Inspired By Nature

Published by permission of Les Turvey.

Life Lines by Les Turvey

INSPIRED BY NATURE

Joni Mitchell had it right when she sang, “You take paradise and put up a parking lot." But the day is coming when the parking lots will be no more, and paradise will take their place.

“Inspired By Nature. Built For Today’s Lifestyle.” That’s the signboard message at a high-brow housing and golf course project near Ourtown. What rot!

Just a few years ago the area was forested land, the home of a variety of wildlife. Nature at its best. Today there’s none of the natural forestation. In its place are hills and valleys and bunkers and water traps, with paved roads so golfers can get some exercise driving their carts from tee to tee.

A boring drive through the subdivision is a reminder of Malvina Reynolds’ song “Little Boxes.” You may remember it:

Little boxes on the hillside; Little boxes made of ticky-tacky.
Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky, And they all look just the same.

There’s one variation on the song in the “Inspired By Nature” houses. There’s no green ones or pink ones, no blue ones or yellow. They’re all the same drab earthtone. A golfer who hoisted too many at the 19th hole might at least find his way home if the ticky-tacky boxes were different colours.

Is there any place on earth that’s sacred? Where man’s greed for the almighty dollar doesn’t, as Joni Mitchell sang, “…take paradise and put up a parking lot."

One paradise I remember is Niagara Falls. Today it’s a tourist trap with wall-to-wall money-grabbing attractions, few of which have any redeeming qualities. You likely know of once beautiful areas that have been taken over by un-godly commerce. Of course the government says, “Look at all the jobs we’ve created.”

What’s that? Governments don’t create jobs. People create jobs. The governments just dole out our tax dollars to private developers who destroy our trees and add to the pollution problem. And who foots the bill to clean up the pollution? Dumb question!

God had something to say about such developers. “Woe to them who join house to house, who lay field to field, till there be no place… (Isaiah 5:8).” He continues in vs 9, “Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.”

Look around to see the number of beautiful old homes that are falling into ruin because their owners have moved to more prestigious haunts, with look-alike boxes all made of ticky-tacky.

Ticky-tacky? That’s right. Many, perhaps most, of those boxes are built just solid enough to meet the minimum building code standards. Why? So the developers don’t need to pay for three nails if two will do the job. Fewer nails equals more profit.

The apostle Paul advised Timothy, and us, “…godliness with contentment is great gain…having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil… (1 Timothy 6:6-10).”

There’s a great day coming when all the world’s ticky-tacky boxes will be razed to the ground (Matthew 24:21-22), and God’s glorious kingdom will be set up on earth. The capital city will be unbelievably breathtaking (Revelation 21:2, 10-21; 22:1-2).

And for you and me? Paul wrote, “No one has seen, nor heard, nor can even imagine the things that God has prepared for those who love him (1 Corinthians 2:9; Isaiah 64:4).”

Leslie A Turvey
A servant of the only true and living God

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