Contaminated sites reclamation...

Quite frankly, the pictures are horrifying.

Wildlife specialists hosing off oil soaked pelicans. Volunteers building protective barriers, ankle-deep in pools of shimmering slick. Minimum wage oyster shuckers, now unemployed, heading home to past due bills and hungry mouths. Humanity’s greed, tangible in the form of thick, black sludge, spewing from a hole in a pipe. An inky smudge on both a satellite photo and our history.

Sadly, we have been here before. And, unless there is a fundamental shift in all of us, we will be here again.

Now I am not an activist. I have never taken part in a demonstration. I have signed very few petitions. I don't rescue stray cats, although I liked the band. In fact, I regret to admit that I have rarely fought for anything other than my own selfish pursuits, my own short-sighted ideas of happiness, my own comfort. Beg me for spare change and most likely I’ll pass you by. Cock-block me on a Saturday night out, however, and we’ll have a problem. Much, you see, is backwards in my heart. I know it and I don’t like it. I have no doubt that most of you can relate.

As a Christian, and a lackluster one at that, I have long been told that this world is not my home, that I will one day wander streets of gold, the cares of today all but forgotten in light of eternity. It is a lovely thought if you think gold streets and mansions are neat , but as a number of Christian and secular authors today agree, there is a huge danger in this 'only visiting this planet' thinking, one that has allowed the wide-grinned snake oil salesmen we call politicians to rake in cash hand over fist for years with little or no accountability. These “God-fearing” men, as they claim to be, fight passionately against “key” issues like abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage, while they rape the earth - the very thing their God created and called good - with zero regard for its inhabitants. And for what? Money. The devil, it seems, may look more like an oil barrel or a fat Texan than a mischievous little fellow with horns, red tights and a Steve Buscemi mustache.

But it’s easy to pass the buck, isn’t it? Those bastards, we cry, disgusted.

In his oddly likable, haunting little ditty on Illinois' famed serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr., folk wunderkind Sufjan Stevens offers this:

And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floorboards
For the secrets I have hid

Interesting...and scary.

While the consequences of my actions rarely spread beyond guilt, a pouting liver and the usual two weeks of anxiety following an annual STD test, it is true that they pale in comparison to the current environmental catastrophe. But the question remains: am I really that much different than the inbred looking men in expensive suits from BP, Transocean and Halliburton, swearing in before the Senate committee? Is their desire for money and power really any worse than my own shopping list of wants? Is their corner cutting any different than mine, or do we, pardon the upcoming pun, share hearts that have become darkened and crude?

To be honest, I’m not sure.

What I am sure of though, is that I don’t like that question. And I don’t particularly like dead turtles and crabs and sharks and dolphins washing ashore on tides of black, the long-term consequences to be shouldered by my nephews’ generation. So what then are we to do?

A couple of things I guess.

First, we need to be vocal and active in putting an end to the things that make our stomachs crawl when we see them on the evening news. The time for sitting quietly by and allowing blood to be shed for the sake of oil, or kids to be raped at the hands of monsters in Cambodian brothels, or our poor and mentally-challenged men and women to be forced from their homes and into the streets in the name of gentrification is over. We need to get off our lazy asses and do something. Stand up for something. Fight for someone and something other than ourselves, no matter how busy the week was, or how comfortable the couch.

And second, we need to take an honest look inside. I’ve already admitted that I don’t like where my heart is at much of the time. Where is yours? Will I continue to be a hypocrite and crucify others when my heart is as unclean as theirs? I probably shouldn’t. Instead, I should sort myself out, and pray that the redemption in me might just help bring about the redemption of those around me, and then of course, if it's not too late, hopefully redeem the living, breathing planet we have been so very blessed and entrusted with.

No more ecosystems destroyed by corporate greed, unhealthy, government-sponsored dependancy on waning natural resources, or preventable disasters. No more water foul in need of a bath. No more oil spots on our legacy.