Downstream

Living Downstream

As I read this book I could not help but think how interconnected we all are. It took me back to, “for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.” In college I was required to take two sciences, for my first I took physical science where we studied the basics of life forms. My second choice was environmental science. I mainly took it because I heard the professor was good and a B was pretty easy to get. As I read the book many of the things that we learned in that class came back. As she finishes the book she says, “Dust, Soil, Air. What I see are contours of home.”p272 In that class we studied the Oxygen cycles, Nitrogen cycles and how soil was a part of them. The purification process that God has in place is quite remarkable. However, as the author points out humans have stepped in and mucked it up. By adding all of the chemicals and other things to the ecosystem we have started something that we may not be able to control.
As an overall read I was skeptical coming into it. I figured it would be all statistics and how big government was to blame. But, what I got was a well thought out book that explains some of the problems and uncovers others, within government as well. The fact that we had knowledge of so many chemicals and did nothing for so long is alarming. My father was a cancer survivor for 20 years before the effects of the treatments finally did him in. I have had a friend and two grandparents die of the “C” word and am still left with the question, Why? In the book Steingrababer does a good job explaining how what is released can effect people all over. She uses technical terms but does not speak over the reader.
In relation to this class she opens my eyes to what pesticides are capable of doing. As a future rural pastor I am then in a conflicting place. I want to support the farmers in their chosen vocations, but I also need to be on the look out for the people. SO how do we do this? Very carefully. As Mark says do a lot of listening, do not count the farmer as dumb, and know that the farmer too is looking out for the interest of others. We are not experts in the area. We know that scripture informs us of how the land is to be kept and that we are to be stewards of the land. We know that we have a responsibility to God and our neighbors to see that good practices are being used, but we must not forget that this is the lively hood of people, it is more than that, for those like Arland it is a calling, something they just can’t get out of, when times are rough. They plod through and have a connection to the land to their place.
Overall I thought the book was a good read and will recommend it to friends. In my opinion it is not a liberal take on things, it shoots it straight out. I would expect no less from a former scientist as that is how their minds work. Next time I go camping and fishing I am sure as I stand at the stream these learning’s will surface.