Harmony

The book is didactic, pedantic, and verbose. Not easy reading. Had his majesty managed to express himself more succinctly he might have reached a wider audience.

Charles, Prince of Wales is heir to an antiquated, ancestral fiefdom and reputedly talks to his tomatoes. Many would see his position in the world as irrelevant and his opinions as suspect. This book has been around for 6 years and escaped my notice until recently. I borrowed an electronic copy out of curiosity and will confess that I am mightily surprised and impressed. Of course a future King of England can afford the world's best ghost writers but this combination of Eastern philosophical thought and theology resonates with my own thinking.

My own first contact with the empiricism of the scientific method in high school was an uncomfortable one. As HRH asserts we cannot empirically prove the existence of God or demonstrate the appearance of thought or love but the fact that they cannot be measured does not mean they do not exist.

This dichotomy has led to assertions such as the impossibility of fighting global warming because the effort would damage the economy. The belief that continued economic growth can be sustained indefinitely. Turning a chicken into an egg-laying machine incapable of turning around in her cage may be the most efficient means of producing eggs but is not healthy for the chicken and produces eggs with fragile shells and less than optimal nutritive content. We have resorted to industrialized farming to feed a world that is over-populated and could not be supported by traditional methods but the very methods used to maximize food production have rendered our soil incapable of self-fertilization and thus made us dependent on the petro-chemical industry to supply us with fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Of course it is only coincidence that one class of pesticides is decimating the insects that pollinate the flowers that grow our food. The use of fertilizer and diesel fuel to blow up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma and the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas bring into question the safety of fertilizer production and its relationship to high explosives.

The above is by way of demonstrating the interconnectedness of all things. The cancellation of 250 and growing Delta Airlines Flights because of a breakdown of computer systems serves to illustrate our dependence on modern technology. A crack in an insulator led to a hydro pole fire that knocked out power to 7500 people in Oakville including myself Friday August 5^th. The failure of signal lights at 6PM snarled traffic on Trafalgar Rd for hours.

This book is heavy on philosophy and beats its arguments to death but I agree with its conclusions despite all that. Paying farmers not to farm and using the over-production of wine in France to produce fuel seem foolhardy. I was not aware that sheep had been bred that do not need shearing.

The American Constitution talks of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; the latter being a euphemism for the accumulation of wealth. The manner in which we acquire and define that wealth has a direct bearing on our well-being and the planet on which we live. The wealth of nations is in part defined as its GNP. If the only factors taken into account are the goods and services produced then we ignore the environmental costs of that production and the services nature provided to make it possible. Rainforests provide rain through the transpiration of moisture produced by trees and in the process sequester carbon that is released into the atmosphere when those forests are destroyed. We must remember that the Sahara was once a vast rain forest.

If our wealth is defined only in terms of income and the accumulation of material possessions then we ignore the value of health and well-being along with the happiness that comes from self-fulfilment and self-worth.

“On Earth as it is in Heaven.” The earth is not simply a resource to be exploited. It is a living whole of which we are an integral part. Just as “The Word was made flesh” the spirit creates matter, not matter the spirit. We ignore this connection at our peril.