A New Thing

At the 147th Annual Council of the Diocese of Nebraska in Scottsbluff last Saturday, we passed a resolution calling on the Episcopal Church Pension Fund and the Episcopal Church Endowment Fund to divest from the fossil fuel industry and reinvest funds in the clean energy sector. Between now and General Convention, other dioceses are expected to offer resolutions about divestment from the fossil fuel industry.

The theme of our Annual Council was “Behold, I am doing a new thing!” The people of the Diocese of Nebraska showed that we are indeed open to something new. In response to a global warming crisis that is unlike anything humankind has ever faced, a crisis that makes the future of humankind itself uncertain, we are willing to imagine a different world. We are willing to imagine a world in which we no longer burn fossil fuels to create energy, a world in which we instead harness the energy of the wind and the sun. We are willing to imagine a world in which we mitigate climate change resulting from global warming rather than continuing to accelerate global warming. With faith and hope, the people of the 147th Annual Council were willing to think about the reality of global warming and do something in response. 

The resolution itself outlined two moral reasons and two financial reasons to divest from the fossil fuel industry and reinvest in the clean energy sector. In presenting the resolution, I reviewed the resolution and then shared some of my own some of my deeper personal reasons for working hard for the church to address climate change in a significant way. Here is an excerpt:

First are the justice issues arising from climate change and Jesus’ straightforward commandments to serve the poor. Some of the world’s poorest people are being affected first and worst by climate change — people in Pacific Island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands who are trying to figure out where they can go as their islands disappear; people in many places around the world who rely on traditional subsistence farming who no longer know when to plant and harvest because seasonal weather patterns have been disrupted by climate change; people in traditional Arctic villages built on permafrost — or what used to be permafrost — losing their homes and often their way of life, their culture and language; and all those affected by increasing tropical diseases, flooding, decreased water supplies as glaciers shrink or disappear, and so forth. 

Second is personal grief over the loss of familiar plants, birds, and trees. As a child, I first experienced the Holy in nature, and I still feel a special nearness to God when I feel close to God’s sacred creation. The loss of these things breaks my heart. 

Third is the knowledge that I can only begin to really comprehend of two things: first, what I know scientists tell us we will all face — us, our children, and whatever generations might come after — as global warming shoots beyond 2 degrees Celsius and goes on to 4 degrees or even 6 degrees warming, and what I know political and military analysts tell us about the breakdown of security around the world that would accompany these changes; and second, the knowledge that we — governments and industries and other institutions around the world — are failing to do much of anything right now to stop this. This isn’t hard to understand because the information isn’t there; it’s hard to understand because it is too terrible to contemplate. Somehow that has brought us to a point of inaction rather than action.

One reason we are reluctant to act significantly is that we are scared of facing the reality. Have you noticed how little we hear about global warming from politicians and pundits, or from pulpits, or even from one another in conversations? Talking about climate change is a big social taboo. One reason we sometimes get angry or annoyed with people like me who talk about such things is that we are all frightened of what is unfolding and perhaps a little ashamed at the things we have done or left undone that helped get us to this point. Along with that is that resistance to change that Mike Wagner talked about yesterday.

 At one point, Mike talked about the gap between the rate of cultural change and the rate of change most of us can readily accept. But what we needed to understand about Daniel’s ability to embrace change, he said, was that Daniel understood “You’ll be in Babylon in two weeks.” 

Graphs of carbon emissions and warming global temperatures show a similar shape to each other and a similar accelerated rate of change to those graphs of cultural change that Mike discussed. So far, the gap between those curves and a line showing our response to the global warming crisis has done nothing but increase. We won’t be in Babylon in two weeks, but we already see the beginnings of the change, and we will be in a whole new world by the middle of this century or perhaps as soon as 2030 — 16 years from now — if we continue to do too little too late. 

A church that leads in recognizing the moral issues involved in climate change and responding in a big way to this crisis — a crisis that is as much a spiritual crisis as a physical crisis — is a church that will continue to live and minister to God’s people in a changing world. I ask you to be that church and vote in favor of this resolution. 

I ask your prayers for other dioceses that will be looking at divestment and reinvestment between now and General Convention in 2015. Please pray for those of us working on this issue, that we might have the courage to work for a strong resolution at General Convention, the wisdom to do that work well, and hope to sustain us as we contemplate this issue.

Advent IV: Deeper Traditions

 This reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Advent is a revision of a post from December 18, 2010 that was written after the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Cancun that year. It also referenced the 2010 Climate Vulnerability Monitor, which remains a good resource to help in understanding the effects of climate change on various parts of the world.

Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:18-25) tells the extraordinary story not only of Mary’s pregnancy and the birth of Jesus, but of Joseph’s reaction to the news. Joseph’s righteous response to Mary’s pregnancy was as plan to dismiss her quietly and shield her from public disgrace; such a reaction was enough out of the ordinary to warrant comment from Matthew. Then Matthew reveals the most unexpected piece of Joseph’s story: in a dream, an angel spoke to him, and when he woke up, Joseph did as the angel commanded him.

The nativity story is Good News; it’s a story of something new and different, a story of new life coming into the world on a very deep level.

Despite our celebration of the newness of the birth of Jesus, we tend to cling to traditions, often more so at Christmas than at other times of year. Every year, self-help writers encourage people to let go of traditions that have become burdensome in some ways – a big holiday dinner or party, for example, that has become more work and expense than the hosts can bear -- and try something new that is more life-giving.

Thinking about our environmental footprint at Christmas involves thinking about our traditions on a deeper level. Choices about which gifts to buy, how (or whether) to wrap them, travel plans, food, decorations, all involve examining customs or traditions and considering changing them because we want something that matters more to us: a sustainable future, life.

The environmental challenges we face year-round call for us to examine our daily customs and traditions, our entire way of life, and find other ways to live that make new life possible. They call for us to let go of things that have become burdensome to all living things and try something new that is more life-giving. They call us to move from traditions on the level of familiar customs to traditions on the level of our most essential values.

This blog’s post for Advent III talked about visions of hope and about some signs of change that support us 
in our hope, from the shutdown of some big coal-fired power plants to the little wind- and solar-powered “energy barn” built in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline here in Nebraska. While these things alone don’t put much of a dent in global warming, they are a start, and they do give us hope that bigger things can done that could significantly mitigate global warming.

Doing something is preferable to doing nothing, and signs of hope are something to celebrate, but some welcomed steps in the right direction aren’t the same thing as justice, especially not justice as described by the prophets. For the people on islands that are threatened by sea level rise, for people trying to raise enough food to survive in places where the traditional planting and harvest dates no longer are reliable, or for people who have lost homes or loved ones to severe weather events, changes on a much deeper scale is needed. What counts as a successful nod to the climate crisis in the political world, or what we might see as a success because it gives some small glimmer of hope in the darkness, isn't necessarily success according to the standards of the prophets.

Real justice calls us to change our way of life so deeply that the earth, worn down like the poor by our greed and selfishness, can be renewed and restored. These sorts of deep changes require an essential spiritual component that our deepest traditions can provide if we will tap into them. These sorts of deep changes are embedded in the story of the birth of Jesus, the story we prepare to celebrate this week. If we stop and listen to Matthew’s account of the birth, letting the story reach our hearts as well as our ears, we may find ourselves prepared to embrace those deep changes with gladness. We may find Good News, a story of new life coming into the world on a very deep level.

Environmental Ministry at General Convention

It’s 103 degrees this afternoon in Indianapolis, where the General Convention of The Episcopal Church is underway. I’m on my way there to connect with the Episcopal Ecological Network (EpEN) www.eeonline.org . The incredible heat should provide a good talking point!

Several resolutions touch on environmental issues. The EpEN website shows a list of General Convention resolutions  related to environmental issues. In the exhibit hall, EpEN is sharing a booth with the Episcopal Network for EconomicJustice (ENEJ). Our sharing of physical space is a sign of how issues of economic justice and eco-justice issues are interwoven. Concern for God’s creation because it matters to God is part of our Christian commitment to environmental integrity; the effects of environmental degradation on the poorest people in the world is another major piece of that commitment.

A climate justice resolution and an Episcopal News Service story, Standingwith Kivalina at the 77th General Convention, shows the connections for a community above the Arctic Circle, who in turn ask us to make the connection for indigenous cultures throughout the world.

Webcast: The Intersection of the Environment and Poverty

A forum about the intersection of the environment and poverty   – environmental justice – will be webcast tomorrow (April 21) at 11:00 central time. This forum was initiated by the Episcopal Church, and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is the keynote speaker. Kim Lawton, senior editor and correspondent of the PBS program Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly is the moderator for the forum. St. Mark’s Cathedral in Salt Lake City is hosting the event.

After the forum, this webcast will be available for on-demand viewing for individuals or groups. There are two 45-minute panel discussions planned after the keynote address: Can Sustainability Initiatives Life those in Poverty? and Reducing Environmental Health Consequences for those in Poverty. Information about the panels and the connection to the webcast are available on this page on the Episcopal Church’s website. 

We tend to separate issues from one another, treating poverty and environmental issues and health issues as separate things. But everything is interconnected, and our understanding of all of these issues and our ability to serve others in the name of Christ are both increased by looking at the connections and intersections among various issues. In order to love our neighbors, we need to learn to care for the environment we all share.

Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters

Proper 27A

Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:24)

Environmental issues become justice issues when people who have contributed little or nothing to environmental degradation end up suffering from its harmful effects. This Sunday’s reading from Amos (Amos 5:18-24 ) uses water images to talk about justice and righteousness. Given that many environmental justice issues have to do with water in some form – water pollution, too little water in droughts caused by climate change, too much water in floods caused by increasingly heavy rain- and snowfalls (also the result of climate change) – Amos’s words seem especially well suited for the 21^st century

The words “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”  are an especially good fit for an article posted this week  by the Anglican Communion News Service about the situation in Tuvalu.  (See Loving Our Neighbors in 2011 , Part 2 of 3, from Oct 21.)  Tuvalu is experiencing a severe drought, and because sea-level rise is making the water in the island nation’s wells salty, there is a severe water shortage. The people of Tuvalu have contribute little to the accumulation of greenhouse gases that cause global warming and sea level rise, but are suffering terribly from the effects of what those of us in industrialized nations have done and continue to make worse through our failure to address climate change in any significant way.

The Anglican Communion News Service reports on Anglican Archbishop Winston Halapua’s visit to Tuvalu. Archbishop Halapua said, “What I have seen is the reality of the sea rising,” and that this “is the biggest possible issue”.  Along with making the well water undrinkable, sea level rise and the resulting increased salinization has poisoned the roots of banana, breadfruit, and coconut trees, dietary staples in Tuvalu and other Pacific island nations.

Archbishop Halapua asks for prayer and action: action in the form of relief aid for the people of Tuvalu and in the form of our becoming more aware of climate change “and its impact on marginalized people”, and prayer because the problems of climate change, sea level rise, and the effects on islands and coastal areas are something bigger than and different from anything we have ever faced before.

The church’s gift of prayer is a greater gift than many non-believers -- and perhaps even many nominal believers -- can guess. As we begin to understand the enormity of what we face this century and beyond, prayer gives us a way to sit with our fear, our awareness of the work to be done, and our grief; to hold these up before God; and to process all of this in a way that allows us to function well and do what we can to alleviate suffering and continue to live meaningful lives with some sort of hope. Prayer is not asking God to magically make a bad situation go away; it is a way to receive what we need to go forward and serve in the name of Christ.

And so along with our aid and our paying attention to climate change, Archbishop Halapua asks for our prayers:

We need to pray. We need to say very, very clearly to the church that we need to pray because this is something way beyond us. We need to pray that we will be empowered to speak clearly to our elected agents in government who make decisions about climate change.

Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.