St. Francis and the Birds: Lament

One of the most beloved stories about St. Francis is the story of Francis preaching to the birds. Francis reminded the birds of the gifts they received from God and exhorted them to express their gratitude by praising God. At the conclusion of his sermon, the birds bowed their heads to the ground and then sang to praise God.

The sights and sounds of birds give us much joy and remind us of the gift of beauty and wonder God has given us through the diversity of God’s good creation. This year we observe St. Francis Day not long after the Audubon Society’s release of their Birds and Climate Change report. This report tells us that about half the birds in the United States and Canada are in danger of losing more than 50 percent of their current climatic range by 2080.

This video summarizes some of the report’s findings:

We know the birds aren’t the only living things in trouble. People are endangered by climate change, too; young walruses endangered by stampeding as great numbers of walruses gather on beaches because there are few ice floes on which they can rest have been in the news recently; and articles and books about the Sixth Extinction — see, for example, Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History — describe the current unprecedented rapid rate of species extinction of both animals and plants.

St. Francis taught us compassion for all living things. Such compassion leaves us vulnerable to heartbreak and grief as we contemplate the loss of our familiar birds or realize we are witnessing one of the planet’s few eras of tremendous loss of species in a relatively short time. How might we respond to such loss in the spirit of St. Francis?

Lament

Being good stewards of God’s creation, including advocacy for the people and other living things who are suffering first and worst from climate change, is an important part of our response as people of faith to the climate crisis. Preparing ourselves to minister to the spiritual and physical needs of people affected by climate change, whether they be people directly affected by natural disasters or people simply having trouble processing the great changes occurring in the world, is also an important task for the church. 

Along with those actions, though, an honest response to the climate crisis and the loss of so much in our biosphere requires us to relearn the practice of lament. The Psalms teach us how to do this: bring our sorrows, our grief, our complaint out loud to God while acknowledging our ongoing faith that God is somewhere in all of this and and our belief in a God whose goodness and lovingkindness are steadfast even in the worst of times. 

I’d love to see people with gifts for leading liturgy help us engage in public lament. For now, I’ll be using this space from time to time to highlight some of the losses, some of the heartbreak, sorrow, and grief, that might call us to respond with lament. Just as allowing ourselves to publicly mourn the loss of a loved one helps us both realize the depth of our loss and begin to move on, so the practice of lament might help us be more conscious of our emotional and spiritual response to the losses we are suffering collectively and help us be better prepared for the work of stewardship, advocacy, and ministry as the climate crisis continues to unfold.

Lamenting the immanent loss of some of our bird companions is a place to begin the work of lament.

Giotto: St. Francis Preaches to the Birds

No Bird Sang: Murmurations, Broken Oceans, and Hope

Out in the open Nebraska countryside in October, clouds of birds are easy to follow. I've been marveling at how big groups come together and fly one way and then another with each member of the flock synchronized with the others. When the birds are starlings – as the groups I see forming near cornfields often are -- these groups are called ‘murmurations’.

This video of some huge murmurations, shot over the River Shannon in Ireland, shows the same sorts of dramatic turns and formations I’ve been marveling at in Nebraska:

Many of us are fascinated by birds. Their behavior, their songs and calls, their colors and forms bring delight and wonder. One of the joys of winter, when there are so few signs of living things in the landscape, are birds that appear at feeders and other protected places. An early flock of robins in a still snowy yard is a delight of early spring.

 Last week the Newcastle (Australia) Herald online ran The ocean is broken by Greg Ray. Ray reports on yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen’s journey from Melbourne to Osaka, and then on to San Francisco via Hawai’i. MacFayden said that when he had sailed from Melbourne to Osaka ten years earlier, he and his crew caught a good-sized fish each of the 28 days of the journey; this year, they caught only two the entire time. But what struck me most was this:

 No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.

"In years gone by I'd gotten used to all the birds and their noises," he said.

"They'd be following the boat, sometimes resting on the mast before taking off again. You'd see flocks of them wheeling over the surface of the sea in the distance, feeding on pilchards."

But in March and April this year, only silence and desolation surrounded his boat, Funnel Web, as it sped across the surface of a haunted ocean.

No birds, only “silence and desolation”. The “brokenness” of the ocean described in this article is from a combination of overfishing, plastic pollution and other debris, and the effects of climate change. The silence is ominous, a sign not only of the damage done to the oceans but of the damage being done to our entire biosphere.

The absence of “all the birds and their noises” reminded me of “And no bird sang”, something the choir at St. Stephen’s in Grand Island has sung several times for Holy Week services.

 The belief that faith communities can bring an authentic voice of hope into discussions about the environment is something I've affirmed in this blog several times. Our voice of hope is authentic because it is the sort of hope that acknowledges the reality of desolation and despair. It is a hope that rests not on denial but on a willingness to be present and aware in deep ways. It is not a hope that says “Everything will be okay” when it won’t be, but a hope that we can find meaning and humanity and experience the love of Christ even when our hearts are broken because the birds are disappearing. It’s a hope that knows that new life can come from death. And it’s the sort of hope that will keep us doing our best for the birds, ourselves, and all living things no matter how dire things look.

Joy: Third Day of Christmas

Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation, especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.

“I know every bird in the sky, and the creatures of the fields are in my sight.” (Psalm 50:11)

Several cardinals have brought color to our neighborhood the past few days. This morning while fresh snow was falling they were especially lovely.

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.