Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #49... Grand Finale, part 1 of 2

Gold Stream Falls, one of my favourite natural places
on our common home

We've reached the end of Pope Francis' letter to the world, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home. As you know, I think it's a hugely important document -- in the year since it was published, it's been feeling like the world is really starting to pay attention to the problems human beings have created for our planet and its inhabitants. I was hoping that Christianity as a whole would grab onto it and start talking about it every Sunday, but that hasn't come to pass, at least not that I know of. I haven't even heard a homily about it in my own church, and so far, all that's been underlined in our parish bulletin is the idea that we should remember to pray before and after meals. That's a good idea, yes, but...

There's so much more to Laudato Si, and so many possible lessons and practices we can take from what it says. It reminds us that we are just one small but powerful part of creation, and that we can do much better when it comes to protecting our environment and caring for the marginalized. It notes the many challenges our earth is facing and calls us to work together toward potential solutions.  It challenges us to reconsider the consumptive lifestyles we are living in favour of a deeper, more satisfying simplicity. Everything (in creation, including us) is connected, everything is related, everything is interrelated/interconnected is its oft repeated refrain that needs to be considered with every choice we make, every day of our lives.

For my own summary, I choose to underline some of the ideas for helping our sister, Mother Earth, which came to me from out of our weekly readings of the encyclical:

• Pray "for our good and the good of all creation" every Sunday Mass during the Preparation of the Gifts.
• Consider how we are using (or abusing) the soil, water, air, natural resources and lives of other creatures with whom we share our planet.
• Ask: "what is one small thing I can do to make a positive difference for the earth's inhabitants today?"
• Undertake a personal garbage audit and determine how to waste less.
• Use less energy through alternate forms of transportation (walk, bike, take transit, carpool, buy local foods).
• Appreciate water and consider how we can protect and conserve it. Carry refillable drinking bottles.
• Spend some time outdoors, appreciating the natural life where we live.
• Ask: Is this really the quality of life we want? How do we want our society to be? What must we change? How do we go about changing it?
• Drop the complacency of indifference and choose to care about all our human and non-human brothers and sisters with us in the web of creation. Support a just cause, or more than one.
• Consider all that we take for granted, and appreciate it more. Share it more.
• Practice gratitude by using things wisely.
• Ask: where is there a "disordered use of things" in my life? How can I change my life to improve care for all God's creatures?
• Be a sign, a role model, an example of doing the just thing -- no matter who is watching (and even if no one is).
• Let local, national and world leaders know that we want positive, just changes for the sake of our planet's future generations. Speak out for our environment and all its inhabitants. Become an activist in some small (or larger) way.
• Note the places where God's action and goodness are present in creation and in life.
• Give some thought to the needs of creation in its entirety, and remember that our planet's life isn't just about human beings.
• Own less. Travel less. Eat simply. Share. Live in sufficiency, not excess. Appreciate everything.
• Consider: How would Jesus live in our present era -- and change our lives to match his.
• Practice spirituality (connecting with God) and self-restraint.
• Ask: Is technology serving its rightful purpose in our lives, or distracting us from what's really important?
• Slow down to appropriate technology's "positive and sustainable progress that has been made, but also to recover the values and great goals" that have gotten lost along the way.
• Ask; "Are we always the best examples we can be in caring for creation?"
• See the world with its Creator's eyes.

These ideas are just from the first half of Laudato Si -- and I think this last one is key. We have all had the experience of creating something and giving it to someone else in the hope that they will appreciate it. What would it be like to create a world and then watch how human beings are treating it now? If we can imagine the world as our home rather than our playground, and desire only what is best for all living things, we will do things differently, won't we? And that's what God and Pope Francis are calling us to do.

To save this summary from being completely overwhelming, I'll look at the second half next week, and wrap it up, whew! Until then, I will close with the end of the final prayer of Laudato Si. Please pray with me:

God of love, show us our place in this world
as channels of your love
for all the creatures of this earth,
for not one of them is forgotten in your sight.
Enlighten those who possess power and money
that they may avoid the sin of indifference,
that they may love the common good, advance the weak,
and care for this world in which we live.
The poor and the earth are crying out.
O Lord, seize us with your power and light,
help us to protect all life,
to prepare for a better future,
for the coming of your Kingdom
of justice, peace, love and beauty.
Praise be to you!

+AMEN.

Next up: The Grand Finale, period

(A Christian prayer in union with creation and all quotations from Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

The difference three weeks makes

We're back! We had a wonderful vacation out to Vancouver Island -- great camping, good weather, and some excellent visits with family and friends. And now we're home... and you could say I'm a little overwhelmed by the garden, as usual. Things grew so much in the two weeks we were away. See for yourself -- in the series of photos below, the first was taken July 5th, and the second, July 25th.

The garden, overall...

Herbs and snap peas...

Scarlet runner beans...

The corn is taller than I am now!

We had a fair bit of hail the Friday before last, so my tomatoes aren't looking very happy, but overall, I'm pleased with our garden's progress... and I have a ton of work to do. So the vacation highlights reel will have to wait a bit, but it's coming, I promise. 

For the next few weeks, you can find me in the garden...

Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #48... Everything will be okay in the end

Being something of an optimist, I've always appreciated the saying that appears above. The Pope is also an optimist, I'm guessing, and his way of saying the same thing appears at the end of this last section of Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home, when he says, "At the end, we will find ourselves face to face with the infinite beauty of God" (you can find this week's reading by clicking here and scrolling down to paragraphs 243-245).

The Grand Finale of Pope Francis's letter to the world, Laudato Si, is a little section called Beyond the Sun, and two lovely prayers. The Pope and his writing team begin by trying to express a bit of what heaven will be like: "Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated for once and for all."

We are reminded that, until then, we still have work to do to care for this earth and all its creatures as we journey to God. I really love the lines at the end of paragraph 244: "Let us sing as we go. May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope."

As a somewhat musical person, I can't help but love the idea of singing as we go, and I had hoped to end these reflections with a song which is not quite ready yet, so please watch this space because I will share it in the near future. And, as promised at the very beginning, there will be fifty reflections -- two more posted on the next two Sundays because I'm seeing the need to pull together what we've been studying for the past year in a way that will hopefully be helpful to my readers.

The final paragraph of Laudato Si (245) reminds us that "In the heart of this world, the Lord of Life, who loves us so much is always present" -- we are not alone, because God is in all that God has made, and God's love will help us find our way. In spite of all the difficulties and trouble our world is facing, there is always hope because God is with us, and that's reason enough for Pope Francis and friends to to end the encyclical as it begins --

Laudato Si!

*******

Instead of ending with "A prayer for our earth" as I have every other, I close today's reflection with the final stanza of "A Christian prayer in union with creation" found at the end of the encyclical:

God of love, show us our place in this world
as channels of your love
for all the creatures of this earth,
for not one of them is forgotten in your sight.
Enlighten those who possess power and money
that they may avoid the sin of indifference,
that they may love the common good, advance the weak,
and care for this world in which we live.
The poor and the earth are crying out.
O Lord, seize us with your power and light,
help us to protect all life,
to prepare for a better future,
for the coming of your Kingdom
of justice, peace, love and beauty.
Praise be to you!

+AMEN.

Up next: Grand Finale, part 1 of 2

(A Christian prayer in union with creation and all quotations from Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

Where has the time gone?

These fresh-faced youngsters have been through a lot... and are doing pretty well 27 years to the day after they met, and 25 years to the day after they tied the knot. Love is a wonderful thing. So is laughter, friendship, pillow talk, and a daily walk, holding hands. 

Thank you, my love, for choosing me! 

And thanks be to God for everything else -- most especially our kids, family and friends.

It's all GOOD.

Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #47... And now, a word from our sponsors

We're almost there, my friends, just a few paragraphs from the end of Pope Francis's encyclical, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home. This week's two sections make me chuckle a bit, because they seem like the advertisements at the end of a TV program -- hence the title of this reflection.

The first section, paragraphs 238-240, is titled The Trinity and the Relationship Between Creatures, and the second, paragraphs 241-242, is Queen of All Creation (they can be accessed by clicking here and scrolling down). To me, it feels like the encyclical writers, good Catholics that they are, decided they had better hurry up and make mention of Mary and the Trinity before closing time. Even so, these two sections contain some good reminders for those of us who aspire to follow the will of the Triune God, and who take Mary as a model of how to do that.

Paragraphs 238-240 remind us that God is the source of everything, that Jesus is God united to creation through his humanity, and that the Holy Spirit, who blew over the waters of creation is the one responsible for "inspiring and bringing new pathways." When we give thanks for creation, we are praising all three persons of our One God. When we are one with God, we will see the deeper inter-connectedness of God's "constant and secretly woven relationships" throughout creation. What a time that will be! The eleventh and final refrain of the "Everything is interconnected" Laudato Si song is heard once again, calling us to relationship and "a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity."

The summer I was fourteen, our family took a trip to the West Coast and visited an aquarium where an injured young killer whale was recovering. At some point (I think while the trained seals were doing a show) I wandered by myself back to the young whale's pool. A piece of straggly sea weed floated near its edge, and I was able to grab it and toss it to the middle of the pool. The whale brought it back to me, and waited for me to throw it again, which I did, over and over. I remember feeling sad for the whale, living in a small enclosure instead of with its pod out in the open ocean -- but I was even sadder that we couldn't communicate. A bit of global solidarity inspired by the Trinity? It was a spiritual experience, or I probably wouldn't remember it today. And one day, when the new heaven and the new earth come about, communication with all of creation won't be an issue, of that I am convinced. We will all know how interconnected everything is!

As Mother of God, Mary stands with the crucified Christ once again as she "grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this world laid waste by human power." In paragraph 241 the encyclical writers note that her human life, lived according to God's will, is one part of creation that has "reached the fullness of its beauty.... Hence, we can ask her to enable us to look at this world with eyes of wisdom."

Of course, since St. Joseph is Mary's partner and the patron of the universal Church, it wouldn't do to forget about him. As caregiver of the Holy Family, "he too can teach us how to show care, he can inspire us to work with generosity and tenderness in protecting this world which God has entrusted to us."

In reading these paragraphs this week, I can't help but think that it's a call to humility for those of us who take up the challenge to work for change, for justice, and for the good of all creation. Perhaps you've heard that saying, "We must pray as if it all depends on God, and work as if it all depends on us." But these paragraphs seem to reverse that -- we must pray as if it all depends on us, and work as if it all depends on God. It is God's creation, and it is God who gives the success. Otherwise, our activist egos might get in the way and sabotage the change that is required. Oh heck, everything depends on God, doesn't it?

In the week ahead, whenever we run into news about environmental or human disasters, let's pause and put them into the hands of "our sponsors" before we look for possible solutions. Let's pray as if it all depends on us to ask for the Spirit's help and inspiration (because without God we can do nothing), and then let's be God's hands and feet and get to work!

*******

A prayer for our earth

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe

and in the smallest of your creatures.

You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.

Pour out upon us the power of your love,

that we may protect life and beauty.

Fill us with peace, that we may live

as brothers and sisters, harming no one.

O God of the poor,

help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth,

so precious in your eyes.

Bring healing to our lives,

that we may protect the world and not prey on it,

that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

Touch the hearts

of those who look only for gain

at the expense of the poor and the earth.

Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,

to be filled with awe and contemplation,

to recognize that we are profoundly united

with every creature

as we journey towards your infinite light.

We thank you for being with us each day.

Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle

for justice, love and peace.

+AMEN.

Up next: Everthing will be okay in the end

(A prayer for our earth and all quotations from Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

Simple Suggestion #255... Install a clothesline

It doesn't have to be a fancy double-pullied system like ours -- a simple piece of nylon cord between two trees is what we always use on vacation, and it works just as well. 

Clotheslines are a brilliant thing -- they fill our clothes with sunshine and fresh air, and cut our monthly electricity bill a full fifteen percent. That's right, 15%! So investing in a piece of nylon cord or a folding umbrella clothes stand like my sisters just found, or even a clothes rack that can stand in a corner of a laundry space pays itself off in a hurry -- and helps our environment to boot. Not to mention it's easier on clothes than a hot-air tumble dryer ever could be.

Why not give your clothes a longer life and install a solar, wind, or air powered dryer in the form of a clothesline today?

Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.

Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #46... The other 3 Rs

Are you old enough to remember when Sundays were Sundays? By that I mean, when churches were open but stores were closed, when most people had the day off to go to church and/or spend with their loved ones, and no one expected anything different.

All that changed in 1985 when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that banning Sunday shopping was unconstitutional. These days, in our multicultural society, some faith traditions observe days other than Sunday as sacred, but from the look of the mall parking lots on most traditional days of worship, many people would rather check out the chapel of consumerism's newest gizmo rather than spend time praying or thinking about the mystical connections between God, ourselves and creation.

This week's reading of Pope Francis' letter to the world, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home reminds me of the importance of Sabbath time, which in observant Jewish culture is actually from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night, a full 24 hours. So many of us don't have Sundays off anymore, but it's a good idea to try to set 24 hours of Sabbath aside for God at some point in the week, simply because our consumption-oriented culture barely takes an hour a week of God time, if any at all.

Paragraphs 233-237 of the Pope's encyclical (which you can access by clicking here and scrolling down) reminds us of the importance of making time each week for R&R&R -- rest, relaxation and reverence. They are just as important as reduce, reuse and recycle, because if we give them proper place in our lives, our faith can lead us to a change of attitude that encompasses deep care for the earth.

Sunday, Sabbath, sacred time on whichever day of the week fits your faith, is super important time -- so important that Pope Francis devotes five paragraphs to it in a section entitled Sacramental Signs and the Celebration of Rest. Celebration of Rest, I like that. The whole section is excellent -- if you have some understanding of Eucharist. (I guess Pope Francis forgot that a lot of people in the world might not know the meaning of that word -- or maybe he wants to inspire curiosity about it.) The basic idea is this: God comes to us through the beautiful and ordinary things of creation, so really everything can be a sacrament -- a sign of God's presence and love. And if we can see everything in our world as sacred, as somehow connected to the Creator, we give thanks (the word Eucharist means thanksgiving) for it, we become more receptive to God's presence in it, and we will want to do our utmost to care for it.

Cameron Lake, in Waterton Park AB

I feel like we've come full circle as I post this picture from the third Laudato Si Sunday Reflection way back when. That's when I asked if my readers ever stood in awe before creation, exultant or speechless, and somehow aware of God in it all. Sabbath time is meant to give us an opportunity to take a break from the usual rat race and find God in everything. Really, that's what this entire section is about, and I would encourage you to read it for yourselves because it holds many beautiful ideas. So this week, I'm just going to quote one piece of paragraph 237, which talks about the importance of making time for the rest that allows us to be reverent and aware of God's presence in everything and everyone around us:

We tend to demean contemplative rest as something unproductive and unnecessary, but this is to do away with the very thing which is most important about work: its meaning. We are called to include in our work a dimension of receptivity and gratuity, which is quite different from mere inactivity. Rather, it is another way of working, which forms part of our very essence. It protects human action from becoming empty activism; it also prevents that unfettered greed and sense of isolation which make us seek personal gain to the detriment of all else.... Rest opens our eyes to the large picture and gives us renewed sensitivity to the rights of others. And so the day of rest, centred on the Eucharist, sheds its light on the whole week, and motivates us to greater concern for nature and the poor. 

In this gorgeous week of summer ahead of us, let's find a place of rest where we can be aware of the beauty with which we are surrounded, the Creator who gives it to us, and the work we need to do so that everyone may enjoy it in simplicity, peace, and freedom.

*******

A prayer for our earth

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe

and in the smallest of your creatures.

You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.

Pour out upon us the power of your love,

that we may protect life and beauty.

Fill us with peace, that we may live

as brothers and sisters, harming no one.

O God of the poor,

help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth,

so precious in your eyes.

Bring healing to our lives,

that we may protect the world and not prey on it,

that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

Touch the hearts

of those who look only for gain

at the expense of the poor and the earth.

Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,

to be filled with awe and contemplation,

to recognize that we are profoundly united

with every creature

as we journey towards your infinite light.

We thank you for being with us each day.

Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle

for justice, love and peace.

+AMEN.

Up next: And now, a word from our sponsors

(A prayer for our earth and all quotations from Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

Working hard

I've been as busy as a bee lately, almost. There's so much to do out in the yard... weeding, staking, sifting compost, moving things around... The good thing about spending so much time outdoors is how easy it is to fall asleep after all that fresh air and exercise, and the difference it makes to the yard. Things are growing at an amazing pace, and there's never a shortage of things to do.

The back yard is almost as weed free as I can make it, but the front yard can always use work. The lupins have finished blooming, and the delphiniums, gaillardia and lilies are starting. I love to see the garden change as different plants bloom... every morning I wander around just to notice "what's different today?" That's the real joy of being a gardener, in my books. Makes all the work worthwhile!



But I'm still not working as hard as these guys in the video below. The Energizer Bunny should have been a bee, I'm convinced. Not enough to have one working a flower, they both have to get in there! If only my kids were as anxious to participate in the yard work! Enjoy your day!

Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #45... Rebuilding a culture of care

This week's Laudato Si reflection comes at a good time, because a lot of what's said in paragraphs 228-232 has been on my mind lately. Our world seems to have taken the low road rather than the high on too many occasions in the last few months. This is what I feel like saying every single time:

Especially to a certain presidential candidate south of the border! He gets wayyyy too much media attention for his nasty comments, and doesn't seem very interested in creating positive change. And he's not the only one -- there are all sorts of public figures in the news whose personae are built on tearing down the good. But Pope Francis takes exception -- this week's section of his letter to the world, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home, encourages us toward a culture of care. Section V is entitled Civic and Political Love, and it can be accessed by clicking here and scrolling down.

Even if the non-inclusive language in this section could use some improvement, Pope Francis says some very important things:

We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it. We have had enough of immorality and the mockery of ethics, goodness, faith and honesty. It is time to acknowledge that light-hearted superficiality has done us no good (paragraph 229).

AMEN, brother. Sing it loud and clear! There are two problems here, as I see it -- 1) the public figures who grab headlines with their outrageous mean-spiritedness, and 2) the media who give them coverage. The solution? A small step -- protesting, boycotting those networks, "unfollowing" those public figures or otherwise letting them and their agents/networks know that they must work for a culture of care, not nasty negativity. Clearly, if we are to re-establish a culture that values our planet and its life, supporting people with small and narrow minds won't help. We need more people with wide and loving hearts to lead us.

That's why I love that the Pope holds up St. Therese of Lisieux's "little way of love" as an alternative in paragraph 230 -- and encourages everyone on the planet "not to miss out on a kind word, a smile or any small gesture which sows peace and friendship." St. Therese was a young woman who lived a short and hidden life in a small convent, focusing on the little things she could do to show love. Her autobiography, Story of a Soul, had a deep impact on me in my teen years, teaching that something as simple as acknowledging people with a smile is a tiny but important step toward defeating the negativity that can seem overwhelming in our world -- a tiny but important step worth taking.

"An integral ecology is also made up of simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness," the Pope says. I suspect that, like St. Therese, he does many such things about which we'll never know. He knows and reminds us that it's these "random acts of kindness" and the "paying forward" of goodness that stops misery in its tracks. And every time he's caught doing one of these simple things, love for him fills the cyber sphere. That kind of "good press" blows me away.

Pope Paul VI might have been the first to use the words "Civilization of Love" for the World Day of Peace in 1977, but the phrase has been echoed ever since as something we need to create -- or there may be no civilization at all. Paragraph 231 emphasizes the importance of love in all spheres of human social activity -- cultural, economic and political. Encouraging "a culture of care" which permeates all of society is a good thing, but let's take it a step further and ensure that we also care for everything that God has made.

Paragraph 232 reminds us that even if we aren't the kinds of people who feel we can engage directly in political life, people like us can connect through organizations that "work to promote the common good and to defend the environment, whether natural or urban." When I became a Voluntary Simplicity practitioner, I wanted to save the world, but soon realized that, as an introvert, I'm not built to deliver impassioned speeches that can move people to change. God gave us all different gifts, and mine lead me to share what I know via these moodlings, encouraging change with my little suggestions and the sharing of the work of good people around me. I could never be a politician, or a TV host! I'm not crazy about leading workshops; I'm much happier working in my garden.

That doesn't mean that I don't support other organisations that can do more. Attending rallies, donating to an environmental cause, signing petitions and sharing information are all important because even the smallest of our actions can help to

cultivate a shared identity, with a story which can be remembered and handed on. In this way, the world, and the quality of life of the poorest, are cared for, with a sense of solidarity, which is at the same time aware that we live in a common home which God has entrusted to us. These community actions, when they express self-giving love, can also become intense spiritual expriences" (paragraph 232). 

I'm thinking of yesterday's moodling about Supersu's party boxes, and all the conversations about reducing waste that result because of them. Not quite "intense spiritual experiences," but people realize that they hold the same value of caring about our planet in those moments, and that they can make a difference, too.

The moral of this week's story is that it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the negativity in our world, but we all have the capacity to be agents of change. So in the week ahead, let's give some thought to the little things we can do to rebuild a culture of care for our Sister, Mother Earth, and for all her creatures.

I shared the video below in another moodling a few years back, but it's an inspiration that's too good to forget. We all need to care as much as the hummingbird, and do the best we can, as Wangari Maathai did. Have a good week, and don't forget your little acts of kindness for the earth and each other...

*******

A prayer for our earth

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe

and in the smallest of your creatures.

You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.

Pour out upon us the power of your love,

that we may protect life and beauty.

Fill us with peace, that we may live

as brothers and sisters, harming no one.

O God of the poor,

help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth,

so precious in your eyes.

Bring healing to our lives,

that we may protect the world and not prey on it,

that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

Touch the hearts

of those who look only for gain

at the expense of the poor and the earth.

Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,

to be filled with awe and contemplation,

to recognize that we are profoundly united

with every creature

as we journey towards your infinite light.

We thank you for being with us each day.

Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle

for justice, love and peace.

+AMEN.

Next up: The other 3 Rs

(A prayer for our earth and all quotations from Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)