The Sign of the Sea Stars

Advent 1

The sea stars are dying, and awareness of the plight of the animals we less accurately but more commonly call “starfish” is growing just as we begin the Advent season.

With many Christmas decorations up even before Thanksgiving, Christmas stars are all around us as Advent begins. In our liturgical year, though, the Christmas star won’t appear until The Feast of the Epiphany (January 6), when we hear the story (in Matthew 2:1-12) about the wise men following the star to Bethlehem to find the new King.

Our Advent readings are about waiting and watching, and they have much to teach us about how to be faithful in this century when our greatest collective challenges are climate change and its effects along with other environmental challenges. Surely an awareness of what is happening to Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and ecosystems is an essential part of discipleship if we are continue to be the Body of Christ in this century’s world.

The plan for this First Sunday of Advent reflection was to elaborate on how we might watch and wait and witness to what is happening. But awareness of the new sign of the dying sea stars calls for a slightly different reflection this week. These stars call us to pay attention now, to care now, to speak and act, to bear witness, now.

The Washington Post reported on November 22 that Sea stars are wasting away in larger numbers on a wider scale in two oceans. This article says that neither the cause nor the probably impact on ecosystems is known. Cornell University Professor Drew Harvell, who studies marine diseases, says that events like this are “sentinels of change” and need our attention. On November 5, Time magazine published an article about the sea stars called Falling Stars: Starfish Dying from ‘Disintegrating’ Disease. This article emphasizes how unusual it is to have more than one species of sea star affected and to be seeing this disease over a wide geographic area, with one scientist saying that it looks like “millions and millions” of starfish might be affected.

And what does any of this have to do with Advent or the church? The dying of the sea stars seems to be another one of those environmental events in recent years that has never been seen before on this scale. Whether the cause is related to pollution, ocean acidification or warming, radiation, or some other cause, whatever affects these living things affects us all. We are called to care for one another, to love one another, and so we care for human life and for the lives of all the other living things with whom we share this planet.

The church is also in the business of wonder, especially as we go through Advent in preparation for Christmas. The loss of sea stars is a loss of a source of wonder and joy, surely a concern for Christians who are about to celebrate the Feast of the Incarnation.

What can we do about it? What can Christians who live far from the ocean and have no training in marine biology or ecology do? We can witness. We can pay attention, ask questions, talk about it, write about it. We can learn more about it and see what connection this might have to our own habits of consumption or activity, and then figure out what changes we might make in our own lives or our collective life. We can care enough to carry an awareness of the death of the sea stars with us, to pray for our oceans and the creatures who live there, to be conscious. We can talk about this and other seldom mentioned environmental concerns in meetings, in sermons, at social gatherings.

Perhaps most importantly, we can follow the exhortation found in both the Epistle and Gospel lessons for Advent 1 and be awake. There is a lot going on this time of year to lull us to a sort of half-sleep. Consumerism is hyped up, there are all sorts of entertainments from special sports events to movies and television specials and parties, and the dark and cold make all of these things an easy focus for us. Presents and entertainment are all fine so long as we can stay awake. Staying awake when the world calls us to numb ourselves to what is happening is the spiritual challenge of Advent. 

The sign of the sea star this Advent can lead us to better follow the Epiphany star that is a sign of Christ’s manifestation to the whole world. If we keep the sea stars in mind, we may be better prepared to be the Body of Christ in today’s world.

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.

Earth Day / Third Sunday of Easter

“They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.” (Luke 24: 42-43)

Today is Earth Day; Friday was the second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Because the oil “spill” ended up being so much bigger than we realized it would be on Earth Day 2010, Earth Day probably will be shadowed by the anniversaries of the oil spill for many years to come.

Today is also the Third Sunday of Easter, and our Gospel lesson for today (Luke 24: 36-48) is about the resurrected Jesus appearing to the disciples. Jesus asks if they have anything to eat, and they give him a piece of broiled fish, which Jesus eats. Luke’s report of Jesus eating the fish helps us to see that Jesus was truly there, that this wasn’t an apparition. It’s striking to have this reading as we observe Earth Day this year.

Fish was a basic food for the disciples and Jesus, as it was and remains for many people in the world. Fish is a principal source of protein for many people, and fishing – the occupation of several of the disciples – is still the way many people make a living.

Two years after the Gulf oil spill, fish near the oil spill site are sick. (See Cain Burdeau’s article for the Associated Press.) Evidence connecting the ulcers, black streaks, and damaged fins to the oil spill is circumstantial; what is known is that something isn’t right in that part of the Gulf ecosystem.

According to a report in the May 7, 2012 edition of The Nation entitled “Two Years After: BP’s Toxic Legacy”, people who live along the Gulf Coast are also sick. Along with fighting poor health, people have had to fight to get access to proper medical care. The article gives details of some of the justice and fairness issues involved. Surely Jesus, who healed the sick, would have us be concerned about those suffering from exposure to toxins.

The Gulf of Mexico isn’t the only place where fishing doesn’t provide the sort of healthful protein and steady livelihood it used to. The health of our ocean ecosystems as well as many freshwater ecosystems is suffering from pollution by various toxins, plastic pollution, loss of habitat, ocean acidification caused by global warming, and other changes in ecosystems brought on by warming waters. Something so basic as catching a fish and grilling it, something so basic that Luke uses it to help us see the reality of the risen Christ, is now something we can’t take for granted.

“What would Jesus eat?” may be a more instructive guide to action than “What would Jesus do?”  What basic foods will remain sustainably available to people around the world who have traditionally relied on fish and seafood for daily protein? As Saturday’s forum about the intersection of poverty and the environment   made clear, issues of environmental sustainability, poverty, and human health are interconnected. The church has always served Christ through serving the poor and sick; in today’s world, we must extend that service to the earth’s ecosystems in order to truly serve our neighbors near and far.