Last week, Becky and I attended a family reunion in New Mexico. While there, we had the opportunity to take an interpretive tour of the Pecos National Historic Park. Our tour guide painted a picture in our minds of what this area was like when the native americans lived there for literally thousands of years. The area was beautiful, the way their culture fit into the landscape was ingenious and how they lived was inspiring.
What made me think was how fast all of this was lost. After thousands of years of successful living, this culture was dispersed and obliterated within 50 years of the Europeans arriving in the area. I left feeling a little down, thinking about how quickly everything in life can change. Cultures, families, ecosystems, species. All of these can change and even be lost in the blink of the eye of time. The answers I am not sure of. I guess that my thought is that we must as thinking humans respect the things that have been here since before we were. Try to create as little change as possible – especially when we are doing so to satisfy our own selfish desires. I know maybe that this seems a little preachy – but I am sure that the Spanish didn’t think about what would be lost with their effect on these beautiful lands. Maybe we can try to do a little better.