It is 12:06 P.M., December 8, 2014, and I have two hours to write this article – wish me luck!
Vick here, feeling keenly aware of time as I mark the expiration of each passing second. As I embark on this journey to the final sentence, I cannot escape the realization that I am simultaneously approaching my final moment on Earth, one nanosecond at a time – it’s a thought that occurs to me rather often.
Whenever I find myself tempted by the siren call to contemplate my own mortality, her solemn chant is inevitably accompanied by the phantom of my desire to achieve something great with the time that is left to me between now and the advent of my demise.
This time, the phantom whispered Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 into my ear. When I was younger, I spent my fair share of time with my nose in a Bible, and knowing that many of our local readers in Memphis, MO share that experience, I feel at ease mentioning scripture in the local newspaper column version of this, but if you find that objectionable for any reason, feel free to skip the following paragraph:
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. What profit has one in the work in which one labors?”
It goes on to say – I’m paraphrasing: there is no profit in work, except to rejoice and to do good in one’s life.
Truth be told, I don’t know much about what happened for others in the community this week – I spent most of my time barricaded in my room doing income work online and writing away on my novel. Even so, I know that everything under heaven is represented here and even the lowliest dimension of the human condition had its due time.
People went to committee meetings and discussed matters great and small; sometimes it was boring, challenging and emotionally charged. People gathered the last remnants of their harvests and stored it away with great hope for years to come. People shared games, music and meals with their friends.
They hugged their loved ones, soothed crying children and renewed old connections. They tended their animals, prepared their taxes and nursed aching backs. They whispered tender secrets in the moonlight and embarked on the pursuit of their most cherished dreams – just like everywhere else in the world this week, and we did it with an eye to the care of our environment.
Our community came together because we each have a mission to learn what it means to live a sustainable life, because we rejoice in nature and the vitality of our planet, and because we can think of no greater work than to empower humanity to follow in our footsteps on the road to turning our world into a more sustainable one.
My internal narrative about our mission usually resounds in my imagination like the clarion call at Jericho, but right now, I’m appreciating that achieving global sustainability doesn’t have to be bold and valorous – inheritance of the earth might really be the fate of the meek.
If it is true that everything has its season, surely that includes every generation in the ongoing lineage of the human race. What is the character of our season? What is the critical matter that will define the time we all have shared together on this planet? For me, the answer cannot be doubted: global climate change.
On the verge of peak oil, it is we who stand at the brink of irreversible, human-made climate change and look out to a grim horizon indeed. Alas, it is our children’s generation who will suffer the consequences – poverty, famine and war. The time for unmitigated progress, at the expense of our natural world, has passed.
A new season is on the way, and at Dancing Rabbit I believe we represent the voice of one crying out in the wilderness to step back from the brink before it’s too late. It wouldn’t take much, if everyone took a small part in the change in small measure and by small degrees.
So here we are, fellow time travelers, voyaging boldly into the future at the speed of time. My deadline has arrived sooner than I thought it would and I must submit my article right now, lest I face my editor’s wrath.
Let me leave you with this memento mori – what good will you do with your life? If you feel passionate about ecology and community, consider how you might engage with us. Learn a thing or two, incorporate it into your life and share it with your neighbors; that’s how we operate, and it seems to be working out well so far. You might even be able to pay us a visit sometime next year – we would love to spend a bit of our lives with you and rejoice together for a while.
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Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community and nonprofit outside Rutledge, in northeast Missouri, focused on demonstrating sustainable living possibilities. Find out more about us by visiting our website, reading our blog, or emailing us.