restoring order to Haiti

Despite our romantic concepts of nature as "wilderness," nature, left to itself, tends towards chaos rather than toward order.  Every species, if left to itself, will destroy its own environment.  Pine trees will grow so thickly as to blot out the very sun they need to grow, allowing oaks, which tolerate shade, to eventually take their place.  Kudzu destroys everything in its path, smothering even the mighty oaks. 

The American Indians would regularly set fire to the forests to maintain their beauty and accessibility, to keep them from being choked by weeds and brambles.  If man himself does not control nature's overgrowth, nature in the form of lightening will do it. 

Genesis pictures not God creating the earth from "nothing," as many imagine, but rather as restoring order, beauty, and harmony to the chaos.  And man was given the order to "tend the garden"----to maintain the balance, order, beauty, and harmony, to preserve the earth and our lives from encroaching interests: selfishness, greed, destructive agents in general.  When we notice the seeds of destruction being sown, it is for us to check the growth before the earth is destroyed.

While the earthquake in Haiti is tragic on a cosmic level, the seeds of destruction in Haiti have been sown for centuries.  The rich and powerful were destroying the country and its poor like kudzu on a rampage; corruption was a way of life.  There was no justice to be found in the land; the poor cried out and no one heard them.  The scene was reminiscent of that described by Isaiah and Jeremiah in the Old Testament:

Woe to you, King Jehoiakim, for you are building your great palace with forced labor.  By not paying wages, you are building injustice into its walls and oppression into its doorframes and ceilings.  ... you are full of selfish greed and all dishonesty!  You murder the innocent, oppress the poor, and reign with ruthlessness...When you were prosperous, I warned you, but you replied, "Don't bother me."  ... Instead of leading my flock to safety, you have deserted them and led them to destruction.  and  now I will pour out judgment upon you for the evil you have done to them.  And I will gather together the remnant of my flock from wherever I have sent them, and bring them back into their own fold, and they shall be fruitful and increse.  And I will appoint responsible shepherds to care for them, and they shall not need to be afraid again; all of them shall be accounted for continually.

We can only hope that the world's "responsible shepherds" can restore some kind of beauty and order to the lives of the poor of Haiti, although even now, it seems the child trafficers are moving in to take advantage once again of the poor and helpless.