discussed in Roger S. Gottlieb's book A Greener Faith)

Belief: I as an individual I must figure out how to handle the current ecological crisis.

That is all for now,
Peace and Blessings,
Mikaila