God Loves Children

Agriculture and Love of Children

By John Taylor; 2007 August 14

A Baha'i music producer in Los Angeles was recently quoted in the press as saying about his latest rap album, "I wanted to put out a recording that I could sit down and listen to with Abdu'l-Baha." This idea intrigued me. Surely this is a thought that we could all benefit from thinking in the morning, before we start into our work for the day. We could ask ourselves, "Is what I am going to produce today something that I would be proud and happy to show to Abdu'l-Baha?" Or, even more, imagine sitting next to the Master as you work, and then having Him show the results to you.

I was delighted when I came across the work of Jan Amos Comenius. He had a love for young children that you rarely see today. Like Abdu'l-Baha, he understood how important it is to educate them, and how blessed the teachers are. He wrote,

"(That) children ought to be dearer to parents than gold and silver, than pearls and gems, may be discovered from a comparison between both gifts of God; for ... gold and silver are fleeting and transitory; children an immortal inheritance." (Jan Amos Comenius)

Yes! Did not Baha'u'llah address virtually every one of the Hidden Words to the "son of" one of the virtues of God? Did not Baha'u'llah will all of creation to us, and reserve only our most childlike part, the human heart, for His own exclusive use? As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to share the first couple of pages of Comenius's "School of Infancy, written in 1631. The title of the first chapter says it all, "Children, God's Most Precious Gift, and an Inestimable Treasure, Claim Our Most Vigilant Attention." Comenius writes,

That children are a priceless treasure God testifies, saying:

"Lo, children are the heritage of the Lord: the fruit of the womb His reward; as arrows in the hand, so are children." (Ps 127:3-4)

David declares to be happy to whom God confers children. The same is also evident from this, that God wishing to testify of  His love towards us, calls us children -- as if there were no more excellent name by which to commend us.  Moreover He is very greatly incensed against those who deliver their children to Moloch.

It is also worthy of our most serious consideration that God in respect of the children of even idolatrous parents calls them children born to Him, thus indicating that they are born not for ourselves but for God, and as God's offspring they claim our most profound respect. Hence in Malachi, children are called the seed of God, whence arises the offspring of God. For this reason the eternal son of God when manifested in the flesh not only willed to become the participator of the nature of children but likewise deemed children a pleasure and a delight. Taking them in his arms as little brothers and sisters He carried them about and kissed them and blessed them.

Not only this but he also uttered a severe threat against anyone who would offend them even in the least degree, commanding them to be respected as Himself and condemning with the severest penalties any who offended even the smallest of them.

Should anyone wish to inquire why He so delighted with little children and so strictly enjoined upon us such respectful attention to them, many reasons may be ascertained. And first, if at present the little ones seem unimportant to you regard, them not as they now are but as, in accordance with the intention of God, they may and ought to be. You will see them not only as the future inhabitants of the world and possessors of the earth, and God's vicars among His creatures when we depart from this life, but also equally participators with us in the heritage of Christ, a royal priesthood, a chosen people, associates of angels, judges of devils, the delight of heaven, the terror of hell, -- heirs of the most excellent dignities throughout all the ages of eternity. What can be imagined more excellent than this?

Phillip Melanchthon, of pious memory, having upon one occasion entered a common school, looked upon the pupils therein assembled, and began his address to them in these words,

"Hail reverend pastors, doctors, licentiates, superintendents! Hail, most noble, most prudent, most learned lords, consuls, praetors, judges, prefects, chancellors, secretaries, magistrates, professors, etc."

When some of the bystanders received these words with a smile, he replied,

"I am not jesting, my speech is serious, for I look on these little boys not as they are now but with a view to the purpose in the divine mind, on account of which they are delivered to us for instruction. For assuredly some such will come forth from among the number, although there may be an intermixture of chaff among them, as there is among wheat."

Such was the animated speech of this most prudent man. But why should not we with equal confidence declare, in respect of all children of Christian parents, those glorious things which have been mentioned above? Since Christ, the promulgator of the eternal secrets of God, has pronounced that, of such are the kingdom of heaven.

I was thinking of the sage words of Comenius and how close to God our children are when I read an article in Macleans called, "Please refrain from procreating; Would a world without humans be a happier place? Some think so." (Brian Bethune, Macleans, August 6, 2007, p. 48) This writer asks whether our planet might not be in crisis because,

"... our activities now threaten our survival, or because the weight of humanity -- all 6.5 billion planet-eating, carbon-spewing individuals -- lies too heavily upon the rest of what was once known as creation? Those who express the latter view are often dismissed, sometimes maliciously, as being anti-human, madmen who regard the fate of Amazonian butterflies or Arctic bears as having the same moral value as human life. Mostly such accusations are baseless -- you don't have to hate humanity to value the rest of nature -- but there are, in fact, a lot of people who think the most useful thing humanity could do is disappear, in whole or in part."

That this entire train of thought is being seriously entertained is surely a sign of rejection of the One who pleads with us to "choose life." The result of refusal is a life-hating, child hating culture, or at the very least a child unfriendly one. Iniquity, crime and immorality breed from the failure of religion to persuade us of the value of life. The Macleans article mentions a particularly twisted manifestation of anti-religious opinion wrapped up in the trappings of a religion,

"The Church of Euthanasia, for one, is proud to trumpet its four `pillars': abortion, suicide, cannibalism and sodomy. (By the last it means merely whatever form of non-procreational sex appeals to you.) The black humour carries through its website guide to butchering a human carcass, which comes complete with -- in case anyone's still missing the joke -- a recipe for barbecue sauce."

The article then talks about the euthanasia movement, which holds that the best thing we can do for the earth and the environment is to gently go into that good night by killing ourselves.

The most serious argument that these life and child haters put forward is that the earth cannot contain billions and billions of human. Such Malthusian argumentation is not entirely without justification. Surely, to love children means not only loving the children we have but also their children, and their children after that. Our love will only help, then, as long the present population can be sustained on a long term basis. Without moderation, nothing ain't worth nothing. One proposal that this article mentions is to make it obligatory to limit the numbers of new children by instituting a universal "one woman, one child" policy.

"The math suddenly turns positive. If a gender-neutral one-child policy began tomorrow, our numbers at mid-century, currently projected to rise to nine billion, would drop to 4.5 billion. By 2075, we would have reduced our presence by almost half, down to 3.4 billion, and "our impact by much more, because so much of what we do is magnified by chain reactions we set off through the ecosystem."

Using this arbitrary limit to family size, one that has been enforced in China for some decades already, it is estimated that by 2100 there would be only 1.6 billion inhabitants of earth.

But is such a reversal of population growth necessary and desirable? Shoghi Effendi, according to pilgrims' notes, was confident that our problems feeding the masses would one day be solved. Needless to say, the present "green revolution, with its genetic toying and wholesale dumping of petroleum based fertilizers on crops is not a sustainable solution.

The August issue of Scientific American has an important article on how food supplies may be vastly increased while at the same time reducing the environmental footprint of agriculture to less than nothing, in fact, to a beneficial influence on the land. It is about perennial grains, a missing genetic link in food crops that we missed about ten thousand years ago. The article says, in part, that it has been found,

"In a century-long study of factors affecting soil erosion, timothy grass, a perennial hay crop, proved roughly 54 times more effective in maintaining topsoil than annual crops did. Scientists have also documented a fivefold reduction in water loss and a 35-fold reduction in nitrate loss from soil planted with alfalfa and mixed perennial grasses as compared with soil under corn and soybeans."

This is an extremely important article. If we had any sense at all of our survival, of hope for the future, of love for children, we would be spending billions jumpstarting this line of research. This should be the first priority of all sane public policy.