Compassion and Climate Chaos

Lent 3C: Suffering and Blame

In a post at the beginning of Lent, I shared my plan to read David Wallace-Wells’s book The Uninhabitable Earth alongside our daily lectionary readings and Lenten prayers. This being the Lenten wilderness, I didn’t know what I might encounter along the way since by definition the wilderness has no set paths to follow and no guarantees of what we might find. Along with other Nebraskans, not long into Lent I found myself in unfamiliar territory.

On Thursday, March 14 in Nebraska, blizzard conditions followed heavy rains as air pressure dropped in a “bomb cyclone” event. With the ground still frozen hard and more snowpack than usual melting, rivers and creeks flooded and huge chunks of ice got pushed into areas near waterways, resulting in great destruction in both rural areas and towns. Roads and bridges were badly damaged or destroyed, making areas already cut off by floodwaters even more isolated from aid. 

In the days since, we Nebraskans have greatly appreciated the assurance of prayers from people in other places, just as we have appreciated all sorts of practical help, such as money to help with flood relief, farmers from other states bringing hay to feed Nebraska livestock, and skilled volunteers simply showing up to help. And Nebraskans have been helping their neighbors and encouraging each other as communities begin the process of clean-up and rebuilding. Among the shock and sorrow at the losses resulting from the floods, the compassion people have given to other people and to animals has been a bright light showing the way forward and drawing us together. 

However, compassion has not been a universal reaction to our suffering. In this Sunday’s Gospel reading (Luke 13:1-9), 

Jesus is asked whether people who died in terrible ways were worse sinners than others; in other words, Jesus is asked whether people who experience unusual suffering somehow especially deserve their suffering. Today we might ask, do bad things really happen to good people? (Yes, they do.) Yet even if we know perfectly well that terrible things can happen to people who personify faith and kindness and moral goodness, we still in our culture — perhaps especially in our recent history — have a tendency to look for someone to blame when things go wrong. When we assume someone is to blame, and especially when we make an assumption, conscious or unconscious, that the someone who is to blame is probably the very person who is suffering, compassion dwindles. 

Jesus’s answer to this question about sinners getting what they deserve is basically that we are all sinners, all in need of repentance. If bad things happen only to people who have sinned, we are all in trouble. 

We know that the more our planet warms, the more extreme weather events we will have as a result of climate chaos. Spring flooding is not atypical in this part of the United States, but floods of this magnitude are atypical. (See, for example, the article Climate change’s fingerprints are on U.S. Midwest floods: scientist from Reuters.)   It is fair to say, then, that our failure to stop climate change when we could have done so or our failure to mitigate climate change now that it is upon us contributed to this disaster. If we are invested in the blame game more than we are invested in Jesus’s Way of Love, it’s an easy step to go from acknowledging our collective failure to looking for specific people to blame for that failure and hoping to see them suffer.

Those of us who made the mistake of reading the comments on articles about the destruction here in Nebraska learned that while many people in other places had a compassionate response to our suffering, many others had no compassion for Nebraskans because we have elected political leaders who refuse to do anything to address climate change. The general tenor of these comments was that the writer didn’t feel sorry for us at all because we had brought this all on ourselves by electing the wrong sorts of people, that we got just what we deserved. (On top of being mean-spirited, these comments seemed to me especially ill-conceived given the obvious contribution of Nebraskans to stopping the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.)

Our world needs people whose first impulse is compassion rather than placing blame; as we experience more and more of the results of climate chaos, our world needs Jesus’s Way of Love perhaps more than ever before. The basic foundations of human civilization are endangered by climate instability. Such a critical point of history requires us to demonstrate the best human values and to resist the temptation to divide further into warring factions. Hope for our world in an era of environmental collapse depends on compassion for one another. That compassion, that ability to care, will, I think, yield our best outcome in generating the political will to act to mitigate climate change as well the best outcome in responding to what David Wallace-Wells calls the “cascades” of challenges and disasters resulting from climate chaos. 

Do we need to elect leaders who make addressing global warming a high priority? Yes, we do. Should people and animals who live in places that don’t elect such leaders — and right now that would be most of the United States since it’s pretty obvious from looking at legislative records and listening to campaign rhetoric that few of our leaders of either major party see climate change as a top priority or have any grasp of the size of the challenge before us — be left to suffer on their own when floods, tornadoes, droughts, or wildfires happen? No. For Christians, such a lack of compassion would simply be against everything that Jesus taught. We don’t require a moral litmus test in order for people to access basic necessities. 

And for anyone, even those who live by an “eye for an eye” blame game ethics, the ethics of blame and self-righteousness makes no sense since we don’t (at least at the moment) live in a country in which the red people all live in one place and the blue people all live in another place — not that political affiliation really tells you anything about any given individual’s concern about climate change.  

Jesus answered a question about why he made a practice of sitting down to eat with known sinners by saying, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” (Matthew 9:13) Now in this era of climate chaos we still need to learn what it means to show mercy to people in need rather than demanding moral purity. 

The Diocese of Nebraska has published a suggested list of links to agencies accepting monetary donations for flood relief along with thanksgiving for your prayers:

The Diocese of Nebraska Flood Relief & Support Fund  

American Red Cross of Nebraska and Southwest Iowa  

Episcopal Relief and Development  

Remembering Hildegard in 2018

Today the church remembered Hildegard of Bingen as we continued to learn about the destruction resulting from Hurricane Florence and Typhoon Mangkhut. We know that climate change is making hurricanes more destructive, we know that emissions from human activities cause climate change, and we also know that the United States, at least, in 2018 lacks the political will to curb those emissions to the degree necessary to mitigate the effects of climate change. 

Hildegard, a remarkable woman of the 12^th century, can help us understand our situation. Along with writing down and illustrating her visions, she led a religious community, preached (an amazing thing for a woman in that time), healed people, and composed music. 

But it’s Hildegard’s concept of viriditas that speaks to our concerns today. Viriditas is “greenness” or green power, a creative life force that she sensed in all of creation, including plants, animals, and precious gems. The way Hildegard described it is a sort of spiritual and biological power. For Hildegard, God was the ultimate creative force; greenness was the presence of God in the world. Unlike many in the church in her time, Hildegard taught that the body and soul are integrated. She understood the interconnectedness of all things that we deny in practice when we collectively refuse to make the systemic changes necessary to mitigate climate change.

Were she with us today, Hildegard might very well have insight into our situation. She taught that sin “dried up” the greenness, writing:

Now in the people that were meant to green, there is no more life of any kind. There is only shriveled barrenness. The winds are burdened by the utterly awful stink of evil, selfish goings-on. Thunderstorms menace. The air belches out the filthy uncleanliness of the peoples. There pours forth an unnatural, loathsome darkness that withers the green, and wizens the fruit that was to serve as food for the people. Sometimes this layer of air is full, full of a fog that is the source of many destructive and barren creatures, that destroy and damage the earth, rendering it incapable of sustaining humanity. 

But humans are also capable of becoming conduits of viriditas. By opening ourselves to the greenness of creation, we tap into a deep source of creativity. Hildegard’s vision helps us understand why people engaged in environmental advocacy find times of renewal outdoors so necessary to sustaining compassion and creativity in discouraging times. 

More about Hildegard is available from the Holy Women, Holy Men blog. The Spirituality and Practice website provides links to several resources.

Episcopal Relief and Development is accepting donations to its Hurricane Relief Fund here. 

Responding to the New Normal: Sunday and Beyond

I’m writing this midway between Sundays, and between hurricanes for the mainland United States. Hurricane Irma has already done incredible damage in the Caribbean, and today we will see it continue its path to more islands while we watch to see which way it turns. Floridians are preparing for possible landfall of this huge hurricane. We pray for everyone in its path and everyone on the islands already hit, while prayers and aid continue for communities on the Texas and Louisiana coasts.

Along with hearing early reports of the catastrophic damage left by Irma on its first hits in the Caribbean,we have for weeks now found ourselves in the midst of an extraordinary confluence of events this late summer of 2017.  Fires burn in the western United States, people with DACA  status (and their families, friends, schools, and employers) face uncertainty that was not there before, and the hate on display at the August 12 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville remains largely unaddressed. And there’s so much more, but while all of this is interconnected, this post is meant to address two things: how these hurricanes and fires are changing the way many people in our communities and our pews think about climate change, and some thoughts about how the church at its best might respond to that.

What we see going on here in the U.S. is what we knew we would be seeing at some point this century. The devastation caused by storms made more severe by warmer seas and a warmer atmosphere and by fires made worse by above average temperatures and lack of rain is similar to what people in some other parts of the world have already experienced. Now, though, we are seeing it on a big scale in our own country. What we have known as an abstract probability is now visible, and the size of the disasters and the sort of effect they can have on our lives is suddenly very real. For people who weren’t sure whether climate change would really make things that much different from what they were in the past, that skepticism seems like a naive hope that has been extinguished. 

However, along with being better able to grasp how climate change can affect us, we also know that scientists tell us it will get even worse unless we act with urgency to make very significant changes in the ways we produce and use energy. We have a taste of what to expect, but even while we are trying to comprehend what is happening now, we are also getting a clearer picture of our future if we continue on our current trajectory. That picture is very distressing.

What will we do in our churches on Sunday? Our usual responses to disasters are to offer prayers for the victims (if we remember to insert them into the Prayers of the People) and perhaps to have an announcement of some sort about where to send money for disaster aid. (If we think about it early enough in advance, we might include the bulletin inserts from Episcopal Relief and Development.) Both prayer and traditional disaster aid are very much needed now, and including these usual responses is a good place to begin with our response to what is happening. Bidding prayers for everyone involved and encouraging donations to reputable aid agencies is the minimum for this Sunday. 

But we in the Church need something more this time, something that differs as much from our normal practice as the succession of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma (and possibly a third storm, Hurricane Jose) and their scale differs from the historical norms for hurricane season in North America. Here are some things the Church can do this Sunday and beyond to help people who are trying to come to grips with the reality of the changes in our world. 

Clergy and lay leaders need to know what is happening outside of the church walls. We need to find out what is going on in the places that have already been hit by these hurricanes and what is going on elsewhere in the world — e.g. the fires in the west, the flooding in southern Asia — so that we can find compassion for the people, places, and nonhuman living things suffering from the effects of climate change. Short term, that means keeping up with the news. Long term, it means study about climate change and about the theological underpinnings for response to widespread destruction. The prophetic books of the Bible and commentaries on the prophets is a place to start for the latter. There is more information about climate change available in the mainstream media than there was in the fairly recent past. (This increase in coverage is timely as much of the information on government websites has been removed.) In addition, some specialty websites like the climate section of Think Progress and the Climate Central site provide current information. The New York Times this week offers an interactive tool to help readers understand the concept of a carbon budget and the limits that the laws of nature place on our policy decisions about carbon pollution.

Prayers in our public worship for disaster victims and their families and the people who are helping them recover can be coupled with prayers for our planet and our nation, as these disasters are part of a bigger picture. Several prayers in The Book of Common Prayer would be appropriate — e.g. Prayer 18 For our Country (p. 820), Prayer 41 For the Conservation of Natural Resources (p. 827), and Prayer 44 For the Future of the Human Race. 

The Church is already behind in preparing to meet (and beginning to meet) the spiritual needs of people who are starting to grasp the reality and scope of climate change. Other organizations can advocate for sound climate policy or send aid to victims, but the Church is the institution best suited to addressing the spiritual angst of people beginning to sense the scope of the destruction we have unleashed on our planet. A great start to this work in places that haven’t begun is simply to ask the hard existential questions that arise around climate change and sit prayerfully with them. If the Church’s spiritual leaders have at least reflected on the big questions we are starting to ask, we will be in a better place to speak with others about those questions.

Finally — and perhaps most importantly if we are to address the needs of people coming to church this Sunday after hearing news of Irma’s destruction only a week after hearing news about Harvey — we can preach it. Imagine walking into a church after listening to hurricane updates on your car radio and hearing a sermon that doesn’t acknowledge that there is anything out of the ordinary going on in our nation! (This is easy to imagine, as it is an all too common experience.) Name the reality; acknowledge the disasters and acknowledge that we are experiencing the effects of extreme weather resulting from anthropogenic global warming (climate change). And offer real hope, good news. We must be real both about the situation we are in and about what hope looks like in this situation. (Perhaps our hope is that we will be faithful disciples, treating others with love and kindness in chaotic situations. Perhaps our hope is that good people might persuade our leaders to act in significant ways so that we can mitigate the worst effects of climate change, or perhaps our hope is simply in the promises of Jesus that in the midst of destruction, we will find abundant and everlasting life.) Sharing real hope — hope that acknowledges the reality of our situation — keeps us going and in no way diminishes the severity of the situation; hope is what allows us to be honest about the problem at hand. 

My plea to the church is this: don’t let us down this time. If we want to avoid dealing with hard things, if we can’t bring ourselves to talk about the true scope of physical and spiritual suffering for fear of offending people in the pews, then we should simply admit that we cannot find the compassion to give priority to the victims of these disasters now or in the future. The disasters will continue, and at some point the Church will either be seen in our communities as a place where we can bring our deepest hopes and fears — and perhaps even the place where we can best bring our deepest hopes and fears — or as a place that doesn’t care and that doesn’t matter much in a changing world. 

More Fire and Rain

“Fire and rain” was the topic of a post here on June 12 concerned with bidding prayers for people affected by wildfires in the western United States, people affected by flooding in Florida and Alabama, and for wisdom as a new study suggested we were reaching an important tipping point that would result in a very different planet biologically than the one on which we live and on which humankind has developed.

In recent days, new instances of fire and rain have added to these concerns.

High heat and “epic dryness” are feeding ten separate fires in Colorado, along with fires in New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, California, and Nevada. USA Today quotes Ron Roth of the Rocky Mountain Area Coordinating Center saying, “The whole Central Rocky Mountain range is a tinderbox.” We have felt the heat in Nebraska. The town of Benkelman hit a monthly record high temperature of 114 degrees on Wednesday; the previous high temperature there for June --111 degrees -- was set in 1936.

This graphic shows the temperature records broken so far this month in the continental United States.

Since that June 12 post, Minnesotans experienced record flooding in Duluth, and tropical storm Debby dumped incredible amounts of rain on Florida and southern Georgia.

All of the destruction has been covered by news sources, and some have even connected the dots among the heat, the fires, the floods, and climate change caused by global warming. What most news sources can’t cover is the question of how people of faith can best respond to these events. We respond in a variety of ways; here are four ways we can move beyond a feeling of being overwhelmed or helpless to a place of faith and service:

1. Pray. (See A MajorTipping Point; Fire and Rain.) Pray for the victims of fires and floods and those in the path of destruction; pray for firefighters and rescue workers working in extremely difficult conditions; pray for communities that will never again be the same. Pray that we can find a way to live that gives the next generation and the one after that a decent shot at living good lives. Pray for forgiveness “for our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 268), for we are responsible corporately – all of us together – for climate change to have been allowed to progress to this point.

2. Give to relief efforts such as Episcopal Relief and Development to help the people most directly affected by these disasters.

3. Advocate for stronger policies to mitigate global warming. Speak up as citizens, consumers, workers, and church members. Let our leaders know you are concerned about climate change and its effects on people today and in the future. This video – a TEDx talk by Dave Roberts – explains climate change so that people who want to speak up about it feel prepared to do so:

4. Live in hope. This morning’s Daily Office lesson from Romans (Romans 5:1-11) reminds us that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character,  and character produces hope, and hope does not disappointment us…”  Christians live in hope, not only hope of eternal life, but hope in the coming of the Kingdom of God. This is hope that calls us to live into the kingdom every day of our lives, serving as the Body of Christ in the world, encouraging one another, and living in expectant hope.

World Malaria Day

ERD and NetsforLife®

Today is World Malaria Day. Episcopal Relief and Development is one of the partners in NetsforLife® , a very effective program to combat malaria by distributing treated mosquito nets and training people in the proper use of the nets. Already malaria-related deaths have been reduced by an average of 45% across the NetsforLife®  program area. Details of their work so far can be found here. 

Here's a look at local volunteers instilling a "net culture" while distributing the nets, and shows how critical the Anglican Church is to the successful distribution of the nets:

Malaria is one of the diseases expected to increase as the planet warms. Supporting efforts to reduce malaria is an example of the sort of humanitarian effort the church can provide now and in coming years to help mitigate the effects of climate change. This map (from Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP-GRID Arendal) shows a prediction for the spread of malaria by 2050. Areas in red are places where malaria is not present now but is expected to be present by 2050; areas in gray are places where malaria is now present but where the climate is expected to not be suitable for malaria by 2050.

Through May 25, any donation made to the NetsforLife® Inspiration Fund will be matched, doubling the impact of donations during this time. Rob Radtke, President of Episcopal Relief and Development, says this in the announcement of the matching gift challenge :

Joining together in the fight against malaria, through NetsforLife® and the NetsforLife®Inspiration Fund, is a great way for individuals and congregations to support the Millennium Development Goals and make a real difference in communities throughout sub-Saharan Africa. We are grateful to the donors who are providing the matching funds for enabling us to double the impact of every gift we receive by May 25 and continue toward our goal of raising $5 million by the end of the year. TheNetsforLife® program has demonstrated remarkable results year after year, and is truly deserving of the wholehearted support so many have shown.
 

Eastern Africa: Drought and Famine

Part 2

Proper 13A

When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’

Our Sunday Gospel reading (Matthew 14:13-21) is Matthew’s version of the story we read from Mark on Tuesday. Both accounts include Jesus’ clear instructions for the disciples: “You give them something to eat.” I posted Part I of this reflection about the drought and famine in Eastern Africa on Tuesday, talking about conditions in the refugee camps, the need for immediate aid, and the work that Episcopal Relief and Development is supporting there. The need is urgent; any compassionate response to the situation must include giving what we can to alleviate the terrible hunger and suffering in that part of the world.

But the size of this crisis in terms of both the number of people in need and the degree of the food crisis means that we need to do much more than send money in order to give our sisters and brothers in Eastern Africa something to eat. This week the Episcopal Public Policy Network (EPPN) called on Episcopalians to send a message to our representatives in Congress asking them to protect famine and drought aid to Africa. Noting that UNICEF has “called this the most severe humanitarian emergency in the world and the worst drought the region has experienced in 60 years”, EPPN reports that the House Appropriations Committee has proposed reducing humanitarian aid by 12% and food assistance programs by 18%. Along with sending our own dollars to aid agencies, we can advocate for compassion to remain as a priority in our national budget. A template making it easy to contact Congress is available from EPPN here.

Given that large-scale and long-term droughts are predicted to become more frequent as our climate warms, there are two more things people of faith are called to do in relation to drought and famine. First, we must continue to do all we can to curb global warming, working to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere and being willing to make changes in our own lives so that others might live.

However, with 393 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and 350 ppm being the safe limit for human life, warming will continue for a significant time even if the nations were to put policies in place that would limit greenhouse gas emissions to a safe level. And so there is one more thing for people of faith to do: pray, reflect, and develop policies to meet the need for humanitarian aid that is expected to grow as the effects of climate change – droughts, floods and disappearing coastal lands, windstorms, and loss of fish populations – become greater.

Our plans must include even more than the traditional aid response of food, supplies, and aid workers. As these needs increase, and especially as the number of climate refugees grows, there may well be a temptation by some in wealthier nations like ours to tighten our borders and hold tightly onto what we have. Christian compassion and Christian service may be in short supply. Our plans should perhaps include ways to prepare ourselves spiritually to remain compassionate to those in need, to be welcoming to strangers, and to be certain in our hearts that God cares for all of God’s children and all of God’s creation.

Eastern Africa: Drought and Famine

^{Part I}

"Give them something to eat."

³⁵When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; ³⁶send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’ ³⁷But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ (Mark 6:35-37)

Jesus’ instructions to the disciples no doubt resonated with many of us reading today’s Gospel lesson as stories and pictures from Somalia and other parts of Eastern Africa are in our news. We have been seeing television reports such as this one from NBC News:

While the root cause of the famine in Somalia is drought, it is complicated by the political situation there. Hundreds of thousands of people have become refugees, going to centers in neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia, and in the Somalian capital, Mogadishu. This report from Episcopal Relief and Development tells about the refugee situation, as does this update from the UN Refugee Agency.

This video from the UN Refugee Agency shows the Daadab refugee camp in Kenya and tells the story of one woman’s journey with her children to the camp:

In an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times this week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon helps us understand the severity of the situation:

This is a wake-up call we cannot ignore. Every day I hear the harrowing reports from our U.N. teams on the ground. Somali refugees, their cattle and goats dead from thirst, walking for weeks to find help in Kenya and Ethiopia. Children who arrive alone, terrified and malnourished, their parents dead, in a foreign land.

From within Somalia, we hear terrible stories of families who watched helplessly as their children died, one by one. One woman recently arrived at a U.N. displacement camp 87 miles southwest of Mogadishu after a three-week trek. Halima Omar, from the region of Lower Shabelle, was once considered well-off. Today, after three years of drought, she barely survives. Four of her six children are dead.

Episcopal Relief and Development is providing aid to Somali refugees in Kenya through Episcopal and Anglican partners working with local agencies. Donations to Episcopal Relief and Development may be made here. Donations to the ERD Disaster Relief fund at this time are being directed to an ecumenical agency working with refugees in Kenya.

Donations to ERD or other established aid organizations are the way we can respond to Christ’s words “You give them something to eat.” This immediate response is essential.

Ban Ki-Moon also said this in his LA Times piece:

Even as we respond to this immediate crisis, we need to find ways to deal with underlying causes. Today's drought may be the worst in decades. But with the effects of climate change being increasingly felt throughout the world, it surely will not be the last. This means practical measures: drought-resistant seeds, irrigation, rural infrastructure, livestock programs.

The assistance program supported by ERD includes preparing the land to grow crops in the next rainy season. That is the next step once food has been provided.

With further droughts on the horizon, the church needs to think about how we insure food for God’s children in the longer term. Some thoughts on that in the next post.

Tornadoes: Deeper Compassion

The midsection of the United States has been hit by violent storms, tornadoes, and floods, and more is forecast for today and tonight. Earlier this spring, violent tornadoes tore through the southeastern United States. All sorts of records have been broken.

A spare article from the Associated Press, 2011 Tornadoes By the Numbers, tells part of the story. It’s not only the number of tornadoes or the fact that they have hit populated areas that has caused so much damage; it’s also the intensity of the tornadoes.

The Joplin tornado has been rated EF-5, the highest possible rating. No amount of warning or preparedness can keep this sort of tornado from causing a disaster if it hits a populated area. Holly Yan of CNN asks why with all the advancements in storm technology, we have seen so far this year 8.5 times the average number of tornado fatalities in an entire year. She quotes CNN meteorologist Chad Myers saying that some tornadoes are just too big to survive.

Our response to so much destruction as human beings and as Christians is a desire to help ease the pain of the survivors. We respond by offering whatever aid we can and by offering prayers. Episcopal Relief and Development offers assistance through its USA Disaster Relief Fund. A note about their efforts after the Joplin tornado is found here, and donations can be made through this page.

We wonder why we are seeing so much severe weather, so much suffering, in one season. Asking that question can lead us to a deeper level of compassion, a deeper commitment to alleviating suffering.

If we expand our vision to the rest of the world, we see that our season of severe weather is part of a global phenomenon. Alice Thomas, Climate Displacement Program Manager for Refugees International, writes in a post called Colombia: Water, Water Everywhere about the situation in Colombia over the past year, where three million people have been affected by record rainfall and flooding that has left “hundreds of thousands” of people homeless, and then goes on to talk about the number of people displaced by extreme weather events in 2010. She ends this article – one that is best read prayerfully – with these words:

I am left questioning the wisdom of continuing to view today’s extreme events as unforeseen occurrences for which no one is responsible, as acts of God or nature, as risks that cannot be managed. It is starkly evident that neither national governments nor the humanitarian community is prepared to respond to the increasing pressure that climate variability is bringing to bear not only on some of the world’s poorest and most crisis-prone countries but also on a humanitarian system that is already over-stressed and woefully underfunded.

This blog has said before that no single weather event can be linked to climate change. However, several extreme weather events in several places begin to suggest a pattern. We know that warmer air holds more moisture and that very humid air is one of the ingredients for tornadoes, violent thunderstorms, and, of course, for heavy rains. Climate scientists predict periods of drought punctuated by periods of extreme rain, a sort of watery feast or famine, and they have predicted just the sort of extreme weather we are seeing this spring. If extreme weather events are indeed risks that can be managed by addressing the problem of global warming and climate change, it would seem to be our moral duty to address these issues.

Bill McKibben yesterday wrote a tongue-in-cheek opinion piece for The Washington Post, A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never! in which he parodies our reluctance to connect the dots and recognize an emerging pattern.

In a different tone, today’s meditation in Forward Day by Day ends with this from classic Christian author Oswald Chambers: “Only by refusing to think about things as they are can we remain indifferent.” If we truly have compassion for the victims of extreme weather events, we will want to know the truth about the cause of these events and, if changes in the way we live can help reverse the trend, will find a way to do so.

On my way home from the walkabout on Saturday, my husband and I dodged severe storms in eastern Nebraska. About ten miles from home, we saw a rainbow, a sign of hope. I’ve seen pictures of a double rainbow after the Joplin tornado. The hope symbolized by those rainbows can be realized if we find the will to give environmental concerns the priority they deserve.

Trees and Tornadoes: Planting Hope

Arbor Day 2011

This April in many parts of the country has been a month of all sorts of record-breaking severe weather events, including the devastating tornadoes of the past couple of days. At the time I’m writing this, the death toll is estimated at 280 and is expected to rise. We in Nebraska have been spared the worst of it. We do know, however, the sort of loss and trauma that can remain after a tornado or severe storm, and we have much sympathy and many prayers for the people who have suffered losses in April’s storms.

Along with tornadoes and high winds this week, there has been excessive rainfall several places, leading to flood warnings and watches in several states. All in all, April 2011 has been a record-breaking month for both tornadoes and other severe weather events in the United States. As atmospheric warming continues in coming years, heavy flood-producing rainfalls are expected to increase in frequency, while drought spreads in other areas.

While no single weather event can be attributed to climate change, the fact that the sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico are at least 1 degree Celsius above average this year means that there is abundant moisture to feed developing storms. The catastrophic damage we have seen this week across a wide area of our country is sobering when we think about predictions that this sort of severe weather might well become the norm as global temperatures increase.

Tomorrow is Arbor Day. The first Arbor Day was observed in Nebraska in 1872. Other states soon picked up the idea and began observing this special day for planting and caring for trees. When we see trees that been damaged or destroyed by severe weather, we appreciate even more the trees we have. This time of year, most trees are in bud, and the first fresh leaves of spring are starting to appear. There will be a day very soon when groves and neighborhoods where several trees stand together will have the look of a sort of soft green haze.

Besides their aesthetic value and their usefulness as windbreaks, shade producers, and shelters for wildlife, trees soak up carbon. Deforestation speeds an increase in climate change. Along with praying for people and with supporting relief efforts through Episcopal Relief and Development and other aid agencies, planting a tree is a good response to this week’s severe weather. While a single tree may not have much impact in the overall scheme of things, it’s a good sign both of our thanksgiving for the new growth of spring and of our intentions to be better stewards of the earth.

Planting a tree – or planting any sort of growing thing – is always a sign of hope in difficult times. Perhaps Martin Luther (and perhaps someone else) said that if he knew the world would end tomorrow, he would plant a tree today. Planting is always a sign of hope, and it can serve as both a sign and a means of healing and renewal.

Let’s keep the people who have suffered loss and trauma in this week’s severe weather in our prayers, and let’s also go outside and plant something.

Hackberry Tree Parable

Wealth, No Camel, A Squirrel, and A Raptor

There was a little bit of drama in the hackberry tree in our yard this week. Thinking about the lectionary readings for tomorrow, I started seeing this drama in terms of the Gospel story (Mark 10: 17-31) about the rich man who wants to know what he needs to do in order to inherit eternal life. The answer Jesus gives, which shocks the man and makes him grieve, was “Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Then Jesus goes on to tell the disciples something that’s as daunting for us middle-class Americans as it would have been for this rich man: it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. No camels showed up in my yard this week, but a couple of less exotic creatures did. Given the appearance of these two acting out a little parable in keeping with this week's Gospel reading, it wouldn’t have completely surprised me to see a camel come sauntering down the street.

I was out on our side porch at lunchtime on Friday – back before winter came blowing into Nebraska -- and heard a ruckus up in the hackberry tree. I thought a squirrel had broken a small branch, which happens sometimes (since they sometimes gnaw on the branches as they sit on them), and looked up to see the underside of a big bird of prey – some sort of raptor with white feathers on its breast, which was the part of the bird I could see -- who was crashing down through the branches. The falling raptor dropped a squirrel -- splat -- on our driveway. As soon as the bird let go of the squirrel, it was able to get itself straightened out and it soared up and flew away. It all happened so fast that I couldn’t see the bird well enough to identify it. Whatever it was, this squirrel must have been fighting enough to interfere with the bird’s ability to fly off with it.

The squirrel ran really fast to the tree and ran way up to where there’s a nest. Lots of other squirrels appeared and chattered their alarm, but above the sound of that I heard what I can only describe as squirrel sobs from up in the nest, a softer, very rhythmic form of squirrel chatter. After the others quieted down, clusters of these squirrel sobs continued off and on for several minutes. The poor little thing was terrified, and possibly hurt.

Birds of prey most often succeed in hunting the weakest animals, the most vulnerable. The squirrel this one chose wasn’t as weak as it appeared evidently, and gave the bird a great deal of trouble. What’s interesting in light of the Gospel story is that it wasn’t just in letting go of something that the bird was able to fly freely again, but in letting go of the smaller, weaker creature on which it was preying. This little drama as it relates to the Gospel lesson wasn’t only about the raptor and its need to let go of a difficult weight, but about the squirrel and its desire to survive. The Gospel story isn’t only about us and our need to be detached from things that get in the way of discipleship; it’s also about those who have less power, wealth, and strength but about whom Christ cares very much. We aren’t truly free of the things that weigh us down until we join Christ in caring for and about the poor and vulnerable. It isn’t enough to go off and take a vow of poverty and simplify our lives; true discipleship involves noticing and caring for people who have to worry more about not having enough than about having too much.

Part of good environmental stewardship is considering the people who are most affected by pollution and climate change, letting go of our environmentally harmful practices so that others can have life.

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The Asia-Pacific region has had earthquakes, a deadly tsunami, and typhoons in recent weeks. This week in particular, while we are thinking about whether we can make an internal, spiritual shift to detach ourselves from our possessions and follow Christ, many people in the Philippines lost everything as mud rumbled down hillsides onto villages below. Climate scientists don’t know with certainty if the number and intensity of typhoons in recent years is a result of climate change, but they do expect that as climate change accelerates, we will see more and more storms of this sort in this part of the world.

If the stories from the Asia-Pacific region in recent weeks have touched your heart, consider making a donation to Episcopal Relief and Development. Click here for their most recent press release about responding to the multiple natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific region.