Being a Good Steward
"Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our
likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds
of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the
creatures that move along the ground.” – Genesis 1:26.
So the Lord gave man dominion over the
whole earth. It’s right there, on the page, in The Book, and thus it
is undeniably, everlastingly, incontrovertibly so.
Almost all the world’s major religions have a Book of some sort, a
set of sacred writings, guaranteed to have been set down by the Hand
of Whatever God (or gods) who site at the apex of the religion in
question. The Koran was transcribed from the words Allah whispered
to Muhammed. The Rg Veda, some of the most ancient texts on the
planet, guide Hindus. Jews have the Torah, pretty much the faithful
stenographic shorthand scribbling of Moses, copying down what the
bossman YHWH had to say. (Except of course for the Decalogue: as
Cecil B. Demille reminds us every Easter, on the Sunday Night movie,
the Ten Commandments were directly inscribed by the finger of the
Almighty Himself, in a sort of holy arc welding.)
Christians, among whom I must, at least culturally, include myself,
also claim the Torah as their Book, plus all the rest of
the Old Testament books, plus the New (and Improved!)
Testament, including the Four (accepted) Gospels, plus all
the letters written by Paul, plus all the letters not
written by Paul, but which have his name forged on them, plus
several other obscure letters and epigraphs, of varying and dubious
authorship, plus the icing on the textual cake, the Great
Excuse For Doing Anything, Since Everything is Gonna Get Blown Away
Anyway, that beautifully mysterious prose that allows anybody to
interpret its bizarre imagery any way they suits them: The
Revelation of St. John the Divine. We were lucky to get
that one; the early Church Fathers who voted in the books that made
the official canon debated quite a while on Revelations; it barely
squeaked in. Thank God a slim majority of enlightened men were able
to recognize the authoring Hand of God that guided the pen of good
ol’ St. John. Not to mention slipping him the divine hallucinogenic
that enabled him to see all that shit. [It's all their in chapter
10: "And he saith unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall
make thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey."
And it shall verily blow your little mind.]
Yes, we Christians have a veritable
feast of God-authorized verbiage to chew on. And, since it’s all
100% certified as “inspired by God Almighty His Own Self”, it’s all,
well, the Gospel truth. The Law. Do it or Else, bubba, and you don’t
even want to mess with the “Or Else.”
So when God, early on the Book, says “let them rule over all the
earth“, and grants us dominion over the whole damn sphere, well,
friends, that’s just about as cool as it gets. Move over, ecosphere,
I want to put this chemical plant here! If I feel like
spewing tons of toxins everywhere, dumping ‘em in the rivers, lakes,
oceans, well they’re all mine, every atom of it, it says so right
there in the Book. CO2 is a good thing, lots of it is a better
thing, because I say so, and I own the place. And if a species is
mine, by gum, I can wipe it out if I feel like it, sort of
like Michael Vick and his pit bulls. Ownership is freedom.
And best of all, right there at the end of my Book, it says
we’re all gonna get beamed out of here pretty soon, anyway (well,
the good ones will. Everybody else can go to hell. Oh look, it says
that, too!). So whatever I screw up here on the planet,
besides being my God-given right to do, isn’t gonna matter in the
long run, since God’s gonna take me and my buddies up, in the middle
of the air, and we’re gonna sing camp songs around the glow from a
far-away hellfire for the rest of eternity. Making heavenly smores
out of sinners’ souls.
You see what a great thing having a Book written by God is? Since
you are obliged to follow the Almighty’s prescriptions (and
earnestly avoid His proscriptions), well, screwing up the planet is
practically in the by-laws, essentially ordained. We just have the
best God, you know? That is, I mean to say we have the only God, of
course, that’s what I meant. And everybody else on the planet is
leading a deluded life, probably being fooled by some disguise or
incarnation of the Evil One.
By the way, that’s especially true for any liberal, tree-hugging
environmentalist.
So, pass me some of those fish of the
sea and a little of that livestock: a little Surf n’ Turf, thank
you. After supper, I need to do some more reading. No telling what
else I can excuse based on Holy Writ.
© 2007 Chuck Puckett