Loving Nature's Garden

“Nature is to be respected, not just controlled. Nature is a process that includes us, not a product external to us… Our proper attitude toward nature is awe, not utility.”

2001 Kansas City Gifts of Pluralism Interfaith Conference declaration, quoted in The Kansas City Star, January 6, 2010

“It’s better not to pursue a past that has already been lost.”

Zhang Liangnang, ninth century, from Lake With No Name, Daine Wei Liang, Simon and Schuster, 2003

“To live in this place is, in part, to destroy it; that is the paradox – and the responsibility – we live with every day.”

Miranda Weiss, Tide, Feather, Snow – a life in Alaska, HarperCollins, 2009

“In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; we will understand only what we are taught.”

Baba Dioum, Senagelese Conservationist, quoted in The Complete Katy Trail Guidebook, Pebble Publishing, 2005