Please feel free .. .

Coming back from an appointment I stopped to look at a paper surrounded by sticky tape and left on the sidewalk. It said, “Please feel free to take it”. My guess is that it was originally posted to something left on the street. It’s not uncommon for folks to leave something near the sidewalk that they don’t want any more. If someone else can use it, that’s a good thing.

But the slogan made me think of how we treat the natural environment. Earlier in the morning I was reading Marilynne Robinson’ new book, Reading Genesis, where she points out that unlike the Babylonian culture that existed when the book was written, that creation was a gift, and that the gift was also supported by promises of continuity, even when the recipients behaved badly. We appear to be slow learners. We still feel free to help ourselves.