Faith Curriculum Library: Tapestry of Faith: Virtue Ethics: An Ethical Development Program for High School Youth

Leader Resource 3: We Are Connected

Part of Virtue Ethics

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." — Native American Proverb

"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach." — Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author and psychoanalyst

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?" — Henry David Thoreau

"The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope." — Wendell Berry, poet

"Peace comes within the souls of men when they realize their oneness with the Universe." — Black Elk

"No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless.

There's too much work to do." — Dorothy Day

"We never know the worth of water till the well is dry." — Thomas Fuller

"The maltreatment of the natural world and its impoverishment leads to the impoverishment of the human soul. It is related to the outburst of violence in human society. To save the natural world today means to save what is human in humanity." — Raisa Gorbachev, wife of ex-Soviet leader Mikhail and activist

"Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we." — Michel de Montaigne, French author

"And there is no creature on (or within) the earth or a bird that flies with its wings except that they are nations (communities) like you." — Quran 6:38

"Only after the last tree has been cut down; Only after the last fish has been caught; Only after the last river has been poisoned; Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten." — Cree Indian Prophecy

"We are nature. We are nature seeing nature. We are nature with a concept of nature. Nature weeping. Nature speaking of nature to nature." — Susan Griffin, eco-feminist author

"All of nature is a canvas painted by the hand of God." — Anonymous

"Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: "I now establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you — the birds, the livestock, and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you - every living Creature on the earth." — Genesis 9:8-9.

Love your Mother.

"Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not the shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you did not take care of the flock! You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally." — Ezekiel 34:2-4.

"The earth is a living thing. Mountains speak, trees sing, lakes can think, pebbles have a soul, rocks have power." — Henry Crow Dog, American Indian activist

"I had assumed that the Earth, the spirit of the Earth, noticed exceptions — those who wantonly damage it and those who do not. But the Earth is wise. It has given itself into the keeping of all, and all are therefore accountable." — Alice Walker, author