August - Road to Wider Compassion

Last month’s reflection focused on a special plant, Spigelia genuflexa, an example of plant behavior providing the best environment for the success of offspring. This plant pushes its seeds into the moss underneath where they are most likely to sprout and grow into maturity in an uncertain environment.

La Vista’s Monday study group saw another example of this behavior when we viewed the “Road to Recovery” episode of Our Living World, a documentary series on Netflix. The long opening scene was impressive, showing salmon swimming across a flooded road with threatening traffic traversing the highway in the opposite direction. We were all on edge, rooting for the salmon when someone commented, “Why isn’t the road closed to divert the traffic and protect the salmon run like Snake Road in southern Illinois?” All of us agreed, since we were familiar with LaRue Road, (Snake Road) in the Shawnee National Forest that is closed in spring and fall for the migration of snakes and other amphibians.

Most of us are aware that it is instinct that drives salmon and some amphibians to undertake life-threatening efforts to provide the best possible chance for the life of the next generation; however, it is conscious choice that moves humans to take measures like closing a road to help life to continue for some species.

This seems an example of human consciousness awakening to the inherent value of other species as Pope Francis reminds us in the encyclical Laudato Si: “It is not enough, however, to think of different species merely as potential 'resources' to be exploited, while overlooking the fact that they have value in themselves. Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost forever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.” (33)

When each of us ponders evidence of our own broadening compassion, it is good to know we're contributing to the evolution of the whole!



(Photo by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash)

August, 2024