Tragically, Bart's ironic line now has global application. Burning the house you're living in: That's the kind of madness, writ terrifyingly large, that marks our steadily destroying the planet as we live on it.

But, really, we're not destroying the planet. It is, after all, a ball of inert rock. What we're destroying is the delicate film of living matter that veils its surface. That film is composed of living species, inert matter raised to fragile, temporary life as fish, trees, dragonflies, eagles. The delicate film encompasses all creatures, great and small. Among them is our human species, the one that supposedly knows what's going on. But despite our vaunted braininess, we're the only species that is hell-bent to undercut all living things. We're the ones sawing the limb on which we're all sitting.

But that's not the rocky globe's problem. It has suffered surface crises worse than the one that we're causing. Barring really big asteroids, the planet itself will likely last till the sun gutters and goes dark.

So, even if we manage to wipe out ourselves (and with us, countless thousands of innocent and beautiful species), just give the globe 20 millennia or so to undo the damage we've done to water, soil, and air. Then it will carry on just fine. Without us.

A glum prophet in the 19th century said, "Mankind is a disease the earth has caught. But don't worry. Earth will get over it." How sad if we prove him right. How sad if we cure the earth by our self-destruction.

But how did we get into such a mess? Well, some of western civilization's oldest stories offer a symbolic explanation. I mean the creation stories, right at the start of Genesis.

No telling, of course, how old those stories really are. The oldest part of Genesis was shaped by countless generations as oral tradition before being first written down around 2,900 years ago. But whatever the stories' age, or whether you see them as factual history or inspired parables, those stories nail down fundamental truths about us and our link to the earth.

For instance, one story shows the Creator molding a first human from the earth's soil, shaping the mud before breathing life into it. That story says that our oldest ancestor, short of God, is the planet itself. It shows that we don't simply walk the earth's surface. We're made from it. We're an integral part of nature itself. We are of it, in it, sustained by it. (A Native American tradition echoes that story movingly. "Mankind," it says, "is earth that has sat up.")

The Genesis stories also point up our link to the earth in another way-in God's first directive to his new humans. Gesturing to the paradise in which they've been placed, the Creator gives a command: Tend this place.

Well, I guess that hasn't worked out. (Was God the first, I wonder, to shake His head and say, "Where do I go to get good help"?) In fact, we haven't been tending the place. We've been trashing it, right from the get-go. For, make no mistake, past generations showed no more care for the earth than we do. This present, perhaps final, crisis follows on two facts. First, there are now so frighteningly many of us: Half the humans who've ever lived are alive right now. And second, in recent centuries we've grown very skilled at plundering and exploiting the planet, even as we largely ignore the consequences.

In fact, we deliberately blind ourselves to the consequences, deny them angrily even as the evidence mounts. And why? Because to acknowledge the consequences would mean facing the need to rein in sharply the "American Dream" that mass media have now made humanity's dream: unlimited personal goods, comfort, and convenience, all snatched at greedily through manic consumerism. We're addicted, you see, and can't face up to withdrawal. A prophet might say, woe upon us if we don't wise up ...

Sorry about the sermon, brothers and sisters, but the point can't be made too strongly. Just now, there are many nightmares afoot to haunt us-the mindless, misguided war in Iraq, for instance, plus the explosive growth of wild-eyed terrorism that it has ignited.

But beyond those horrors, there's the most awful nightmare of all, the one that should have us sitting up, sweating and wide-eyed in the night. It's the wreck we're making of the planet. That fact should keep sleepless-and something else should, as well: We're seeing the first ominous signs that earth, through a battered Mother Nature, is beginning to defend itself. It's beginning to strike back. To fight off the afflicting disease. Us.

As important as is the seeking of peace, triumph over wars and other human outrages will be moot if all the players end up getting swept off the board.

Again, sorry for my harangue. But take note, please, that my intent isn't specifically religious. It's based in rock-bottom practicality. We can't continue messing in our own nests. Sawing off the limb we sit on. Burning down our house to heat it.

We need (and now I'm borrowing an old religious term) to convert. That literally means to "turn away from." From what, we know in our hearts; but towards what? I'll try for an answer to that next week.

Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek. Learn about his book at JimAtwell.com.