To Sin By Silence

Makes cowards out of men.

 

Guess who wrote this, and when?

“The real wealth of the Nation lies in the resources of the earth — soil, water, forests, minerals, and wildlife.”

“To utilize them for present needs while insuring their preservation for future generations requires a delicately balanced and continuing program, based on the most extensive research.”

“Their administration is not properly, and cannot be, a matter of politics.”

“By long tradition, the agencies responsible for these resources have been directed by men of professional stature and experience, who have understood, respected, and been guided by the findings of their scientists.”

“For many years public-spirited citizens throughout the country have been working for the conservation of the natural resources, realizing their vital importance to the Nation.”

“Apparently their hard-won progress is to be wiped out, as a politically minded Administration returns us to the dark ages of unrestrained exploitation and destruction.”

That sounds as if it was written this week, maybe by someone from the New York Times.

It was, in fact, written in 1953 by Rachel Carson, virtually unknown today. She died over half a century ago.

She was courageous. It always takes courage to lead, especially at that time for a woman.

Want to learn more about the person whose work and writing led to the creation of the EPA, now about to be dismantled by the Trump administration?

 

And, for the readers amongst us: Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson

~

This is our time to be courageous.

This is our land, our air, our water.

This is our planet, the only one we’ve got.

It is one of the ironies of our time that, while concentrating on the defense of our country against enemies from without, we should be so heedless of those who would destroy it from within.”

To sin by silence, when we should protest makes cowards out of men.”

She showed us how. Now it’s our time to raise our voices and protect what belongs to all of us.

~

And here is the full poem, a part of which is featured in today’s Quote of the Day:

It didn’t behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn’t stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn’t
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.
     ~ Hurricane, by Mary Oliver