In a most politically incorrect satire on the status of the Emperor and the High Priest, Jesus said that children are the “greatest in Heaven’s domain.” Matt. 18:4.

For the first several centuries of the Christian era people portrayed Jesus as a child to help remember his “greatest” statement. I made a sketch of Jesus as a child, based upon the Roman sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, 357 A.D.

The chapter entitled “Downside Up” in Green Kingdom Come! shows that children are the greatest in the domain of aroma, of touch, and of imagination

Thus young Americans, with the greatest sensitivities in smell, touch, and intuition, need to be freed to help guide adults in the green movement. No child must be left inside. Earth community must become the primary classroom of children.

Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.

drawing rendered by Joe Grabill

I’m walking on the IU campus at night last week. I see in the distance a sculpture of a seated figure that was not on this path when I was a student in the 1950s. I guess it is Herman B, looking over his handiwork. Sure enough. I read in the semi-dark— Eleventh President (1937-1962). Chancellor (1962-2000). I didn’t know he was in a leadership role for 63 years, or that he was the same age as my mother (97) when he died

I am astounded to read about values of his. Perhaps I sensed these values as I met trees day and night, walking and meditating along the length of the campus from the library on the west edge to my home on the east at the headwaters of the Jordan River.

Herman said, OUR PRECIOUS ISLANDS OF GREEN AND SERENITY TRANSCEND OUR CLASSROOMS AND LABORATORIES IN THEIR ABILITY TO INSPIRE STUDENTS TO DREAM LONG DREAMS. He also said that cutting a tree unnecessarily is an act of treason. No wonder I still dream of my Indiana University home.

Ch. 4 in my book is about the priority Jesus placed on youth and about green education for them.

Photographs by Joe Grabill

After meeting my Leo classmates in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, I walked familiar paths at my undergrad school, Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, and then myriad trails at my grad school, Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

Over a half-century ago, for four years, I regularly exited the Indiana University Social Science Building to head for the library. Soon I was in a labyrinth of several acres of trees. I revisited that experience last Sunday. For the first time in that total immersion in the woods, I heard a tree singing. Another sang, until there was a chorus. “A good tree,” I heard from all directions, “is the life-blood and master spirit of a precious forest.”

An opening in the forest appeared and revealed the library building. Then, I got close enough to reread the inspiring portal inscription, “A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit.” One transformative book I read there was Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self, which taught me to listen to interior voices. Finally, I could hear within myself previously undiscovered tree harmonics.

Today, like the Galileeans, we don’t ask if The One Energy Field, which we’ve labeled the Universe (the One Verse) exists. The One Verse, with black holes, planets, and chemicals in the Periodic Table, is apparent. Yes, of course, The One Energy Field exists.

Then, why have we become skeptics and agnostics about God existing? Because we have let religion define The One in anthropocentric images that seem nonscientific.

The book, Everything is God, by an extraordinary young scholar, Jay Michaelson, has shown me a dynamic interchange among various non-dual ideas. We can summarize reality, Michaelson argues, by this formula: 2=1=0. Diversity (2) exists within a single energy system (1) which exists within energy, like black energy, which cannot be measured (0).

Author Jay Michaelson

God/It/Being/Nothingness/Yahweh/Consciousness—the labels are endless— includes all the oscillations among 2 and 1 and 0.

James Broughton addresses the question, Does It exist?

This is It

And I am It

And You are It

And So is That

And He is It

And She is It

And It is It

And That is That.

Image of Universe based on heat left over from the Big Bang.

Today in Savoonga the love of cash, of which there is not enough, has replaced the love of teamwork in hunting animals, of which traditionally there have been more than enough. Youth, 30% of the population, have turned to drugs and alcohol. There have been as many as six teenager suicide attempts in one month.

The values Jesus taught are closer to the traditional Eskimo culture, with no money, than to Wall Street. See chapter 12 in my book, Green Kingdom Come! Jesus said that folks, born bare and broke, need community cooperation more than they need clothes and money.

Chester the teenager was not a candidate for suicide.

An inspiration for this post is the story on Yupik culture, “Snowbound,” in the book by Gene Weingarten, The Fiddler in the Subway.

Author – Gene Weingarten

Exhibit on Yupik culture.

Peterson says that as a child she knew that if there were not forests and wildlife in heaven, she did not want to go there. As an adult, she has found heavenly Spirit in exploring interspecies communication with gray whales. Renewing an eco-diverse Garden of Eden here on Earth is for her the way to live rapturously.

image source

Jesus, whose native tongue was Aramaic , also spoke of heaven on Earth. In Luke, he said, “The kingdom of God is (Aramaic, legau) in, among, and around you.” Here, now, on Earth. In the gospel of Thomas he said, “The Father’s imperial rule is spread out upon Earth, and people don’t see it.”

We keep remembering Jesus, and that remembrance is his Second Coming. He’s a cheerleader for Peterson’s Earth-based agenda.

Bonobo primates are as close to homo sapiens genetically (over 98 overlap) as the chimpanzees, and are powerful examples that our genes do not make us violent. The latest research, as documented in Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo, by Vanessa Woods, shows that our species is not alone in showing tolerance and empathy.

Bonobos demonstrate tolerance and empathy systemically. Unlike chimpanzees and humans, there is no abuse of females, no infanticide, and no warfare.

Bonobos make peace because for 6 million years they have not had to be aggressive to eat. They have lived in the tropical forest of Africa (left bank of the Congo River) where food is abundant. Children receive food first. A female network equally distributes food and nurture, and collectively nips male power displays in the bud.

For our species to survive, we must imitate the bonobos, our very close, exemplary cousins.

My book discusses bonobos in chapter 5, which asks the question, Would Jesus picket against warfare?

Follows developments in a bonobo sanctuary called Lola in the Congo which includes a photo comparison of bonobo and chimpanzee faces, a photo of Vanessa Woods and a bonobo and a photo of woman holding a bonobo.

Habiscus At Tree Haven

Photography by Joe Grabill

Balloon Flower At Tree Haven

Photography by Joe Grabill

How did that, and dozens of other holocausts, with final results being zeroes forever, occur in my Ohio birthplace?

A leading cause was the destruction of diverse habitats.  Invading human locusts or army ants, if you please, including my ancestors, ravaged the trees. Ohio in 1800 had 70 percent tree cover. In 1940, nine years after my birth, 10 percent tree cover. No trees, no wild community.

Who became extinct or missing in Ohio, never to return as members of a wild community? In addition to the passenger pigeon, buffalo, elk, wolf, black bear, cougar, and lynx?

above images sourced from

I have just visited the Wildlife Prairie State Park, just east of Peoria, IL, which seeks to present the story of species departed from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

Photography By Joe Grabill

Taken On Madeline Island June 2010