Ketchum: Preserving and protecting this creation of God is our responsibility
There’s a stand of woods at the end of the road where my daughter and son-in-law, the Lutheran pastor, live in Northern Michigan’s Benzie County just outside the village of Lake Ann.
On a beautiful autumn Saturday, Pastor Tim and I took a walk deep into that woods where the crystal-clear waters of the Little Platte River glide silently through the fallen trees in its path. It’s a great place to disconnect from the babble, the noise, the nonsense we call civilization these days.
The only sound was the rustling of dry leaves as we walked. The sound of silence can touch the soul.
In this cathedral-like setting, Pastor Tim allowed that it’s where he goes to clear his mind of chaos, where, if he’s lucky, he might pick up the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to lead him in a direction that he might share with his congregation at Advent Lutheran Church.
Standing beside him as the sun completed its journey that day, I got a sense that he just might be onto something. And I silently thanked God for places of beauty and solitude such as this.
Pastor Tim is at home in this kind of setting. He spent several summers at the former Michi-Lu-Ca summer camp outside Fairview in Oscoda County, working with teens mostly from cities and towns across the southern part of the state. He got the chance to let them taste not just nature but to get a sense of what godly creation is all about. He’s an expert in building campfires, strumming a guitar and talking about the natural wonders around us.
Places like the woods at the end of Pastor Tim’s road remind visitors of what stewardship is all about. It’s not just money. So does Port Huron’s hidden gem, Sanborn Woods. Each time I walk through our own slice of wilderness, I’m thankful progressive-thinking folks worked to preserve it.
I marvel at an ancient oak and its massive girth. I wonder that it might be a remnant of the original forest that covered what later became St. Clair County.
Our time in Pastor Tim’s woods also reminded me that, as Christians, we carry with us a tremendous responsibility. We are supposed to be stewards of God’s creation. We are supposed to care for this planet, to help it be fruitful and multiply.
Our track record leaves much to be desired. We’ve innovated and invented and modernized ourselves into an environmental corner from which an escape grows more doubtful every day.
Mother Earth has a fever, and it’s rising, along with sea levels, air pollution and destructive weather. Southeastern Michigan remains in a drought that has left us about 12 inches shy of normal rainfall.
If you think the weather has gotten more unpredictable, more violent and just a little crazier, you just might be onto something.
Stopping all development and innovation isn’t the answer. Doing it smarter is. That means giving the ducks and the turtles and the frogs and the Monarch butterflies a better chance at survival.
A walk in the woods can lift the spirit. It can also serve as a reminder that preserving and protecting this creation of God is our responsibility. This, after all, is the only planet we have, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.
And so are we.
Jim Ketchum is a retired Times Herald copy editor. Contact him at jeketchum1@comcast.net.
This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Ketchum: Preserving and protecting this creation of God is our responsibility
