#256 / Genesis 9:2

And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, and on every fowl of the air, on all that moves on the earth, and on all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

In many ways, The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood's most recent book, which I have just finished, is a meditation upon this Bible verse.

Genesis 9:2 presents a truly horrific picture of the role we play within the Creation. All of Nature is delivered into our hand, and every living thing fears and dreads what this will mean (and what this has meant). Yet, as we know from experience, as well as from a simple contemplation of the realities of our existence, it is we, in the final analysis, who depend upon Nature. Insofar as we destroy and extinguish the beasts of the Earth, and the fowl of the air, and the fishes of the sea, we place ourselves in peril of a similar fate. In the end, we, too, shall perish.

Therefore, let us stay our hand against the world of Nature, upon which we do depend, that we, and our children, and their children, may live.