To Every Thing There is a Season...

A while back, Maxdog's eloquent Mom included Ecclesiastes in her blog about Maxdog's illness:

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven..."


Yesterday was Max's time. He led a beautiful life, filled with love and laughter amidst an adoring family. And we've been the beneficiaries of his days with us in our heart-warming cyber circle of paws. So we sob for Max's departure and ache for his mom. But his passing was part of "every purpose under the heaven."

What I'm having so much trouble with is the contrast between the natural cycle of life -- the "to everything there is a season" -- and the egregious violation of that cycle with the seemingly endless spewing of oil into areas where animal life is meant to be nurtured, not destroyed. So while I mourn Max and other furry ones who have recently left us -- Digby, Jackson, Snickers, to name just a few -- what makes me so ill I can barely look at it are the miles of oil-filled marshes and the nameless and unborn birds, turtles, fish, and others losing their lives in this monstrosity.
You all know H.C. Bird, Jake and Just Harry's virtual heron-cam. Well, here is an all-too-real young heron dying in the marshes.


The irony, because of my work as a seaport consultant, I know that permits to do with anything relating to our marine environment -- seagrasses, wetlands, coral reefs, habitat, water quality -- can take years and years to be approved, lest sometimng miniscule be forgotten, lest all the i's not be dotted and all the t's not be crossed. It can take months to resolve issues of temporary turbidity during construction. More months to be sure no net loss of seagrasses occur. Huge debates as to whether the outlet for a cooling canal can be moved without disturbing a nursery for baby West Indian manatees. And now this. One has to ask -- has it all been for naught? When our environmental protection agencies and organizations have tried to be so careful, how could this have happened? Or have we all been fooling ourselves? Or being fooled?

There is no purpose under heaven that I can think of.

Run free, dear Max -- and if you find a new sanctuary for brown pelicans and terns and roseate spoonbills and gulls and herons across the Bridge-- tell them we miss them too.

Joan