In the third chapter of Genesis we read that one of the consequences of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is that Adam and Eve will have a life of hard toil. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. After announcing this consequence, Yahweh banishes them from the Garden of Eden. And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.’ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. In my youth I was taught, or perhaps just allowed to bel...
"Maybe in this day and age, love thy neighbor should also be love thy nature. After all we are all neighbors to nature; we live in a grand neighborhood called the biosphere, the realm of life on earth, and we depend on it. We are it and it is us, from our gut biome to what we eat, drink, and breathe. Love in this case should manifest as active care." Rebecca Solnit