Variable

I sat on my back porch this morning and watched the sun come up. Funny how it could have been a scene from 100 years ago.  No one ever told nature she was behind the times and needed to catch up. This orderly sunrise and crisp routine seems to still work for her.  I watched a cardinal flash streaks of crimson as it raced between the cedars.  Hardly noticed was the female, hidden by her brown coat just a couple of branches away.  Nature has a system in place that accomodates the safety and well-being of even it's smallest partners.  The man who is unaware of this is the obnoxious variable in nature. 

Maybe it is the free will thing.  Man has it, and Nature does not.  So Nature follows the design and Man is not constricted to it.  If Man chooses, he can build his house on the edge of a 900-foot cliff in a remote part of northern California---his choice entirely.  God-given common sense would tell most everyone that this was a fool's paradise.  However, should his house collapse one day on top of him, the odd tremor will get the entire blame.   

Gandhi once said, "Earth provides enough to satisfy man's need, but not everyman's greed."  That ugly counterpart to Man's good nature drives atrocities and the destitution in the world that leaves us shaking our heads in disbelief.  Some of the carnage is produced indirectly by Man's unwillingness to recognize the order of things.  He is the one out of line.  And no one likes a line cutter.  He is the variable to order, but it is his choice entirely.