Pondering disaster
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Posted on November 24, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized, Justice, Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
So, on this Thanksgiving weekend, I give thanks for all of you who care about our planet, who are enlarging your sense of identity and of ‘home’ to the Earth and its biosphere, that which carries within it all that we hold dear, including our ability to be alive and conscious.
Right now, that fragile veil that wraps the Earth with all its life-giving potential is in peril, and with it also all the beings that evolved within this era of the planet’s evolution.
Not small stuff, that.
This morning, I find myself pondering disaster — because it is what screamed off the TV screen just now when I checked in to see the news. This morning, southern California is again in flames and the images of the scores of homes already burned to the ground once again sear our brain cells. More disaster. Santa Ana winds mixed with historic drought mixed with human hubris about where we want to live mixed with climate change from global warming that is making the fire season across the west more vicious, unpredictable, and dangerous.
Check out this article from a year and a half ago, published in Common Dreams, “Researchers Link Wildfires, Climate Change .” All so predictable, and tragic, what human behavior has done. I know we didn’t mean to do it, but now that we know we did, it seems we should be changing our behaviors, doesn’t it?
CNN’s website speaks of how the wildfire hit Malibu “like a blowtorch.”
Pondering another disaster — Bangladesh in the aftermath of Sidr. We have said before that the poor of our world will be hit hardest by climate change, being those with fewest resources for adaptation, along with those along coastal areas, especially at or below sea level. Double whammy for Bangladesh.
It doesn’t mean cyclones are caused by climate change. It means these storms will be more intense and, as ocean levels rise, the inundation of coastal areas by storm surges will worsen.
Early warnings saved tens of thousands of lives, and now those lives are in jeopardy from risks of disease, hunger and thirst, lack of housing, etc.
In the book I’m finishing up (will be out in the spring - stay tuned), I reflect on disaster and how we need to strengthen ourselves — spiritually and psychologically — to deal with them. They are part of our daily lives now, and we cannot let the daily nature of them numb us, numb our values, numb our hearts, numb that part of us given to compassion.
We will need to become more and more unselfish in such a world, more willing to do what it says in Acts, chapter 4, or in the story of the loaves and fishes — share more from our excess and even our need so that all have what they need for dignified life. It continues to be amazing and disappointing to me that Christians so easily neglect these beams in our eyes, these verses from scripture, while focusing on things not there — like gay marriage and reproductive rights.
In this world, we will need that sense of life-giving love, bearing with one another, laying down lives for one another, breaking out of old patterns of identity (the tribe, religions, cultures and ethnic groups) to this sense that all of us — 
all human beings and all the species that make us possible — are in this together.
We need to cultivate species identity above and beyond the fractures in our world — political, religious, cultural — that make it so hard to get anything done to stop the ecological destruction of our planet and adapt to the changes already underway.
So, thank you for being part of this great transformation in how we think of ourselves, how we experience ourselves within the fabric of life. There is a lot of work to do to spread this awareness wherever we can. We look forward to our continued participation in this process and to sharing it with all of you.
Technorati Tags: cyclone sidr, bangladesh disaster, earth in peril, malibu wildfires, poor impacted most by climate change, species identity
Photo credits:
Lightning: Credit & Copyright: Elizabeth Warner (U. Maryland) at: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040818.html
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