Iguazú

Some people I know quite well are currently in Brazil.  Over the past few days they visited Iguazu, famous for its waterfalls.  It is on the border between Brazil and Argentina and a wonderful experience from both sides.  Their visit has brought memories flooding back to me.  I have had the privilege of visiting there twice, once in 1973 when we lived in the Argentinian province of Misiones which is on the Argentinian side of Iguazu and also again when my sons and I visited Argentina in 1999.

It is a place where you see the splendour of God's creation in all its glory with plants, animals, birds and the natural beauty of creation - a slice of paradise on earth.  My memories also went to the other extreme as I remembered the people that we worked amongst all those years ago in the shanty towns amid such abject poverty.  They seemed like an underclass, untouchables, the forgotten ones left to fend for themselves in a world that to them was bereft of hope.  What a contrast between God's original creation and what we humans have done with it and each other!

Life in a shanty town.

They say that because of climate change and the effects of human activity and exploitation of natural resources, there isn't as much water in the waterfalls as there was fifty years ago.  When will we wake up and realise just what we are doing to our beautiful planet?  I am reminded of the words of the last few lines of a song by Queen:

                 Is this the world we created, we made it on our own
                    Is this the world we devastated, right to the bone
                    If there's a God in the sky looking down
                    What can he think of what we've done
                    To the world that He created?

Excessive consumerism, wasteful ways and thoughtlessness have brought such destruction.  There is a challenge for each of us to find the right balance between our wants and our needs and manage our natural resources in a more responsible way to ensure that God’s will shall be ‘done on earth as it is in Heaven’.