A Traveller Reflects

EARTHKEEPING NEWS
A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY

Volume Four, Number One
September/October 1994

A TRAVELER REFLECTS ON CHANGING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE

In my travels I was in and out of Spring several times. It was a shock to come back home on Rogationtide Sunday to the lushness which we take for granted in the Pacific Northwest. Here spring beauty overwhelms one and it's clearly visible while driving through. In northern North Dakota I walked in a National Wildlife Refuge, and found spring beauty all around. But there one must walk slowly and pay attention. I came upon several patches of wild crocus growing out of thick dead grass; and green growing out of protected snow fields; and frogs croaking so enthusiastically, they were probably in danger of hurting themselves.

I spent some time with old 'salt-of-the-earth' North Dakota retired farmer relatives as well as their children. The older generation do two opposing things: They castigate those damned environmentalists, while they live consistent with many environmental, low impact principles! Their suburbanized children seemed to believe it their duty to accumulate, consume and waste as much as they could.

But in all, I found a consistent and generally vague understanding that something is wrong, that we cannot go on as we have. Those who prefer denial seem to run off following Rush or some other religious or political twit. The rest find some inadequate comfort in "Last Days" discussions. I came away frustrated with how the church has, collectively, been the sanctifier of the economic status quo rather than the place where we struggle with the Gospel.

What we in NACCE, and Earth Ministry and other similar Christian/religious environmental organizations, are talking about is conversion. We are playing (I use the word deliberately) with the idea of radically changing our relationship to God, and consequently to creation and to each other. It is assumed that conversion restores in us some perspective, some balance and some humility, all sorely needed if we and creation are to survive. But it involves more than those American practicalities of survival and "quality of life". Rather, it is regaining an awareness that we are creation — not the Creator. It is abandoning our beloved idolatries and living with (those words again) perspective, balance and humility.

For me that begins in worship and contemplation. Only there do I gain the basis for understanding creation. It moves from there to deliberate choices of how I live. One must slow down. It takes work and planning to do the things we know are spiritually and environmentally right for ourselves. I set aside the tools and machines and listened to the birds; watched the bumblebees in the clover; spied with binoculars on the birds eating bugs off the pear tree; even enjoyed watching a jay look over the strawberries and eat the ripest one. Our passive observation and entering into creation shows us our place and our duty quite well.

Beside and within the various organizations which address the area of Christian ecology, there are many individuals who struggle and search for ways to live more honestly . . . and influence their churches and communities. For example, I throw fits — unsuccessfully so far — about our local church's use of throwaway plastic glasses in communion, a practice I believe to be degrading both to the environment and to the Eucharist.