Warning sign

Dear editor:

I was coming out of church one Sunday, only halfheartedly greeting fellow worshippers. My mind was on the sermon, wrestling with the familiar topic the minister had espoused: “So live that you will have pie in the sky by and by!”

This is a common theme in many churches. “Get right with God!” and “Be ready for eternity!” jump out at us along the highway.

These are disturbing or comforting thoughts, depending on our view of our own condition. Many of us reply, “I’m ready!”

I had a dream that Sunday night. I was driving along and I saw a sign that caused the dream to become a nightmare: “What are you leaving behind?”

I thought immediately of the inheritance I was leaving to my wife, my kids and their kids. I thought of my reputation — what others would say about me when I was gone. What will I leave behind when I head for paradise — when I don’t have to worry about this world anymore?

I was approaching an Indian reservation and decided to stop. Sitting on the porch of the welcome center was a man dressed as a chief. He was gazing into the distance. I sat down near him and he started to talk.

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money.”

I awoke in a cold sweat. What he had said was very disturbing. To paraphrase, as long as we have the bountiful supplies of nature which we have always had, we tend not to be concerned about tomorrow and its needs.

But thinking people must ask, “Where will future meals come from, for our children? Where will the oil, iron, gas, copper and aluminum be found, since the earth is not making more and we will have used it all? Where will drinking water come from that is not polluted, or air to breathe that is not contaminated, since we are dumping our waste into them?”

Whether to sustain, cripple or kill watchdog organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency is not just a political issue. It is an issue that will affect our children and their children. Unbridled, the forces that see only the value of money will take away the things that keep our planet healthy.

And when we reach the point of no return — natural resources exhausted, water too nasty to drink, air too polluted to breathe, it will be too late to reverse our course.

What will we leave behind? Our children cannot eat or breathe or drink money. C.G. Smith Hot Springs