A walk on the beach in these waning days of not-yet-summer brings one face to face with roped off dunes and "Area Closed" signs, both seeking to preserve the nesting grounds of endangered species, including the piping plover. (Not "ploh-ver", but "pluhv-er", at least here on Cape Cod).
These restrictions can be an inconvenience, even an annoyance -- folk who enjoy driving out over the beaches find that their access is at times even completely cut off because of the nests that are built right up against the road beds.
But we know, when we are at our best at least, that caring for creation is part of our divine mandate, part of our call to be partners with God in God's on-going stewardship of all creation.
And we also know that our care for others species must be intimately connected with the survival of our own, that a disregard for other species must bleed over into care for homo sapiens. If M.A.D., mutually assured destruction, was the lunacy of the Cold War era, then surely one of the paths to a better world, and our own survival, is Mutually Assured Existence.
Even if that means not walking over the dunes.
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