Jayne Tite
Gore.

The ragged black horizon of the hills lie in contrast to the moonlit sky, a sky illuminated by the orange ball as it sits atop those hills, distorted in colour and size by the lowest stratas of the air it shines through, already changed from the blood red of it’s slow emergence. Later, as the turning of the earth tosses it higher , it will assume the whitest of gold, a small luminous disc, no life of it’s own, reflecting the light of a sun shining on the world beyond our sight.

Beneath that moon, outside the house, a steady breeze ruffles the autumn foliage of the trees, disturbing the leaves, and dropping some to the shadowed ground below. There is no need to be outdoors to determine from whence the wind comes, the distant subdued roar of a goods train, travelling the main line, permeates the window and walls, telling of a wind coming in off an ocean that stretches unbroken for thousands of miles beyond our coast. A wind that, in the autumn night, brings the chill of winter closer to our hearths.

Out in the paddocks, streaching across the valley floors, and up into, and beyond, the hills on either side, cattle, and sheep, deer and a sprinkling of other species, browse the grasslands, while rabbits and other small creatures also graze and hunt, gathering what food they could, many preparing for the sleep of cold winter days, not far off, yet all watchful for the hunter, hovering in the skies, waiting for the unwary to expose themselves for that swift drop of outstretched talons, and the rending of flesh that would mean death for one and life for the other.

For thus is the cycle of this planet, life, death, and new life, each feeding on the other. And thus it has been from the beginning, old life giving way to new, mutating and evolving into today’s world, an endless, well designed pattern that, man permitting, will carry us into the unseen future. But the question is will man permit such a future? Or will he, in his arrogance of self interest, distort that cycle of development and evolution, to the point, even, of destroying all life as we know it.

How many of those espousing green politics apply them to themselves putting forward sophisticated justification for still continuing along their own selfish paths? The need to promote business, for relaxation, to keep in touch with family and close friends, to disseminate knowledge, all these, with today’s technology, can be achieved in other ways.

The teaching of the Gospel is one of Love, Love for God, Love for our neighbours, Love for ourselves. In today’s world few Christians pay more than lip service to the first two commands, concentrating on their own comforts, and those of their immediate dependants. What little Love they give to others is seldom given freely, from the heart, but rather because it is seen as *the right thing to do*. Is this truly Loving God? Is this truly following the teachings and exhortations of the Gospel? I believe not.

I look through the glass that separates me from that moon, now changed to a yellow gold as it sits higher over the hills, and I ask what more can I do, for unless I act as an individual, nothing will change, unless we all make that effort as individuals. On our doorstep sits the problems of humanity, be they personal suffering or environmental rape. It is not what can we do, that matters but what will we do, what are we prepared to sacrifice in order to create a future that the hidden sun can rise on, blessing those future generations, today’s children’s children and beyond, with a life better, even, than the consumer ridden existence we supposedly enjoy today?

Will the moon one day shine on a dead planet, a planet not destroyed by God, but by a race made in His image, an image that has become distorted and debased by greed and self service? Will it be a *dark moon*, dark because there are no eyes to behold it’s glory? The answer lies in the hands of each one of us, as individuals, we have to choose the path we walk, will it be the narrow way that leads to God, or will it continue to be the wide road of self interest and destruction?

Jayne Tite
© NZ 2007