Look carefully at the photo. What do you see? Those of you who have experienced the beauty of the California coast line will need to brace yourselves. You’re looking at the floor of the Monterey Bay.

A recent study revealed that 33% of the debris on the floor of Monterey is plastic. Over time this plastic solidifies into a new “rock” called plastiglomerate. This is not just trash. It’s an artifact left behind by us. On hundred thousand years from now a future archaeologist may find the debris in our photo as they burrow through the geological deposits and they will seek to know us through that which we left behind. In my book, Makers of Fire, I discuss the “future” artifacts which we are creating. Think of them as the stories we’re telling future generations.

Welcome to the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene is an informal moniker of geological time. It means the “time of man”. The formal name of our epoch is the Holocene which began approximately 12,000 years ago. The anthropocene demarcates the point at which humans began to mark the earth. The beginning of the anthropocene is variously dated. Some date it very recently to the time of the industrial revolution. Others take it back a bit further to emergence of cities some 10,000 years ago. I think of it as beginning some 2 million years ago around the time we discovered fire. 

Genesis chapter 1 contains a creation story that, in the end, portrays God as the One who makes living things thrive. Thrive. That’s the word. In this creation story humans are created in the image of God. We are most like God when we make life thrive. Now look at the photo again. Every person that reads the Genesis story in seriousness and couples this with what we are learning about our Earth needs to make a sharp turn back to the earth on mission… a mission to co-create the world with God and make it thrive.

That’s the story we want to tell future generations. 

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