The Price Of Paradise — John Reed

The Price Of Paradise
From everything I’ve heard, Hawaii is a paradise. Lush scenery, warm climate, breathtaking mountains…if you don’t count the typhoons and volcanoes. As the current eruption of Kilauea burns through neighborhoods, my feelings are split between sympathy and disbelief: who would build their house on top of an active volcano?
Many of us here in South Georgia consider where we live a paradise also. Despite the heat, the bugs, and the joyful lack of sophistication of many of the inhabitants, there’s no other place we’d rather live. This is the price we pay for living in paradise.
Ironically, the volcanic fire and brimstone the folks in Hawaii are facing lines up closely with the Old Testament’s version of hell. My political radar suspects there’ll be tax money spent to rebuild, just as those who are repeatedly flooded out along the Mississippi River keep soaking up our 1040’s.
Religions describe paradise in various ways, and prescribe various ways to get there after leaving this life. Most of those methods require submission or sacrifice of some sort, so it’s appropriate that there’s a price for living in an Earthly equivalent. Unfortunately there are some who follow the idea that they can reach paradise by blowing themselves, and others, up in acts of terror.
Certainly there’s a price for paradise. When does your price become my price, too?