Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

However you celebrate this time of year, however you honor the Spring, the renewal of life, the promise latent in the bulbs and blossoms, the greening of the woods, the burst of pollen and insects, the birdsong in the early morning — celebrate it!

Yes, and honor it, love it, embrace it, draw breath, hope, and a renewed Spirit from this dance of life.

Yesterday morning, in the glow of dawn, a light wet snow rested quietly, sweetly on the daffodil pedals, the brilliant yellow flowers of the forsythia, every little twig and branch and bud of the bushes and trees, in the big back yard at this house in Maryland. The robins and titmice and purple finches and cardinals let out their full throttle joy at it all.

It was a difficult news week that led to this Sunday. I found it hard to sleep nights aware of what all this bad news will mean for us in the coming generations — how bad it will be depending on the decisions we make in this generation.

How do we foster ecological hope? Not by giving up, and not by mere adaptation to an increasingly distressed, suffering world, nor by faith in techno-fixes that will somehow keep us from having to face the need for drastic changes in how we humans live on this planet.

No, hope will come from re-immersing ourselves in the overflowing, vibrant, crazy, wild life of this planet — because we are made of it and, coming closer to it once again, healing the long alienation of our industrial and technological age, is what gives us our best hope of survival — not just survival, but survival within a creation still bursting with new life.

We need to fall in love once again with our own planet, a love that opens our eyes to the harm we have done to this relationship, that brings us to a healing remorse, that commits us to the work of healing the damage.

Any relationship in which love is the core and foundation has the potential of healing from the brokenness to something new, richer, deeper, more whole.

That promise lies within our broken Nature, which means our own broken selves. The life that is being renewed all around us can also be renewed within us. Embrace it. Yes, love it. Let it be our teacher; let it reveal to us who we really are on this Earth; and then let it guide our action as we seek to embody ecological hope for this generation and the next, and the one after that…

Photo credits:
Flower in a London garden: Simon Oelman
Tufted titmouse with peanuts: Jonathan Morgan

[tags] easter, passover, spring, ecological hope, earth spirituality, healing nature[/tags]