Laudato Si Sunday reflection: Our response to God this Lent

This week's reflection is brought to you by
Deuteronomy 26:4-10.

What response can we make to you,
O God?

We are descendants
of wandering Arameans,
always seeking to fill the God-shaped holes
in our souls.

We enslave ourselves
to possessions that we don't need,
money that we don't have,
and dreams of fame and fortune
that will only cause us grief,
forgetting that you have already made us
all that we need to be --
your children.

You have given us this world,
"a land flowing with milk and honey,"
a land with more abundance
than we can even acknowledge,
but too often,
all we see is scarcity.

Broaden our vision,
O God.
Help us to see the world as you do.

Show us how to offer to you
and to those in need
the first fruits
of all that you have made
when we already have enough!

Help us to see and respond
to the needs of all creation.

+Amen.

* * * * * * *

If you haven't given much thought to the importance and value of our planet's biodiversity, and even if you have, I'd suggest a quick read-through of paragraphs 32-42 of the Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home, which can be accessed by clicking here. I'm covering all ten paragraphs on biodiversity at once -- otherwise we hear all the problems and nothing of a solution.

Paragraph 32 begins by pointing out that the plundering of the earth's resources for the sake of the economy, commerce, and production means that we are losing species that could be important for our future on this earth.

The first line of paragraph 33 says, "It is not enough... to think of different species merely as potential "resources" to be exploited, while overlooking the fact that they have value in themselves." Every little bit of creation reveals to us an "other" aspect of God, and in our lack of care for all creatures, we are losing what we can learn from them not only about God, but about our world and ourselves. And of course, our lives are not just about us. We often talk about human rights, but not enough of us focus on the fact that all creatures have a right to exist, even if they're living in a mosquito-infested swampy area that we'd like to drain and turn into a suburb. I often wonder if, in God's eyes, our human projects are as important as the creatures we displace...

We humans probably have been making too many adjustments and interventions when it comes to planetary ecosystems -- everything from creating synthetic fertilizers and pesticides (those agrotoxins mentioned in paragraph 34) to building highways, subdivisions and hydroelectric dams (paragraph 35) to cutting down the great rainforests (paragraph 38) to replacing highly biodiverse virgin land with monocultures (paragraph 39) to overfishing our oceans (paragraph 40) to creating the fossil fuel emissions that are raising the temperatures all over the globe and damaging our coral reefs (paragraph 41).

But I have to back up and quote the entirety of paragraph 36 just because it's so well put:

Caring for ecosystems demands far-sightedness, since no one looking for quick and easy profit is truly interested in their preservation. But the cost of the damage caused by such selfish lack of concern is much greater than the economic benefits to be obtained. Where certain species are destroyed or seriously harmed, the values involved are incalculable. We can be silent witnesses to terrible injustices if we think that we can obtain significant benefits by making the rest of humanity, present and future, pay the extremely high costs of environmental degradation.

Since last spring, I've noticed that certain trees in the part of our neighbourhood that is under construction (because of a new light rail transit line) are fenced off and have little signs that list their monetary value -- for example, an elm about a block from here bears a "price tag" of $6, 432. I thought that was pretty low, actually. How often do we think about the way trees add value to our lives? To the lives of other creatures? To entire ecosystems?

Just as there's no calculating the worth of a human being, there's no real way of determining the monetary value of our forests, our oceans and all of creation, or the value of our projects vs. the value of nature. And we all know that the value of money is arbitrary at best, because of the way the global economy bounces. The things our human projects create are of value to us for a limited time, but how much of nature are we losing as we go?

"... a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly. We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves." (paragraph 34)

That summarizes the problem. The solution is found in paragraph 42, and if Laudato Si was a song, this is the first time we hear its chorus:

"Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another (paragraph 42)."

So how do we go about cherishing all creatures?

This Lent, I offer you a challenge, a start toward a practical and mystical appreciation of creation: every day, go outside and find a quiet place where nature can be observed. Let your mind become aware that, as you were created in the secret darkness of your mother, so all the living things around you had their own secret beginnings because God willed you into existence at this same time, for a sacred reason unknown to you. Rest in that awareness for a few moments, and then say a few gentle words to the life around you about how you want it to flourish. And don't forget to thank God for the creation in which we are all immersed. Gratitude is probably our best response.

I think Christ is doing some of that in the video below...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWKRhk-yYI0

Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #8... Biodiversity? What's it worth?

I've always been something of a worry wart, so the issues that Pope Francis and friends are covering in the latest encyclical are nothing new to me. I've been fretting about them and feeling guilty about my participation in them for ages already. But as a friend of mine likes to say, guilt is only good for about ten seconds. Then what matters is what you do with it. What I'm doing with my guilt is allowing it to propel me into a simpler, non-consumeristic way of life, and sharing that life through these moodlings.

Moodling about Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home is definitely a challenge (especially when I have a whole tree full of ripe pears that need attention this week!), but I'm enjoying it because the Pope and his team of writers have covered the bases of our present environmental crisis really well for the most part. All the things I've been worrying about are in this "letter to the world," along with corresponding challenges to change our ways.

If you haven't given much thought to the importance and value of our planet's biodiversity, and even if you have, I'd suggest a quick read-through of paragraphs 32-42 of the document, which can be accessed by clicking here. I'm covering all ten paragraphs on biodiversity at once -- otherwise we hear all the problems and nothing of a solution.

Paragraph 32 begins by pointing out that the plundering of the earth's resources for the sake of the economy, commerce, and production means that we are losing species that could be important for our future on this earth. At this point in my July reading of Laudato Si, I wanted to scream, because it looked as though the Pope and his writer friends were adopting an anthropocentric (human-centred) way of looking at creation -- the "what's in it for me" way of thinking that assumes human beings are the pinnacle of creation and everything is ours to use, as it says in the lyrics of a few old church hymns.

But, whew! The first line of paragraph 33 says, "It is not enough, however, to think of different species merely as potential "resources" to be exploited, while overlooking the fact that they have value in themselves." Every little bit of creation reveals to us an "other" aspect of God, and in our lack of care for all creatures, we are losing what we can learn from them not only about God, but about our world and ourselves. And of course, our lives are not just about us. We often talk about human rights, but not enough of us focus on the fact that all creatures have a right to exist, even if they're living in a mosquito-infested swampy area that we'd like to drain and turn into a suburb. I often wonder if, in God's eyes, our human projects are as important as the creatures we displace...

Let's face it, we humans have been making a lot of adjustments and interventions when it comes to planetary ecosystems -- everything from creating synthetic fertilizers and pesticides (those agrotoxins mentioned in paragraph 34) to building highways, subdivisions and hydroelectric dams (paragraph 35) to cutting down the great rainforests (paragraph 38) to replacing highly biodiverse virgin land with monocultures (paragraph 39) to overfishing our oceans (paragraph 40) to creating the fossil fuel emissions that are raising the temperatures all over the globe and damaging our coral reefs (paragraph 41).

But I have to back up and quote the entirety of paragraph 36 just because it's so well put:

Caring for ecosystems demands far-sightedness, since no one looking for quick and easy profit is truly interested in their preservation. But the cost of the damage caused by such selfish lack of concern is much greater than the economic benefits to be obtained. Where certain species are destroyed or seriously harmed, the values involved are incalculable. We can be silent witnesses to terrible injustices if we think that we can obtain significant benefits by making the rest of humanity, present and future, pay the extremely high costs of environmental degradation.

In other words, there's just no way to place value on life in all its forms. Turning trees into commodities helps us to put a value on tree products, but do we ever think about the way trees add value to our lives? To the lives of other creatures? To entire ecosystems? Here's a completely anthropocentric look at the value of a tree:

Borrowed from http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-itree-calculates-trees-economic-worth.html

The graphic doesn't take into account the ecosystems and creatures that are completely dependent on trees for food and shelter, or trees' beauty, or the micro climates they create and protect. Just as there's no calculating the worth of a human being, there's no real way of determining the monetary value of our forests, our oceans and all of creation, or the value of our projects vs. the value of nature. And we all know that the value of money is arbitrary at best, especially the way the global economy has been riding the roller coaster of late. The things our human projects create are of value to us now, but what are we losing for the future when we clear cut old-growth forests or pave over arable land or warm the planet with fossil fuel emissions to the point that our forests burn, our glaciers melt away and our rivers dry up?

I'm bouncing around, I know, but the end of paragraph 34 sums up these ten paragraphs about biodiversity pretty clearly:

"... a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly. We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves."

That summarizes the problem. The solution is found in the last paragraph of this section, and if Laudato Si was a song, paragraph 42 is the first time we hear its chorus. As I read through the entire document in July, it came through to me loud and clear, eight or nine times, the same idea with slightly different lyrics, and I'll number the instances of this chorus as we progress through the document. It goes something like this:

"Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another (paragraph 42)."

That's it in a nutshell, folks. We are all connected. The web of life excludes no creature, and what happens to the planet's honeybee populations, for example, impacts every other living being on earth somewhere down the line even though we might not notice for a while...

But it's one thing to read about cherishing all creatures with love and respect, and another thing entirely to do it... how do we go about cherishing all creatures?

This week, I offer you a challenge, a start toward a practical and mystical appreciation of creation: go outside and find a quiet place where nature can be observed, and spend a half hour there looking for signs of life. Take a blanket to sit on and make yourself comfortable. Sit very still and watch for birds, insects and other creatures. Notice the plants, trees, weeds -- everything around you -- and then let your mind become aware that, as you were created in the secret darkness of your mother, so all the living things around you had their own secret beginnings because God willed you all into existence at this same time, for a sacred reason unknown to you. Rest in that awareness for a while, and then say a few gentle words to the life around you about how you want it to flourish. Return to that experience throughout the week, and don't forget to thank God for the creation in which we are all immersed.

*******

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)

Up next: #9... How do we really want to live?

Simple Suggestion #217... Support

or other charitable organizations that help small-scale farmers
If you crunch the numbers, women like the one above (and men) feed 3 billion people world wide, mostly in the global South. (Women do most of the planting, weeding and selling of the crops in the South's rural areas, but their efforts toward producing so much food is often overlooked.) Most of the food on our planet exists in its present form because of thousands of years of innovations and plant breeding that occurred on small family-run farms. Small landholders selected seeds from their best, most successful plants year after year to replant the following year, and over time, their practices created and bred plant varieties that worked in many different climates, and were affordable and nutritionally superior to the originals.

Unfortunately one of the biggest threats to small farmers is the fact that large corporations are doing their best to privatize and patent seeds. Companies like Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Dow, Bayer and BASF are genetically modifying seeds so that they produce bumper crops the first year (with the help of company-made agrochemicals), but cannot be replanted the next year because their genes are modified so that their offspring don't produce. Growers are then forced to buy more of the corporations' genetically modified single-year seeds and chemicals. In these cases, biodiversity is vanishing, and in some countries, fair trade agreements have made seed saving an illegal act. And the blanket distribution of one type of genetically modified seed for one type of climate can't be successful in every microclimate across every country!

Farmers in countries like Haiti, Brazil, Columbia and Zambia have realized these dangers and have been fighting for their seed saving rights through nationwide farmers strikes, setting up their own ecological seed production cooperatives, and refusing to allow corporations entry into their work. But the pressure continues, and, unlike most human beings, corporations are more interested in their fiscal bottom lines than the world's common good. The companies named above lack any sort of conscience and have more than enough money to fight dirty.

But we can help our farming brothers and sisters in their struggles against heartless agri-business here and around the world by buying local and organic products when possible. When it comes to items we import, fair trade and organic products are generally produced by people who subscribe to non GM, organic seed choices and farming practices. If enough consumers demand non-genetically modified choices at our grocery stores, and ask our legislators to enact laws to label GMO foods so that we can avoid the products sold in Canada containing genetically modified corn, canola, soy and sugar beet, it won't be long before agribusiness is forced to rethink its ways. By eating locally and sustainably, we can have a global impact before it's too late.

Click here for more information about the Sow Much Love campaign, and support farmers and their right to save seeds whenever the opportunity arises!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfL3AeT0q2s

P.S.  Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.

Simple Suggestion #173... Encourage a gardener

This morning on my walk around the neighbourhood with Shadow the puppy, I found two women on their knees in their yards. They were working hard, because gardening is hard work. Knowing how much I appreciate it when someone makes a comment about my garden, I congratulated them both on the beauty in their yards. Of course, then we stood and chatted for a few moments, and they told me what they really liked about their many plants and shrubs. I had to agree with them. Anywhere that there is more than a lawn monoculture, it's a good thing for bees, birds, biodiversity and beauty.

So today's Simple Suggestion is to take a walk, and see if you can find a garden to appreciate and a gardener to encourage.

Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.