Matt's Journal

Thank you, O God, for a beautiful day.

I walked around, as I do, and the sky was incredibly clear and blue.

I saw trees pushing out green, azaleas in full bloom, camellias just off theirs. Plants flourishing, cultivated by their owners, using water pumped here by systems maintained collectively by us and our ancestors to the third and fourth generation.

What I saw was Eden, likely the closest to Eden we can get, an Eden created by us. It is we, the people, who choose, cultivate, maintain and remove plants of species from different continents, plants that left alone would die, mostly, in this semi-desert. The native bunchgrasses are monotonous, plain, something to be known and loved only with effort. We and our ancestors make Eden possible. The things we’ve built make Eden possible.

So, I say thank you for us and for this Eden.

And, is it unlikely that you, O God, exist?

So what.

Even if I am only speaking to myself, what do I know of “speaking”, or “myself”. Did I make them? So, I say, unabashedly, thank you. Because I want to.

Thank you.