Caged Bears

Looking at things from a sort of fourteenth century  point of view I can see that you have lots of things. What is really amazing is that you don’t make any of them.
A lot of these things that you possess are made in far away lands. A few are made in these parts, but what is almost certain is that you don’t know the people who made your things.
Yes, how times have changed, and not always for the best!
Back then, a village was an almost self contained  community. There are always some things you cannot make yourself, so we would swap with other folk, exchanging with coins or just with stuff, or just giving from our abundance.
For example, my friend Peter Piper would make me a new whistle sometimes. When he did I would go into the forest and get the wood for him, and I would bring back a couple of hares for his pot too.
But nobody does that sort of things these days. Everything is sort of  'removed'.
Here in the twenty first century I rarely see a hare. When I walk out in the woods all is empty and quiet.
In my day the woods were full of life. There weren’t any bears or wolves any more, so it was pretty safe to go out there any time. There were, of course, places that powerful people didn’t want you to go, but in our parts there was plenty of common land to go round.
Not only could we collect nuts and berries on the common land, but we could dig out coal, and collect wood, gather eggs, find herbs and medicines and feed our animals.
The forest was a great banquet the Lord had set before us.
And then there was the land around the village which we would farm.
Yes, in those days we slept in our huts, but we lived on the land.
Nowadays you live in your huts too, like caged bears!
You are kept away from the land. You walk on some of the land and look at it like you watch your screens, but you do not live on the land, with the land. You don’t eat it, drink it, smell it, taste it, surround yourself with it till it becomes a part of you.
Sometimes you view it as if you were looking at a picture, like on one of your screens, but you do not wear the land, clothe yourself with the earth.
When I look at you, I see you naked, landless, distanced from God’s creation.