Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #41... Change is a comin'

Yippee! We've reached the last chapter of Pope Francis's letter to the world, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home. Flipping through its pages, I see plenty of highlighted sections, exclamation points in the margins, and words that I bolded and enlarged in red type. You should see my copy of the document (I copied it from the webpage and changed its fonts so I could read it more easily -- my eyes aren't what they used to be!) -- my 88-page constant companion has gotten a little dog-eared these last 10 months or so.

This week, we're looking at the first section of Chapter Six, Ecological Education and Spirituality, paragraphs 202-208. You can access them by clicking here and scrolling down.

The first thing in Chapter Six to be  highlighted, starred and brought to a red 18 pt font are the words in the first sentence of paragraph 202: "it is we human beings above all who need to change." Yes, dear brother Pope, humanity has traded its awareness of all that God has given us to share for the market-induced forgetfulness found in owning through consumerism, but if we work together to reawaken our common responsibility for our planet and one another, renewal is possible. Change is a comin'. But you are right, it will be a "great cultural, spiritual and educational challenge"!

Right at the beginning of paragraph 203 the Pope and his encyclical writing team remind us that we need to pull ourselves out of the "whirlwind of needless buying and spending." So often we buy more than what's required, forgetting that if we want the earth to supply the needs of all, we shouldn't take more than our fair share. Consumer culture's brainwashing demands that we always buy more.

If there's one thing I've appreciated about reading this encyclical's footnotes, it's all the other thinkers to whom I've been introduced. Romano Guardini is mentioned in this paragraph -- a Catholic theologian who realized that with mass production would come a mindset disposed toward mass consumption. Of course, at this point in time, our identity can no longer rest in our ability to consume. Our sister, Mother Earth, calls us to choose a different way. "We have too many means and only a few insubstantial ends..." the Pope tells us, because we have allowed our possessions to become a substitute for a deeper way of living.

But when I look around, I see that we're getting a bit tired of the clutter in our lives, and the lack of depth. Change is a comin'.

Paragraph 204 names a lot of the things that scare me when it comes to the North American dream of The Good Life: self-centredness, greed, empty hearts leading to overconsumption, an ignorance of reality's limits, forgetfulness of the common good, and the exaltation of personal need over social norms. As the Pope notes, global climate instability (which is now causing flooding in Europe as well as forest fires in drought plagued areas like Fort Mac) isn't the only problem -- our obsession with possessions when there are so many poor people on the planet "can only lead to violence and mutual destruction." And it is... you can bet there wouldn't be so many ISIS fighters if they all had the comfortable standard of living we do.

But before Laudato Si gets too alarmist, we are reminded that human beings can find a better way "despite our mental and social conditioning." In paragraph 205, the Pope tells us that

We are able to take an honest look at ourselves, to acknowledge our deep dissatisfaction, and to embark on paths of authentic freedom. No system can completely suppress our openness to what is good, true and beautiful, or our God-given ability to respond to his grace at work deep in our hearts. I appeal to everyone throughout the world not to forget this dignity which is ours. No one has the right to take it from us.

(I think Pope Francis could have left an exclamation mark at the end of that paragraph!)

Just think what would happen if every human being on the planet claimed our dignity as a child of God rather than believing ads that tell us we are what we wear, how we look, what we drive, and so on -- if we all really believed that our value comes more from the love we bear for each other than the money we have or don't have in the bank. I have come to love Pope Francis because so much of what he says and does is meant to remind people of their true dignity and the depths of God's love for them. He's on the right track, but not everyone is travelling with him -- yet. But change is a comin'.

Student boycott
Image from People and Planet

Change can happen, says paragraph 206, especially if we take seriously our power and responsibility as consumers. Do you remember the 2009 boycott against Fruit of the Loom? People in the US, Canada and Britain stopped buying clothing produced by the clothing giant and made a pretty big fuss until it rehired 1200 Honduran workers it had laid off simply because they wanted fair working conditions. It's just one example of how, when enough people wake up to injustice, they can work together to turn things around.

I have been boycotting Walmart for years. The corporation moved into my local shopping mall around 1994... and before long, all the little stores in the mall went out of business because they couldn't compete with the mega-chain's bargain basement prices (that come from unjust business practices toward workers in the developing world). I could go on and on about the injustices of Walmart, but it's all well-documented, even on YouTube.

If you've seen the documentary above, you already understand what Pope Benedict said in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate: "Purchasing is always a moral - and not simply economic - act" (paragraph 66). Maybe you'd like to join me in my boycott? And share it with other people in your life? Change is a comin'.

Remember last week when I was wondering if there was a charter that could bring faith and science together to save our planet? Well, it turns out that there was something slightly different -- an Earth Charter -- written around the turn of the millennium, and it has a pretty cool website that you can access by clicking here. Paragraph 207 of Laudato Si quotes the Earth Charter's call to humanity to turn the page on our past destructive ways: "As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning... Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life."

It has been almost 16 years since the Earth Charter called us to "seek a new beginning" -- and some of us listened, but many still haven't heard. Paragraph 208 is Pope Francis' own little Earth Charter, calling us in a slightly different way:

Disinterested concern for others, and the rejection of every form of self-centredness and self-absorption, are essential if we truly wish to care for our brothers and sisters and for the natural environment. These attitudes also attune us to the moral imperative of assessing the impact of our every action and personal decision on the world around us. If we can overcome individualism, we will truly be able to develop a different lifestyle and bring about significant changes in society.

In the week ahead, what is one thing that we can do to overcome individualism? It's so easy to be caught up in our own little lives, but if we want to change the world, we need to step out of ourselves, extend some hospitality, and build community... perhaps by inviting a colleague for coffee? Sharing some baking? Offering to mow an elderly neighbour's lawn? Anything that brings us together and helps us to see beyond our own walls to the greater good that is around us all the time...

On my birthday two weeks ago I took a small step to overcome my own individualism. I had invited my usual family and friends over for a little pizza party and birthday cake when I got a surprise email from a friend I hadn't heard from in ages. I didn't even know she knew it was my birthday. Somehow, I was prompted (maybe by the Holy Spirit who breaks down individualism) to invite her to join the party and widen the circle. She came -- and was the last to leave, and a good time was had by all.

Not sure what I'll do this week to overcome individualism, but I'll let you know next week. How about you? What will you do? Change is a comin' -- and it starts with us.

*******

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.

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

Next up: New habits that stick

Prophetic change from within

For some people, the fact that the Catholic Church moves at glacier pace -- when it comes to change -- is a source of pride. In their minds, the rest of Christianity of late has been changing with the wind, following whatever is most trendy rather than what has held true since Jesus started it all two thousand years ago.

What they aren't realizing is that Jesus actually instituted very little in the way of structure for his followers. He was about change -- about transforming the stuck-in-a-rut, top heavy religious structures of his day. He was less concerned with the letter of the law and more concerned with showing people how to live their love of God by being open, non-judgmental, inclusive, inviting and welcoming. He was about unity, not division; about connecting rather than setting apart.

So more and more, when I hear people go on about structure and authority and rules and propriety in the context of Church life, and especially "us" vs. "them," I'm afraid I get the heebie-jeebies. Yes, there needs to be enough structure that we actually get around to gathering the people, telling the stories, singing the songs, and breaking the bread together at least once a week, but does it really need to be more complicated than that? And why not think of all those who believe in God as "we"?

I am finding, these days, that when I attend Mass in my local parish, it is hard to say all the theological gobbledygook that I am expected to recite at different times. It is difficult to watch as a male priest stands at the altar all alone, the rest of the community held back from approaching the table by the invisible wall of rules about Eucharist made by the old men at the top of a patriarchal pyramid. It is heartbreaking to know that women who feel called to the priesthood are excommunicated if they act on their call, and that divorced people, people of other denominations and faiths, and those of certain sexual orientations are also not able to share in the community's meal of thanksgiving because they aren't judged to be "one of us," (read: in the right "state of grace"). But what is worst of all is that the Catholic Church clings to all of this non-inclusiveness as if Jesus would insist upon it too.

Jesus. Remember him? The guy who relaxed with tax collectors and sinners. Who eschewed invisible walls of rules and instead offered living water to a less-than-perfect Samaritan woman at the village well. Who loved everyone, and discouraged judgmental attitudes. Who invited us all to come home with him and meet his Abba. I'm thinking he would have called God Imma, too, except that he might have been crucified too soon by the patriarchal people of his day.

Even with my struggles with the Church's glacial pace, two steps forward and three back, I can't sever my Catholic roots, but I also can't shake the feeling that if Jesus started a church today, its liturgies wouldn't look much like the ones to which I'm most accustomed. Jesus would probably gather people in small groups, maybe at a kitchen table. No one would bother wearing clerical clothing to set themselves apart because it's just not necessary. Scripture would be proclaimed, the world and the community's needs would be shared and prayed for, the Spirit would be invoked by the presider, God would be thanked without reference to one gender over another, and everyone would offer each other the blessed bread and wine.

Fortunately for me, I've found a community much like this. It's not perfect by any means, but I can easily imagine Jesus feeling at home enough to slide into a chair and pray along. The format is simple, the prayers follow the usual liturgical format (but without the pompous clutter of the most recent translation of the Roman Missal), the presider can be either an ordained female or male, and no one is turned away. And we are all Catholic (though if the Vatican knew about us, it would probably beg to differ on the point of our Catholicism because we disagree with that one rule about priests being only men and that other rule about participants in the meal having to be in a particular "state of grace.") Unfortunately, I don't get to join this community nearly as often as I would like.

The thing is, there are more and more inclusive Catholic communities -- like the one I have found --gathering all the time around Roman Catholic Women Priests (the group also includes men priests). Seven women were ordained or made deacons in the U. S. in June; more ordinations will take place in September. These women could have chosen to leave the Catholic Church and start new churches or to exercise their vocations in other Christian denominations, but they are Catholic, and they believe that it is time for the Catholic Church to change. So they're being prophetic, and giving the institutional Church a little nudge by being ordained and by celebrating inclusive liturgies wherever people ask (the first women were ordained in 2002 by male bishops in good standing with Rome, so the women haven't disowned the Church as much as the Church has disowned them by excommunication). And more and more, faithful and educated Catholics ARE asking. Whether the institutional church likes it or not, change is coming, and it is coming through committed and prophetic people who are not leaving the church, but who are creating a new model from just within its margins (though Rome refuses to acknowledge most of those particular margins).

There's an interesting documentary floating around these days, called Pink Smoke Over the Vatican. It tells the story of the Roman Catholic Women Priests, and makes a clear case for the ordination of women and inclusive Catholic communities. It makes it obvious that they are not radical feminists with an anti-male agenda, but ordinary women who are quietly living their vocations as women did in early Christianity. According to a fair bit of archaeological and historical research, the early Christian Church was far more inclusive in its first 200 years than the present Catholic Church is now. It seems at times that its glacier pace has actually moved it backward, but to me it feels like the fire of the Holy Spirit is starting to move it forward once again. If you ever have the opportunity to view Pink Smoke, I'd recommend it.

For now, I dream of the day when there are so many inclusive Catholic communities everywhere that all the Pope can do is open his arms and say, "I am sorry it took so long to recognize the gifts of women's vocations to the priesthood, and the validity of inclusive communities. We are all one." In the meantime, I will continue to worship at my parish church sometimes, and at Emmaus Inclusive Catholic Community whenever I can. I love Mass there, and I want to support and encourage a new springtime for women and men in the Catholic Church -- without actually leaving it. I much prefer change from within.

If you would like more information, or to join our inclusive Catholic community for Eucharist in the Edmonton area, check out the community's website by clicking here.

Gifts from the heart

This is a really beautiful little video, perhaps my favourite of 2011, well worth the ten minutes. It doesn't take much to give gifts from the heart, and we're all capable of being at least a little bit of the change we want to see in the world, if we just try...



Change

My family moved to Edmonton almost 36 years ago. According to the spring census of that year, the population was 451,635, and we were just 5 of the almost 10,000 folks who increased the city's numbers by the next spring census. Moving to the city was a big deal. We came from flat prairie Saskatchewan, a town of maybe 300 people, where, as kids, we walked wide swaths around the water tower because it was so tall that it seemed it might fall on us. But the water tower had nothing on the 32 story AGT building that was Edmonton's prime landmark at the time we moved. It was so big, we could see it from our picture window across the river, and I seem to recall almost falling over the first time I stood in the building's shadow and looked up.

My brilliant sisters recently discovered an interesting picture on the Provincial Archives website. It was taken in the month before we moved to Edmonton, and that the skyline has changed a lot is no surprise, given that the last census info I can find from 2009 has our population at 782,439. We've also been through several booms and busts in construction cycles, but our city council seems to have gotten on the downtown densification bandwagon that has become popular in larger North American cities. Better to build condos downtown than spread any further than we have on the arable land that borders our community. We might need it to grow food for our citizens once fossil fuels are a thing of the past, which, according to many predictions, is a time that will arrive sooner than we can imagine.

For interest's sake, here's the picture from 1975 and one my sisters took last month from the same viewpoint:

1975

2011

Quite a change, isn't it? Of course, it can't show the change that is going on in the people of Edmonton themselves. I'd like to think that, after a period of rapid urbanization, we are waking up to ways to be urban dwellers who find ways to live more in sync with nature. I was at a well attended workshop this morning that seems to attest to it.

My moodling today, after spending the morning hearing about edible landscaping from Ron Berezan, also known as the Urban Farmer, has been about how our city has changed. Over the past hundred years, my neighbourhood, which once housed a market garden and several farms, has become mainly residential with mostly useless green lawn monocultures... but after hearing what Ron had to say, I suspect a few more of us will implement some of his recommendations for turning our yards into food-providing naturescapes that are more-species-friendly. Since I first heard Ron in 2007, our family has been slowly converting our lawn into garden space, and it's been fun to have conversations with people who stop to ask questions. Somehow, no one ever commented on our lawn.

Change is inevitable (except from vending machines, says Robert C. Gallagher). But positive change is the best kind, and that's what our world needs.

A green party

She did it! After 31 years of running on a mainly environmental platform, Elizabeth May was elected to the Canadian House of Commons last night. The Green Party partied in Saanich-Gulf Islands, and I would have loved to celebrate with other environmentally-aware people at her post-election celebration. I'd really like to predict that this is the start of a movement toward sensible environmental legislation, but unfortunately, the least environmentally-concerned of our political parties won a majority last night, and they're so busy trying to perpetuate our broken economic system that they just don't understand the importance of protecting our environment, or bother to try to see ways that Canada could be a world leader in alternate energy technologies and green employment possibilites that could build our economy and help save our planet.

I've been cheering for Elizabeth for a while now because she understands that the bottom line in politics should be developing policies that protect our environment. If strategic voting hadn't been so important in our riding (to keep our environmental lawyer opposition party member in parliament) I would have voted Green, as encouragement to them to keep on trying to get their message through. The Greens are a national party, moreso than the Bloc Quebecois, who run only in Quebec, and yet Elizabeth was barred from the televised national leaders' debate. In the end, although she was elected, support for the Greens slipped from 7% to 3%, likely because of strategic voters like me. Sorry, Liz!

It's not easy being green these days. On the one hand, the idea of green has been co-opted by a lot of businesses and organizations whose interest is not "saving the planet," but making more money through green-washing their products and services. If they pretend to be green enough, they win over people who aren't exactly green themselves, but would like to be "seen" as green. So everywhere we look, there are green products and green possibilities for almost anything, most of which only add to the waste and overuse of our environment's resources. On the other hand, those who want to bring the environment to the forefront of politics include a wide range of people, from sensible, practical deep thinkers and doers like Elizabeth May, to tree-hugging hippy types, to over-the-top activists who give the entire green movement a bad rap, and, unfortunately, fewer votes.

Today, although I'm glad that my environmental lawyer candidate was re-elected, I'm feeling saddened, disappointed, and somewhat disillusioned at the thought of another four years with our least environmentally concerned party running our country. But it's too late to do anything about the election now. Or is it?

Perhaps there are things that can be done to support Elizabeth in her work. Perhaps there are ways to make friends and neighbours aware of environmental issues going through parliament so that they can support environmentally conscious decisions. I could always renew my Sierra Club membership, as it seems to be a pretty level-headed environmental organization most of the time. And even though election signs are coming down, I could get a Green sign for my lawn to remind neighbours of the importance of thinking green all the time.

Mahatma Ghandi said we need to "be the change" we want to see. Since my new government isn't the right change yet, I guess it's up to me.