Things haven’t changed that much

I’m sure Noah would never get his ark completed today. The flood would well and truly have passed over him before he started building. There are so many rules and regulations governing the simplest of tasks. There are mountains of paperwork that have to be completed, forms to be filled in, permissions to be got, and standards to be reached.

He’d have to complete an environmental impact statement, let the planning authority know he was creating a temporary structure, undergo a health and safety audit, let the tax office know where he got the money from just in case he was laundering, and he’d have to ensure that all the animal rights organisations were happy with the accommodation he was hoping to provide to the animals.

The world has become a very complicated place. Some of us may dream of an idyllic, simple life where things can be done with ease and basic camaraderie, but that dream is getting further and further from view. It’s as if the world has been made to destroy initiative and keep the status quo in place. On reflection, this is not new. I’m sure Noah had equivalent problems in his day. Sure, Jesus was a leader, too, and it was the status quo that had him crucified.

Excerpted from Dipping into Life: 40 Reflections for a Fragile Earth by Alan Hilliard