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We were given dominion over all the earth. How awesome is that? God trusted us to look after the world and everything in it.

Did we?

With the advent of satellite photography and the internet we don’t have to search too deep to find massive rubbish piles in the middle of the oceans, boats traveling in circles with toxic waste tryong to find some place to land. Walking in any area of any National Park in any country and we see evidence of our flouting this trust.

In Killarney, the closest town to my house there is a National Park, a beautiful oasis of lakes, trees, forest walks and mountains. It is breathtaking in its beauty. Of wqual taking my breath away, plastic bottles, alumininium cans and plastic wrappers. Many of my friends, myself included bring a bag with us when walking to pick up the litter others leave. We bring our sandwiches wrapped in paper in case the wind catches the paper and carries it off. We do aim to bring the paper home.

A few years ago I lived in “Pleasantville”, a vast sprawling corporation estate, grey was the colour I remember most: grey roads, grey houses, grey water tower and ultimately grey people worn down by hopeless situations. There were so many children, it was like the pied piper’s residence and martial law reigned. There were rules, but not the rules of law or God’s law. The rules were handed down from dealer to dealer. Fear ruled. We lived there for eighteen months and in that time horrified by the amount of litter and dumping I started to teach the kids a bit about litter. It was a lesson in patience for me but eventually I was rewarded with kids bringing their treasure to me.

I focused with them on one item, the plastic that holds four or six cans together. Because there was a proliferation of drinking on doorstep and ginnels, these wrappers were everywhere. And they were harmful, birds and animals were quite easily strangled by them and so removing them was all good. I was up in that area last month and witnessed a small boy of no more than six running with three or four of these wrappers home. A learned behaviour from his elders. Patience rewarded.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷ So God created human beings in his own image,

    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

²⁹ Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

³¹ God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.