For the Second Week of Advent, two very different but
related texts can help us be better prepared to celebrate the birth of Jesus
and to receive Christ in our hearts at Christmas.
The first text is this week’s Gospel lesson from Matthew 3:1-12 about John the
Baptist appearing in the wilderness and proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom
of heaven has come near.”
The second text is a new report from eighteen of the world’s
top climate scientists entitled Assessing
‘‘Dangerous Climate Change’’: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect
Young People, Future Generations and Nature. This report is well worth
reading in its entirety, but there is also a
summary available. The summary
explains that the paper “was initiated to provide the scientific basis for
legal actions against national and state governments for not doing their job of
protecting the rights of young people and future generations.” In doing so, it
also helps lay the groundwork for a moral argument against our complacency as
some of the wealthier people on the planet in the early part of the 21st
century.
The paper argues that the 2° C warming that world climate
forums have talked about as a limit that would prevent catastrophic climate
change is too high a limit. (It should also be noted that several scientists
think we are already on track to surpass that limit because of amplifying
feedbacks.) This paper argues that 2° C warming creates instability that makes
it impossible to stay at the two degree limit; two degrees of warming creates “slow
feedbacks” that eventually lead to 3-4° C of warming. A simple example of
feedback is the melting of the Arctic sea ice. Ice and snow reflect fairly
large amounts of sunlight. When the ice melts, there is more open water and
less ice, which means more sunlight is absorbed, which leads to more warming.
This of course leads to further melting, which leads to further warming, and so
forth. They argue that reducing global carbon emissions to 350 ppm by the end
of the century can keep us within a warming limit that prevents catastrophe.
And they note that “there is still opportunity for humanity to exercise free
will”.
I love the beauty of our worship at Christmas, and I love
the beauty and wonder of the Advent season that leads up to our great celebration
of the Feast of the Incarnation. But my heart hurts when I realize how far from
the mark of following Christ we can be when we focus more on the form and
aesthetics of our worship than we do on our call to follow Christ. In this
Sunday’s Gospel, John the Baptist says that it doesn’t matter if people are
good religious folks – children of Abraham – if their lives don’t show it. “Bear
fruit worthy of repentance” says John.
I hope that as we gather in churches on Christmas Eve that
somewhere in a homily or in the prayers we name the reality and urgency of
climate change. I hope that when we think about and speak about the Incarnation
that we appreciate the depth of that mystery by looking at the reality of our
world where God has chosen to come and dwell with us. I hope that as we prepare
for the birth of the Holy Child and then celebrate the birth, and as we prepare
to enjoy and delight the children we know and love, that we care enough about
both the Christ-child and our own children to bear fruit worthy of repentance
and work as hard as we can to stop the burning of fossil fuels and be willing
to change the way we do things so that future generations might live.
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.
Thanksgiving Day in and of itself is a celebration of a
spiritual response to everything in God’s creation that gives us life and joy. Despite
the considerable cultural and commercial baggage it has picked up over the
years, at its heart an annual day set aside for an entire nation to express
gratitude is a great spiritual gift. Whether by design or by accident, this
national holiday calls us to an essential spiritual practice. Some years our
hearts are full of joy on the fourth Thursday of November and the gratitude
comes easily; other years it falls at a less joyful point of our lives and we
have to be very intentional to discover what can move us to gratitude even when
we are caught up in grief or troubles. Giving thanks when things are going well
and life is a delight is important, but developing the habit of giving thanks
in more difficult times is a great spiritual gift to ourselves and those around
us.
While an annual call to give thanks is good, a daily
practice of gratitude can transform our lives. The simple daily habit of naming
five or ten things for which we are grateful changes us over time. The practice
of gratitude requires us to notice bits of goodness, joy, or hope even in times
when we might overlook those little bits. That noticing makes the dark times
less dark and lets in a little light just when we need it most.
For people who pay attention to climate change and pollution
and their effects on living things, there is plenty to tempt us to despair. Yet
those who grieve the passing of species and ecosystems most deeply are those
who have loved these most deeply. Even as we grieve and wonder how best to live
in this changing world, we continue to notice and treasure the gifts of God’s
creation: the sky, the earth itself, the seas and lakes and rivers, and all the
animals and plants that fill them. The living things whose increasing fragility
we grieve the most are the very things that allow a glimpse of goodness, joy,
or hope that can save us from our own despair. A daily practice of gratitude
opens our hearts in a way that inoculates us against paralyzing despair.
Both the cultivation of grateful hearts and the cultivation of
awareness of our environmental problems are key practices for Christians
at this point in history. Seeing and naming the world’s brokenness in terms of
injustice, poverty, and hatred has always been an essential part of living the
Christian life with integrity, and these aspects of the world’s brokenness in
this century are intertwined with environmental degradation and the impacts of climate
change. Accordingly, looking as fully as possible at the reality of our warming planet, a reality
that can be difficult to acknowledge and perhaps impossible for us to fully
comprehend, is an essential task for Christians today. But the practice of
gratitude, the practice of intentionally looking for and recognizing the things
both great and small that continue to bring us life and joy, is equally
essential to the Christian life. Gratitude keeps us from being consumed with
despair, but at the same time it keeps us from denying the value of what is being
lost. We continue to love creation even as we grieve the loss of so much of
what we loved; we continue to grieve loss after loss even as we continue to be
grateful for all that we have loved.
Both locally and
globally, the church’s work and welfare is bound up with environmental
stability. As part of my work in the area of environmental stewardship, I send periodic
summaries or updates to Bishop Barker to help him stay informed about what is
happening with the environment, and particularly what is unfolding in the world
of climate science. We are sharing this summary more widely as there has been
lots of new information recently that will continue to have big impacts on
things such as food production, health, the world economy, and the spiritual needs
of people in the 21st century.
The original document
from October 28, which begins below, includes information from the first part
of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report around the physical basis for climate
change. Since then, information from the upcoming second part of the report
about the predicted impacts of climate change was leaked and shared in a
November 1 New York Times article with the headline Climate
Change Seen Posing Risk to Food Supplies. The article says that the second
part of the report will tell us that food supplies are expected to decrease by
2% each remaining decade of this century. Elizabeth Kolbert posted Is
It Too Late to Prepare for Climate Change? in response to the leaked
information, writing: “The force of the report comes simply from assembling all the data in one place; the summary reads like a laundry list of the apocalypse—flood, drought, disease, starvation.” She goes on to talk about the even more dire impacts for non-human species of animals and plants. (Our lives are of course inextricably bound up with theirs, so these are indirectly dire impacts for humankind as well.) Then Typhoon Haiyan came along and devastated the Philippines. Its wind speed at landfall was 195 mph, the strongest winds at landfall ever recorded. We can’t say what influence global warming does
or does not have on any particular storm, but we do know that the overall
pattern of severe weather is changing and that global warming provides the
conditions in the oceans and the atmosphere that are known to amplify severe
storms. At the UN climate conference now meeting in Warsaw, Philippine
representative Yeb Sano gave an emotional plea to “stop the madness”. Knowing
that people at home had no food after the storm, he vowed to fast during the
climate talks until significant progress is made to help the nations most
immediately vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
October 28 summary
September was the 343rd consecutive month with
global temperatures warmer than the twentieth century average.
Two reports in recent weeks have given us updated
information about climate change and predictions for the future.
IPCC Fifth Assessment
Report
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 5th
Assessment Report for the group of scientists looking at the physical
science basis for climate change got a lot of popular press for saying that
there is a very high probability (approaching certainty) that climate change is
for the most part the result of human activity. The version of the report
published for policymakers is found
here.
But there are other things worth the attention of
non-scientists. One is the mention for the first time of geoengineering as a
possible way to prevent catastrophic warming now that certain tipping points
have either been reached or are soon to be reached. Along with the unknowns
about the long-term effects of geoengineering – either finding a way to remove
significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester it or
“solar radiation management” (constructing ways of reflecting enough sunlight
away from the earth to cool the planet) -- this addition is noteworthy because
it signals something about the critical nature of climate change at this point.
Enough feedback loops are in play that even if governments and industries were
inclined to make huge cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions, there would still
be some degree of temperature rise. And the political reality is that those
cutbacks in emissions to any truly significant degree are not in the works.
Some other key findings were summarized well in Mother Jones
magazine in an earlier article entitled 5 Terrifying Statements in the Leaked
Climate Report. The five, which the
article discusses in some detail, are these:
·We're on course to change the planet in a way
"unprecedented in hundreds to thousands of years.
·Ocean acidification is "virtually
certain" to increase.
·Long-term, sea level rise could be 5 to 10
meters.
·This also implies a substantial melting of the
Greenland ice sheet.
·Much of the carbon we've emitted will stay in
the atmosphere for a millennium…even after we've stopped emitting it.
One more thing to note about the IPCC report is that their
findings are very conservative as the work is done by reaching consensus among
scientists. Many individual scientists see things deteriorating more rapidly
and more severely than the IPCC report indicates.
“The projected timing
of climate departure from recent variability”:
Within a generation, sooner for the tropics
Camilo Mora and others from the University of Hawai’i
published a report in the October 10 issue of Naturethat predicts when various locations in the world will reach the
point of climate departure from recent variability – i.e. when the average
temperature of that location’s coolest year will be greater than the average
temperature of its hottest year for the period from 1860 to 2005. In the University
of Hawai’i press release about the report, Camilo Mora says: “The results
shocked us. Regardless of the scenario, changes will be coming soon. Within my
generation, whatever climate we were used to will be a thing of the past.”
This graphic from
The Washington Post shows expected dates of this big change for several
cities. If little changes, the average year for climate departure overall will
be 2047 (yes, only 34 years from now); if greenhouse gas emissions were to be
stabilized, the average year becomes 2069. Of particular concern to us in the
Diocese of Nebraska given our companion dioceses in the Dominican Republic and
South Sudan, tropical areas are expected to experience this change within the next decade. Chicago has a
date of 2052 without mitigation and 2081 with stabilization of emissions.
There is debate among environmentalists about exactly
how dire all of this is: do we face a very changed world that still supports
human life, or are we looking at total human extinction? (Guy McPherson is a
scientist who thinks the most recent evidence points to the latter. While I’m
not yet convinced, his moving reflection on how we live that is the second half
of this
short video (starting around 2:17) can really speak to either option.)
That
we are even asking the question, though, is certainly cause for theological
reflection that may help the church be an effective pastoral presence as the
reality of climate change breaks through to increasing numbers of people.
Effects on people
living in poverty
The Yale
Environment 360 Digest reports on a study by the U.K.’s Overseas
Development Institute that says that increased extreme weather events will make
poverty worse in parts of the world that already are among the poorest. The
study suggests that aid money should be spent on reducing the risks to people
from extreme weather events instead of only on humanitarian relief after a
disaster.
As the church looks at ways to respond to the challenges
of climate change, this sort of study should be useful.
And lest we think the phenomena of climate refuges and of
climate change affecting the poorest people first and worst are things that
happen only in other countries, the Huffington Post ranLife on the Edge of Climate Change
this week. The author, Babs Roaming Buffalo Bagwell, is the senior public
relations and media liaison for The Isle de Jean Charles Band of
Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians. She describes how climate change affects her
community every day, writing: Some may be
ignoring this reality, but we don't have that luxury. When the water's edge is
at your doorstep, sea level rise and extreme rainstorms aren't political,
they're personal.
What do we have for
this? And what/how do we teach our children?
At
our Annual Council Eucharist, Bishop Barker brought our environmental reality
into the homily: “We are
in fact living in a moment of unprecedented challenge and change for
humankind. We are hastening towards global environmental disaster.
In the lifetime of the youngest people now dwelling on earth, everything
changes.” Bishop Barker’s question from the show The Book of Mormon – “What do
you have for this?” – is a question that we might ask repeatedly as we learn
about climate change and reflect on the church’s response to this most urgent
and global issue.
As I was writing this summary, Wendy Bell, a Unitarian
minister I met at the Climate Reality Leadership Training this summer, posted
on Facebook that she had just read the most pessimistic climate report she had
yet seen. A little later, she posted this question:
Ministers: If you had been a
chaplain on the Titanic, how might you have understood your role? DRE's
[Directors of Religious Education]: What would you have taught the children?
What are our roles as ministers – lay or ordained – in the
Episcopal Church? How do we best live as the Body of Christ in a world that is
in big trouble that is so seldom acknowledged? To use Walter Brueggemann’s
term, how do we break through the numbness? And what do we do then?
And in light of what we know we can expect in their
lifetimes, what do we teach the children? The latter is a huge question for the
church that is seldom if ever discussed. What can we teach them about God and
the world and their relationship with Christ and with one another that can
prepare them for today’s world and for whatever the remainder of this century
brings? How do we best model and teach the classic Christian disciplines of
prayer, study, and love for God and one another so that our children are
well-equipped spiritually to be the Body of Christ in a changed and changing
world?
In many ways, it’s no different from what we’ve always done,
preparing our children for whatever life might bring them. At this point of
human history, though, when we know how fragile the future is for everyone (and
when the adults in leadership positions are doing so little to ensure their
future), it seems to be especially important to equip our children with the
spiritual practices, traditions, and knowledge that will help them develop spiritually
resilience that can last throughout their lifetimes.
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.
On
the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and
Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their
distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When
he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as
they went, they were made clean.Then one of them, when he saw that he was
healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself
at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked,
“Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of
them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then
he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
Jesus healed ten lepers in a sort of border region between
Samaria and Galilee. Only a “foreigner”, only the one outside Jesus’ faith
community, returned to thank Jesus. As he returned to thank Jesus, he praised
God “with a loud voice”, keeping neither his praise nor his gratitude to
himself. The other nine were silent.
Did the ritual of showing themselves to the priest in order
to have the healing verified somehow take the place of praise and gratitude for
the other nine? We have no way of knowing what was in their hearts. They may
have been praising God and feeling grateful in their hearts, but outwardly they
were silent.
Does it surprise us that the outsider, the foreigner, is the
only one who grasps what has happened to him and responds appropriately?
Perhaps not if we consider the situation in many churches today, where rituals
are observed well but there is silence around the reality of the world around
us and our lives outside the church walls. This passage reminded me of
something I’ve observed in several Episcopal parishes in recent years.
Those of us who know our fellow worshipers know that many
people who come to church care deeply about what is happening in the world, but
a stranger might never guess it if they visit on a Sunday morning, where there
may be a full hour with no mention of anything outside of the church and its
members. And it’s not that nothing has been happening in the world worthy of
being mentioned. In the world of weather and climate alone there is plenty to
get our attention.
In the past month we saw terrible floods in Colorado, a
record-breaking snowstorm in South Dakota that killed many cattle, and
tornadoes in Nebraska. The IPCC
5th Assessment Report came out, full of sobering information
about the state of climate change on our planet its implications for the years
ahead.
A new study was in the news this week. Led by Camilo Mora
from the University of Hawaii, this study predicts the years of “climate
departure” for several places around the world assuming “business as usual”,
i.e. no significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. (See a map and list
of cities here.
Chicago’s predicted year for climate departure is around 2052, 39 years from
now. Phoenix is 2043, only 30 years down the road.) “Climate departure” refers
to the point when the coldest years are warmer than the warmest years from 1860
to 2005. So after 2052, the coldest years in Chicago should be warmer than any
of the warmest years recorded up to 2005. Places in the tropics will reach this
point first. For example, Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic is predicted
to reach climate departure very soon, around 2026. As we have known for a long
time, the places that will be impacted first are the ones least responsible for
climate change and often places with less means to respond to climate change
than wealthier nations.
It’s quite possible that people staying home on Sunday
morning and reading the newspaper or watching the Sunday morning news shows may
have more of an idea of what is happening and, as a result, more concern for
those suffering, than those who have been to church on Sunday morning. But we
have several opportunities to connect what we do in church with the urgent
needs of the world. Victims of the storms in Colorado, South Dakota, and
Nebraska – or this week, those who live in the path of Cyclone
Phailin, a huge cyclone that has made landfall in India – might be remembered
in our prayers. A spoken or written announcement can suggest ways to contribute
to relief organizations such as Episcopal Relief and
Development or help in some other way. Preachers can acknowledge what is
happening in the world and help us see the connections to what we learn from
Scripture.
But sometimes we get to the end of an hour of worship and
even the coffee hour conversations and realize on reflection that nothing was
said that couldn’t have been said ten years ago. This may be comforting on some
level – nothing ever changes – but also suggests that like the nine who kept
silent, we churchgoers can become so accustomed to our changeless rituals that
we become less able to connect with Christ and bring Christ into our lives than
are those outside our walls.
I wonder how authentic our praise of God is if we can’t
acknowledge the needs of the world in our worship. I wonder how deeply we trust
God if we don’t express our greatest fears out loud in our churches. Do we
trust God with a global crisis that seems too big for us to understand? And I
wonder if we are really praising God, the Creator and Sustainer of the
universe, if we choose to ignore what is happening to God’s creation.
Breaking our silence so that our praise is heard in the
world and the needs of the world are heard in our churches puts us in the blessed
company of the “foreigner” who turned to Christ and responded appropriately.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which
You give sustenance to Your creatures.
As we remember St. Francis today in Nebraska, Brother Wind
is very much in evidence, from the winter storm winds in the northwest to the
aftermath of last night’s tornadoes in the southeast and everywhere in between.
Meteorologists tell us that we have had an unusual weather pattern for early
October, and as I sit on my porch in south central Nebraska writing this, it
feels more like early September than early October. I know this warmth will be
short-lived, though, as those cold winds out of the northwest will get here
soon. I also know that unusual weather patterns with more severe storms dumping
heavy precipitation are what climate scientists have predicted as global
temperatures warm, the Arctic ice melts, and the Earth changes in very
significant ways. Yesterday our area got a record amount of rainfall for a day
in October. The Platte River was already bank full with water from the
September rains in Colorado, resulting in the countryside looked in many ways more like it
does during a spring thaw than in a more typical October.
Skiers are excited about the early and plentiful snows in
parts of the Rockies. Farmers always welcome moisture for the soil, but would
prefer dry conditions as the harvest season progresses. Some football fans will
welcome cooler temperatures in Lincoln tomorrow, while others will be unhappy
if the wind makes tailgating difficult or a cold wind brings discomfort. From
what we know of St. Francis, I suspect he would rejoice in the snow, the
storms, the wind, the rain, and whatever else he experienced in God’s creation.
We celebrate his compassion for animals, bringing pets and farm animals to
churches for a blessing on this day, but of course his compassion extended much
farther than the animal kingdom.
Most notably, Francis had compassion for poor people. Born
into comfortable circumstances, he left all of that to live as poor people
lived. Today we might say he stood in solidarity with the poor. His compassion
extended to all living things: people, plants, water, the wind, the sun, moon,
and stars. His compassion even extended to death itself, part of the great web
and cycles of life.
His compassion which flowed out of his love for Christ was
evident in his loving restoration of ruined churches and in his creation of the
first crèche to make the story of the Nativity more accessible to people. He
did not neglect worship, and his attention to the words of Christ in the Gospel
guided his heart and his mind. But he also did not neglect action in the world.
Francis was never ordained as a priest, but served the
Church as a deacon. Our understanding of deacons today is that our attention to the Gospel and our
love of Christ result at least as much in service in the wider world as in service within the institution of the Church. As Francis understood,
when the Gospel works long enough on someone’s heart and mind, the natural
result is compassion that extends in an ever-widening circle.
The great work for Christians today is to extend that circle
of compassion not only in wider and wider circles in our present world, and
also to extend that circle to future generations. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)Fifth
Assessment Report , released at the end of September, is clear about the significant negative consequences of unmitigated global warming on today's children and those who come
after them, and it is also clear that we can indeed mitigate the consequences
if we care enough to make the necessary changes now. Compassion says that if we
see a big problem for future generations and can do something ourselves right
now to prevent suffering 20, 50, 100, or 200 years from now, we should do it.
Poet Drew Dellinger recites an excerpt from his poem Hieroglyphic
Stairway that is a good place to begin prayerful reflection on this St. Francis
Day:
If people fifty years from now asked, how would we answer the question "What did you do once you knew?"
