Musings on a Dying World

And the world is passing away along with its desires...

-1 John 2:17

Very quietly
The world loses blood overnight
Without a fight
And in the morning
The sickness will hide in the light
Out of sight

-Mark Heard

The world is dying. Little by little, moment by moment, the vigor of the planet is draining away into the channels of space, never to be regained. Time is a hard master, carving even rock and stone with its inexorable weight.

The world began in a place called Eden. Eden means pleasure and delight. It means joy, color, beauty, virginity. Some people say Eden is still out there somewhere. I don't know. All I know is that the world isn't virgin anymore.

The scriptures describe the promised land as a land flowing with milk and honey; the spies harvested a cluster of grapes that was so large it had to be carried on a pole between two men. I traveled to Israel last year, and I can say pretty confidently that it isn't like that today.

Driving through the America southwest, I can't help but wonder if the rest of the world was at one time more Edenic - full of green oases and roaring waterfalls. The first time the word desert shows up in the NIV Bible is Genesis 14:6, so I don't suppose my little theory has much meat on it. Still, it's interesting to speculate about how all the people groups of the world ended up living where they did. Was there a lushness in the ancient world that attracted them to an environment that later turned harsh and austere?

I wonder.

Image "Barren Fields" by Vincent Van Gogh, courtesy of vangoghgallery.com