Hi, I’m Phil LaBelle, the Bishop of the Diocese of Olympia, and we’re here at our third installation of Zimzum Discipleship, and today I’m outside because we’re gonna be talking about the creation.
I have a confession to make first, though. There is a spot in Eucharistic Prayer C that really grates against me, with bread and wine in front of me, and my arms outstretched, I say, “From the primal elements, You brought forth the human race, and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. You made us the rulers of creation.” And it’s that phrase that gets me.
We all know where that comes from, of course, Genesis 1 being that place where God at creation says that we as human beings have dominion over the Earth, and yet, I think it’s better from the message Bible, which says that we should be responsible for the Earth, that we should steward it, that we should care for it. But instead, I think that we have taken on, especially here in the West, this idea that we are the rulers of creation.
We know that we’re in the midst of an environmental crisis. However, Brian McLaren reminds us that maybe we shouldn’t call it an environmental crisis, focusing on the victim of it, but rather calling it what it is, which is an overconsumption crisis. McLaren suggests that in the background, our framing story is one of acquiring things, and so in his book, Everything Must Change, he says that we need to think about what that framing story is. He writes, “If that framing story tells us that the purpose of a life is for individuals or nations to accumulate an abundance of possessions, and to experience the maximum amount of pleasure during the maximum number of minutes of our short lives, then we will have little reason to manage our consumption.”
McLaren continues, “Our story does not guide us to respect environmental limits, but instead it inspires our pursuit of as much resources of use and waste production, also known as economic growth, as possible and as fast as possible.”
And we all know the impact of that. Right now, here in the Pacific Northwest, we’re in the midst of fire season. There’s been a drought that’s been ongoing this year. There are more frequent hurricanes and cyclones, and of course that all leads to an impact on salmon or other wildlife, and on and on and on it goes.
I remember reading the book, The Lorax, to our kids from Dr. Seuss about the impact of what happens when we’re just so greedy. You may remember that story in which the Once-ler is talking with the Lorax, and he says, “And then I got mad. I got terribly mad. I yelled at the Lorax. ‘Now listen here, Dad, all you do is yap-yap and say, ‘Bad, bad, bad, bad!’ Well, I have my rights, sir, and I’m telling you, I intend to go on doing just what I do. And for your information, you Lorax, I’m figgering on biggering, and biggering, and biggering, and biggering, turning more Truffula Trees into Thneeds, which everyone, everyone, everyone needs!'”
You probably remember the story because it’s at that very moment that the Lorax hears a loud whack. From outside in the fields came a sickening smack, an ax on a tree, and then we heard the tree fall, the very last Truffula Tree of them all.
We’re not quite there yet here in our world, but we know that it’s having an impact, this desire that we have of using the natural resources around us.
In her book, The Story of More, Hope Jahren details how we got here. She talks about non-renewable resources, which are of course, by definition, never coming back. At the time of her writing of the book in 2020, she said that we had about 50 years left of known oil reserves, including up there in the Arctic. However, the tundra, due to climate change, was starting to melt, making it harder to even extract the oil that was there that we haven’t gotten to yet. She talks about as well that 30% of the fresh water that is used by human beings is used for the production, maintenance, and slaughtering of meat animals. 30% of all of the fresh water that we use. She goes on to explain exactly what it is that we could do.
She says, “All of the want and suffering of the world, all of it arises not from the Earth’s inability to produce, but from our inability to share.” And so she suggests that we live by the mantra, “use less and share more.” She continues, “There is no magical technology coming to save us from ourselves. Curbing consumption will be the ultimate trial of the 21st century. Using less and sharing more is the biggest challenge our generation will ever face. It is a bewilderingly difficult proposition and therefore unlikely, but it is also the only surefire way that we can get ourselves out of this mess.” It’s because we need to share more and use less.
But, sadly, the impact of all of that climate change and the use of those things is felt most on those who are poor. Leonardo Boff talks about this in his book, Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor. He is a liberation theologian and he talks about the impact of the environmental crisis on “those who are most threatened among us,” as he says. He writes, “It will not be possible to deal with nature as our societies have tried to do as though it were a supermarket or a self-service restaurant. It is our commonwealth that is being mercilessly plundered, and that inheritance must be safeguarded.”
He goes on to describe that how “the most threatened creature in our world is not whales, but those who are poor, those who are condemned to die before their time here on this earth should be up.” He then concludes, “It is not only the poor and the oppressed who must be liberated, but all human beings, both rich and poor, because all are oppressed by a paradigm, abuse of the Earth, consumerism, denial of otherness, and of the inherent value of each being that enslaves us all.”
It’s so hard for us to determine how we can respond because we live in the midst of this culture, this culture that encourages us to buy more and to have more, and that gets harder and harder as we go along in our society because that’s how we’ve been brought up to think about things.
Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks about this in her recent book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. She writes about what she calls “the gift economy.” “In a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one does give away. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence in the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. A gift economy nurtures the community bonds that enhance mutual wellbeing. The economic unit is we rather than I, as all flourishing is mutual.”
In our society, we have a tendency to focus on the individual, on what it is that each of us need or what we want, and then responding in that way. And it’s gotten a lot easier to be a consumer in this economy. We can order stuff on Amazon at two o’clock in the morning if we so desire and have it delivered to our door sometime the next day. It is so easy to forget that how we consume things can impact others, and we’re called to be a part of the community to share, to use less, and to recognize that we can make a difference.
I don’t know about you, but this can feel overwhelming to me. It’s overwhelming to think about all that is going on within the climate crisis and thinking somehow I can’t do anything. And yet, Douglas Christie in his book, The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology, he suggests that what we can do is to begin practicing paradise by seeing in and around us and imagining that we are in a place to be. “Learning how to live in paradise,” he writes, “is almost an unimaginable prospect at the present moment. Yet, it is also difficult to imagine how we will be able to participate in the work of repairing the world without seriously grappling with the question of what kind of world we hope to discover and live within without re-imagining paradise.”
He continues, “The contemplative practice of learning to become detached from the grasping acquisitive habits of a corrupt, materialistic culture, and live with a simple awareness of the heavenly character of things can help us recover a sense of the enduring value of the palpable things of this world. But it seems increasingly clear that whatever personal meaning such renewed awareness of paradise may have for us as individuals, it will also need to inform a larger and more encompassing transformation of our spiritual, political, and cultural values.”
In other words, we need to begin imagining how it is that this place, this gift of the world around us can be, for us and for others, a place of paradise.
In the midst of all of this, the idea of Zimzum Discipleship is a vital importance of us making space in our lives, but also in our collective homes and how it is that we use the material things that we have, those gifts given to us. We need to hold on to that mantra of using less and sharing more because I think in that sense of discipleship of embracing Zimzum, of opening up that space in our lives, it can bring about the change that we need, and this change that we can do with one another.
And so as we think about spiritual practices for how we can engage in this, maybe it’s something like eating less meat, a meatless Monday perhaps, of choosing to just use less of the resources that we have and depending more on those things that grow naturally in our worlds. Or maybe it’s taking what we have if something’s broken and trying to repair it rather than going online and buying something new and having it delivered. Or maybe even just waiting 24 hours before buying something online, of not doing an impulse buy. There’s also the idea of a Green Sabbath that’s out there by an organization that is encouraging us to take one day a week where we don’t use natural resources, where we don’t drive or do work, but we just hang around our homes and enjoy what we already have. Again, lessening our impact on the environment.
Because it all comes down to our relationships, and that to me is the key of our discipleship. “Certainly our relationship with God, but also with one another and with our natural world, our relationships are all connected with one another and it’s gonna be together that we can address this overconsumption crisis,” as Brian McLaren puts it.
Finally, in the end, it’s the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer I think that can best push us forward, “All flourishing is mutual. We depend on each other as our world depends on us and we depend on it.” And so my hope is that during these next couple of months that you might begin to look at those relationships that you have, especially with our material world, and have it reflect the discipleship that we all desire as disciples of Jesus, as those who follow the way of Christ.
Until next time, may God’s Spirit continue to guide you and lead you in all that you do.