You know what? The Second Law of Thermodynamics kind of sucks. It’s always running us down, wearing us out. You might not know the Second Law of Thermodynamics by name, but you certainly know it by feel. Dissipation; degradation; degeneration. If you are anything like me, you’ve experienced it every week since you were a kid. Every Saturday morning my household obligation has been to clean my bedroom. So the week starts off tidy, uncluttered and clean. But inevitably, almost imperceptibly, things go to pot. By Monday papers have begun creeping out like caterpillars across the desk. Laundry lounges lazily in the reading chair. Books loiter around aimlessly like high school kids outside the 7-11.
The perpetual slide from order to disorder, that’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It’s something we constantly fight. This enemy is also called entropy.
Entropy is a universal constant for all physical energy. Every time any kind of work gets done–be it bodies moving, chemicals reacting, or temperatures changing–a transference of energy occurs. But the transference always goes downhill. With work, energy goes from higher concentrations to lower concentrations; from higher potential to lower potential; from easier to use to harder to use.
A tank of gas is crammed full of highly concentrated, usable energy. As I drive around, however, the gas gets consumed and its energy gets degraded, dissipated and less useful. The gas becomes carbon dioxide and water vapor. Now I can get pretty far on a tank full of gas, but a sky full of CO2 gets me nowhere.
The law of entropy is bad enough as is, but it sucks even more due to its habit of hoarding. Entropy accumulates. The more physical energy we use, the more we need to use just to keep up. We have to work harder to get the same stuff done. The law of entropy is one of diminishing returns.
Time was when old Jed Clampett could fire a rifle at a rabbit and “up from the ground came a-bubbling crude…Oil that is; black gold, Texas tea.” Well, the easy-pour Texas teapot is pretty much empty. So now we’re grubbing around in Northern Alberta digging huge ditches to haul out heavy, uncooperative tar sands. That takes a whole lot of work and causes a whole lot of damage.
In Jed’s day, a Beverly Hillbilly could invest one barrel of oil into extraction and get 25 barrels out. For the Albertan hillbillies, one barrel of invested oil only returns at best 5 barrels. Often the output is even less.
The sad state of the matter is that as entropy increases–and it’s always increasing–available, easily usable energy decreases.
But there is one type of energy that escapes this sucky cycle of entropy. Spiritual energy. You can also call it love.
Love doesn’t dissipate with use, it concentrates. It doesn’t degrade, it upgrades. It doesn’t degenerate, it regenerates every time it’s applied. Love becomes more available the more it burns. And since God is love, God’s infinity is guaranteed because entropy can’t wear love out.
God’s creative energy of love orders things into being. God’s presence maintains and enhances them. God’s spirit forever works, raising things to higher levels, not running them down.
We are, so we’re told, made in God’s image, and therefore share that loving ability to dodge the law of entropy and use our energy to promote rather than to diminish life. Our special gift is to image God, which means to help secure the being, and enhance the wellbeing of other creatures. If humans have any unique role or authority on this planet, then it must be Saint Paul’s kind of authority, “which the Lord gave for the sake of building you up, not tearing you down.” [2 Cor 10:8]
The good camper builds up, not tears down: she leaves her campsite cleaner than how she found it. The good farmer builds up, not tears down: she leaves the soil more fertile than how she found it. The good human builds up, not tears down: she leaves the earth more beautiful and abundant than how she found it.
Being a beneficial, loving presence to all that God has created, that’s imaging God. That’s using our God-given talent.
“After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.” The master asked the human species, “what have you done with the talent I gave you for the benefit of all creation?”
GULP!
The human species, shifting awkwardly, avoiding eye-contact, responds: “It started out harmless. We just wanted to get some friends together, have a little fun. Well, someone showed up with a cooler of booze. After a while, Tom was burning cigarette holes in the sofa. Larry puked on the carpet. Sam tripped and fell and smashed the coffee table. Melissa tore down the drapes to wear as togas. Eddie threw a beer bottle through the window. Peter and Patrick pushed the piano into the swimming pool. Allison backed the car out of the garage while the door was still down. Matt stuffed towels down the toilet and kept flushing until there was a lake in the bathroom. I don’t know who ate every single thing in the kitchen. Scott lit a bonfire on the back porch, but it wasn’t half as big as it could’ve been. Are we in trouble?”
The master surveys the disaster: growing deserts; melting glaciers; bleached coral; clear cut forests; open pit mines; urban sprawl; dead zones in oceans; collapsed bee colonies; favelas; extinction; refugee camps; extreme weather; elephants shot dead for their tusks; giant feedlots crammed with cattle; smog; nuclear waste; nuclear weapons; garbage dumps; shopping malls; airports; multilane highways; war zones.
The master says, “Take that talent away from this human species and give it to another. As for this worthless species, throw it into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Wait. Who’s that coming? Suddenly, right here, right now, the master returns after eight days, he comes into this chapel, stands in front of this altar, to settle accounts with us. You and I step forward.
“Master, you have given us the talent to be a loving, beneficial presence to all you have created, and see, this week while on retreat we have: watched with happy wonder the life journey of butterflies; we have walked slowly through fields and swelled with thanks for their beauty; we have stopped to cherish the perfection of a wild flower; we have sat for an hour, our faces bathed in muted red, bidding good night to the descending sun; we have prayed for the health of trees; we have eaten wholesome, organic food with delight and satisfaction and have wasted none of it; we have not gone shopping for things we don’t need; we have not driven our cars pointlessly, excessively, lazily; we have given rest to our eyes from the glare of screens and given peace to our ears from the blare of cell phones; we have let go of our sense of entitlement to luxurious comfort; we have felt a deep friendship with birds; we have used water carefully and sparingly; we have been content to live more simply than usual; we have shut off unnecessary lights and lowered our consumption of electricity; we have stood awed by God’s presence in clouds, in the wind that moves the clouds, in the sky that give range to the wind that moves the clouds; we have loved creation and now feel a deep longing to love it more.
The master says to us, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave, you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”
And so we go from Loyola House, loaded with extra talents for enhancing the life, beauty and wellbeing of the community of creatures on earth. We leave knowing that we’ve been entrusted with a larger charge of duty and joy to care more actively and effectively for the whole of creation.