By Muyiwa Adetiba

The earth is breathing; literally. It is aeriated and suffused with life nurturing oxygen. Air is now cleaner, fresher and crisper almost everywhere. Many areas of Europe and Asia which had been covered in smug have been reportedly cleared.

It is estimated that between 25-30% of air pollution in the world has been cleaned off in just four months. Nobody thought it could happen.

The ozone layer now has a long-hoped for respite. Nobody thought it could happen. Not after years of fruitless jaw-jawing on the need to reduce carbon emission. The giant machines which the industrialised nations could not afford to shut down for a minute have been shut down now for nearly half a year.

The skies are eerily quiet. The big metal birds with their booming, noisy ways have departed the skies. Nobody thought it could happen. Birds, real birds, are soaring and dancing in the skies again, wondering what has happened but enjoying their freedom nonetheless. The oceans are strangely still. Gone are the constant ripples and waves of ships, boats and yachts.

The sea monsters are leaving the deep and coming nearer the surface for air. The fishes, big and small, are leaping to the air in wonderment and joy. Amphibians, especially the daring ones, are venturing far into land. They are enjoying the tranquillity of the beaches they thought had gone forever. Many cities are witnessing the invasion of animals which are probably wondering where humans have gone.

A social media joke said human beings have found themselves locked in while animals have been let loose. But really, most of it was originally their space. Even plants, if they had a voice, must be rejoicing at the type of environment that is currently evolving. Plants are designed to filter air and restore equilibrium to nature.

But they have been overwhelmed. They have, like animals, been decimated by excess heat, excess cold and excess carbon monoxide. This is down to the excesses and irresponsibility of Man. Humans have short changed other stakeholders in this joint holding called Mother Earth.

The biblical account of creation states that God created the sea and its inhabitants. He created the sky and its inhabitants.

He created land and its inhabitants. God paused at every stage of creation and ‘thought it was good’. In other words, all of creation was meant to exist together. When He asked man to subdue the earth, He probably was looking for a leader, not a disrupter who eventually became a destroyer. Earth as designed, would replenish itself. The resources of nature as designed would feed every plant, animal and man.

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The population of the earth as designed would balance out in births and deaths. But Man found ways to tamper with the grand design of nature and balance. Man found a way to live longer thereby offsetting the delicate balance of birth and death. Greater population meant greater need for space. As if it was not enough, man started hoarding. Man started taking more than he needed – in space, food and resources.

The jungle if you notice, doesn’t hoard. Done with subduing plants and animals, Man started subduing himself. Caucasian on Asian. Both Caucasian and Asian on Black. This subjugation, this fight for supremacy, has left mankind fractured. The harmony that God created; that God thought was good, has been severely disrupted. To make matters worse, Man – or a section of man – sees himself as the owner of the universe, to do with as he wills.

All of this might sound like a conspiracy theory but if there is a living God, and my faith says there is, then it is not likely that He would be very happy with the world as it currently exists. And if the Creator wanted a redress, He would probably start with our unbridled population growth which has made mankind take more than its fair share of nature’s resources.

If He wanted to teach a lesson or two on equality, He would probably send a decease that would not discriminate between black and white; pauper and prince. If He wanted to improve the eco system, He would shut down all the big factories and the agents of pollution that we thought were indispensable.

If He wanted to speak to our greedy nature, He would separate us from our possessions and show we need only a tiny fraction of what we have to survive. If He wanted to show how poorly we have treated animals and plants – our co-inhabitants, He would cage us the way we have caged animals, often separating them from their families and natural habitat. If He wanted to teach us humility, He would afflict mankind with a plague that would confound nations big and small; a scourge that would knock the heads of scientists from all over together.

It is possible that when the solution to COVID 19 is found, it could be so simple that we would wonder how we allowed it to kill so many people and affect our lives so fundamentally. But that would be at His time; when we would have learnt a lesson or two. After all, most of these animal to man viruses are caused by our proximity to animals. Proximity caused by us through space encroachment and funny culinary preferences. A ‘social distancing’ from animals of all forms especially bats which are the largest incubators of viruses would do us good.

An understanding that we are a mere part of and not the controller of the world would do us good. In the meantime, we have on the positive side, seen how people have reached out to help the poor in their midst. How people have given resources, buildings and money to save lives.

The Catholic Church for example has just offered over 400 hospitals nationally as isolation centres for COVID 19. Speaking of the bible, we have also seen how some people have placed the curse of Gehazi (2nd Kings 5) on themselves and their families by enriching themselves from materials and money meant either for the poor or for isolation centres. If you cannot contribute, don’t take. Unless you want the wrath of God- and the plague of COVID 19 on your family.

Vanguard