There once was a time when the order of my day included playing with my buddies, fighting with my sister (13 months younger), wishing mightily that this fourth year of grade school were over, doing a couple of assigned farm chores, and putting off homework as long as possible. That arithmetic workbook was the sinkhole of my existence.

There once was a time, in the spring of the very next year, when I watched a mother bobwhite quail and her six brand new baby chicks move slowly past me, just five feet in front of my hiding place in a patch of dogwood. I dreamed then for the first time of how great it would be to get paid for studying wild animals. I had no way of knowing then that years of study and much good fortune would enable me (as Joseph Campbell, the late, great student of mythology, would have said) to follow my bliss for my entire career.

There once was a time, in June of 1943, when I, age 12, moved with my family to the small rural town of Onaga in the Tallgrass Prairie Flint Hills of Pottawatomie County, Kan., away from the Bottomlands of the Missouri River Valley some 100 miles east of Kansas City. In Missouri, I had lived in an area of small family farms, where most every acre was flat, plowed, and planted. Driving through that area today reveals a giant agri-business aura, cold and heartless, mostly devoid of farmhouses. Even fencerows and woodlots have been plowed. 

There once was a time when, within two weeks after moving to Kansas, I had fallen in love with those prairie hills. I thrilled to the sense of permanence of the place; loved the small, clear, fish-filled streams that flowed between and around those hills; and was awed by the Earth-bound roots and hearts of prairie grasses and wildflowers that sent forth new life each spring no matter how Father Sky had ravaged the land during seasons past.

There once was a time, during that summer, when my dad and I took our first fishing trip in Kansas. We had found a good fishing spot along the Vermillion River and thrown in our baited hooks. Soon after, my pole responded to a powerful channel catfish strike. I let the nice, fat 3-pounder play itself out before leading it to the bank. 

But, I had noticed something else: a small rock near the water’s edge that had been dry when I first sat down was now covered with water. The river was rising, but no rain had fallen in our area during the last week! But more water had entered the drainage basin farther upstream or along one of the Vermillion’s tributaries! My 12-year-old brain then kicked into action with the idea of what we now call the interconnectedness of the parts and particles of Nature. From then to this day, I have looked for examples of how living species interact with each other. Some examples are strikingly beautiful, some (cruel by our standards) are utterly practical predator-prey events, and others richly profound. But that is another story.

And there once was a time early in my life when the realization came that I had three serious preoccupations: girls, sports, and how goes it with the natural world? Like many of you, I had a long, warm, and affectionate marriage to the love of my life. I played pick-up full court basketball until age 65. I studied long and hard to qualify for an academic chair in biology at some university. 

From once upon a time down to the present, and in addition to several foreign countries, I’ve lived for significant periods of time in six of our lower 48 states and have spent measurable amounts of time in six other states. Thus, I have seen many examples of how we’ve ravished and trashed the land and polluted both the air and our natural waters. We all know the “hows”—the ways—in which we have done this, and continue to do so, in spite of our better judgment. But do we know the “whys” that enable us to continue those destructive practices, even in the face of all of the times we know why we should cease and desist?

Once upon a time long, long ago we made a covenant with any chemical or device that made life easier. We eagerly await any new product that will make life less physical, less sweaty, less time consuming, that will take care of some problem more easily and will save precious time. That practice has evolved to where we have made a god of convenience.

We now employ bottled toxins that can kill most any presumed pest, but many of these chemicals have dangerous side effects. We now have robots that can be programmed to clean our floors, and cars that drive themselves. We’ve not, generally, done a good job of finding constructive ways to use that so-called extra free time. And, even though it is a practice hugely harmful to the health and ecology of Mother Earth, we continue to live by the “chemicals of convenience.”

Also, once upon a time long, long ago, translators decided to interpret our Holy Scriptures to declare that our Earth was dangerous, that Nature was an enemy that had to be subdued and conquered —that we must dominate. Thus, western Christianity has not always interpreted as an ecology-friendly belief system. Although not evil, Nature is dangerous. So is driving to work! What happened to learning of natural dangers and trying to prepare for or avoid them?

Oh! If only it could have been, in that time long, long ago, that the expression that became “have dominion over” could have been translated, rather, to designate the loving idea of “stewardship.” Perhaps that shift is still possible, but it seems that both fear of the unknown and greed for material wealth still hold sway in our interaction with the Natural World.

Another subtle corollary Christian message is that our mortal time on Earth is but a temporary stop in a lean-to tent on the way to a forever-life in a nine-star Hilton somewhere else. Biblical scholars argue that the hope for life ever after on “gold-lined streets” somewhere else has dampened the interest of many people in becoming diligent stewards of this Earth, the loving guardians of, if you will, The Creation. It seems that few people give serious thought to leaving a habitable Earth for their beloved successors.