{"id":9236,"date":"2019-04-15T00:00:37","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T07:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/?p=9236"},"modified":"2022-10-26T12:03:49","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T19:03:49","slug":"letter-from-john-to-the-hikers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/tales\/letter-from-john-to-the-hikers\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter From John To The Hikers"},"content":{"rendered":"
Brothers and Sisters. From the time Adam and Eve were exiled from Paradise, humankind has mourned its lost relationship with the natural world.<\/p>\n
Adam took a fall for us all. Never again would he or Eve or any of the billions of humans who followed them walk the Earth without sin against God, against one another, and against nature.<\/p>\n
Adam\u2019s fall corrupted nature. Adam\u2019s fall corrupted human nature. Adam\u2019s fall was the hiker\u2019s fall.<\/p>\n
Hikers fall. Rarely. Frequently. Softly. Seriously. All hikers eventually fall. And just as we fall when we are hiking in nature, we fall and we fall short in our care of nature.<\/p>\n
Listen now to the cry of Creation.<\/p>\n
Today we are more disconnected from nature than ever before. We chop down the great trees of the world\u2014in the cold forests of the north, in the tropical rainforests, and in the woods near our homes. We foul streams and rivers, lakes and oceans. Every day another species of plant or animal is lost from earth for all time.<\/p>\n
We want more than we need, and take more than we need from nature. We fail to moderate our desire for material things, which causes us to view nature as a commodity and merely as a collection of resources to be used as food and fuel. We refuse to acknowledge nature is more than the sum of its resources.<\/p>\n
To reconnect with nature, reconnect with God, and remember that it\u2019s you, not another, that is the cause of the despoiling of nature. The hiker\u2019s contribution to halting the abuse of nature is for each of us individually to correct ourselves.<\/p>\n