They Paved Paradise and Put up a Parking Lot

July 28, 2008 at 7:01 pm (Musings) (beauty, convenience, freedom, gazelle, gazelles, god, Jesus, paradise, satan, tree, trees)

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,
With a pink hotel, a boutique,
And a swinging hot spot.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum.
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half just to see ‘em.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Hey, farmer, farmer, put away that D.D.T., now!
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees, please!
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Late last night I heard the screen door slam.
And a big yellow taxi took away my old man.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

~Big Yellow Taxi, by Joni Mitchell

I find myself identifying heavily with this song as I write this post. As I look out the window of my workplace, I’m watching what is probably a 200-or-so-year-old cottonwood being cut to pieces slowly and removed from the urban landscape. This tree has been here since before the founding of my hometown, and has grown to be a beautiful, enormous size and has offered lovely shade, home for birds, and the gentle melody of rustling leaves to greet me as I come and go. On the hottest of days, we could stay in its shade and not be overheated.

Now, of course, this tree has been found to be ‘inconvenient’ to the big accountant firm next door, and has to be taken down.  The accountant firm would like to install some sort of drainage system, and in order to do it on our property like they’d prefer, the tree has to go.

I’m not a hippy or tree-hugger by any means, but this really bites at my nerves. Not simply because they’re taking down our tree that we’ve all loved (though that is certainly a big part of it), but because it stands for something so much bigger, darker, and more loathsome.

What are we willing to sacrifice for our own convenience? How many have lost their physical beauty and health because our lives were just too hectic at the moment to eat anything but fast food, and were too tired at our few free moments to want to do anything but watch tv? How many have lost their spiritual beauty and health because we just wanted to take what cheap, quck fix was in front of us and move on to more ‘important’ matters? (Can I ask: if we are a moment on Earth, and for all of eternity after physical death, which is the more pressing matter?)

Quite often, the thing which appears to be the easiest and most convenient way to go is that which will cost us the most dearly in the long run. Ultimately, ‘convenience’ is a lot more bother and headache than plain, simple responsibility.

What if you took the fifteen minutes spent at McDonalds and instead used it at home to make something delicious, healthy, and better energy giving to take along? There are an abundance of these such recipes, and they often cost less in time and money than waiting in line for your Big Mac. It might seem like more of a bother, but what’s better: fifteen minutes lost making something that will truly nourish and replenish yourself, or taking a day or month or more, or even dying from a heart attack? How much more of a bother is that extra fifteen minutes then?

What if we took that half an hour normally used watching Seinfeld and exchanged it for a walk around the block, or even a jaunt on the treadmill? Even squats? Which lifestyle will have you looking ruefully at your waistline more often? Which lifestyle will have you panting, out of breath, out of shape, and aching from brief activity spurts more often? In the short run, the responsible one. But in the slightly longer one, Seinfeld definitely takes the cake. Which is more fun and convenient? Seinfeld, hands down. But are you willing to trade your body for a half an hour’s cheap laughter?

What if as Christians, instead of watching things that turn God’s glorious gifts into mundane, ridiculous, and even obscene things to be pointed and snickered at, we took them in their Biblical context and treated them with the grace and honor that He originally intended? What if sex was a gift and not a punch-line? What if kindness, gentleness, and humility were lifted up rather than scorned and mocked, in such venues as Jack Nicholson movies? Sexually explicit sitcoms that are off-color but oh-so-hilarious? What if, instead of honoring these things with our patronage, we came closer to Christ through prayer, service, and Bible reading?

Why are we just taking what the world has to offer? The world has a one-track mind for pretty much everything: mockery of God, and silencing of His people. Why are we giving money to those people who do their very best with all their breath to get people to hate or disbelieve in the One who has saved us from eternal separation from Him, the very nature of which is Hell? Why are we sponsoring those who so vehemently hate the One who loves us so much, and the One whom we claim to love with all of our hearts and minds and lives?

For convenience and what we consider satisfaction. It’s inconvenient to find someone who actually shares our beliefs and our love for Christ, and communicates it in their entertainment and charitable practice, because they’re few and far between. And the plastic jewels between the diamonds look flashy enough to give us an excuse not to go looking for the value. Why should we expend our energy looking for what truly matters, when what we think matters is right in front of us?

This was something that the first man to catch gazelles used as a principle for catching one of the few beasts that had eluded human capture for all time through the ages. He laid out sweet feed for the gazelles every night for two weeks. By this time, the gazelles had formed a habit, and would always come. Each night, he would insert a tall post in the ground, gradually building a blockade around the animals. On the last night, the animals went in through the small opening, and he blocked it behind them. In response to the media question of how he knew to do this, he replied, “I treat animals the way I treat people: I give them what they think they want, and in return, they give me their beauty and their freedom.”

Supposedly, humans are smarter than gazelles. But this strategy always seems to work on those with weak wills, and even many that appear to be of stronger wills. Satan offers us what we think we want: convenience. And in return, we give him our freedom and our beauty.

We’re sacrificing the soaring glory of a pure, tropical beach with beautiful palm trees for a mall and a nightclub. We’re sacrificing a tall, wonderful cottonwood for a drainage system. You’re sacrificing your physique and heart for a ‘one time’ salt or sugar fix. You’re sacrificing your health for a half an hour’s laughter which fades minutes later. You’re sacrificing your relationship with the One you claim to love with all your heart for racy entertainment, or even innocent (in themselves) time-fillers. If it’s not worth dying for, don’t make it the highest consumer of your time. You have limited time on this Earth- use it wisely.

You have awesome, amazing potential. No matter what your natural intellect, you have the potential to be brilliant. No matter what your natural fitness level, you have the potential to be fit. No matter what your natural spiritual temperament, you have the potential to be radically in love with Christ, and a strong warrior in his army of prayer and praise.

Don’t take any less than what God Himself will give you; anything else will be flamingly inadequate- literally. If you do, you’ll find that you are trading your tropical paradise for a hot asphalt parking lot, your cottonwood for a drainage pipe, or your savanna for a small enclosure in a New York zoo.

Exchange the five minutes, and save your life.

~Lily