My Bright Abyss - Christian Wiman

My God my bright abyss
into which all my longing will not go
once more I come to the edge of all I know
and believing nothing believe in this:

The only real cure for provincialism is not dictated by our awareness of the size and diversity of the human family alone, but also by our awareness of the staggering size and diversity of the more-than-human community of nature.

George B. Handley - Home Waters, pg. 42

George Handley - Environmentalism rehabilitates humanity

Whatever environmentalism seeks to be, it must not denigrate the uniqueness of human experience.  This is because environmental degradation is itself our own suicidal impulse.  And this self-destructiveness is not only an indifference to beauty but an intolerance for the bald fact that we are subject to death and dying.  We need to rehabilitate what it means to be human.  We cannot risk self-hatred.

George B. Handley - Home Waters, pg. xvi