From Gehenna to Garden: Practicing Resurrection

Eastertide Earth Day Sermon on Gospel of Mark 9:38–50

In Easter season, we expect light.
We expect lilies, alleluias, and the quiet astonishment of an empty tomb.

And yet today, the Gospel gives us something else entirely.

Warnings.
Harsh images.
Talk of stumbling blocks, cutting off hands, and the fires of Gehenna.

It doesn’t sound like Easter.

But maybe it is.

Because resurrection is not denial.
It is transformation.
And transformation always tells the truth about what must change.

What Kind of World Are We Living In?

On this Earth Day, we don’t have to look far to see the truth about the world we are shaping:

•            Waters that cannot sustain life

•            Air that harms the most vulnerable

•            Lands stripped, burned, or forgotten

•            Communities—often poor, often marginalized—bearing the weight of it all

And so we come to a hard question:

What does resurrection mean in a world like this?

Is Easter only about what happens after we die?

Or is it about what God is doing—right here, in the life of the world?

“Whoever Is Not Against Us Is for Us”

Jesus begins by widening the circle.

The disciples are anxious—someone outside their group is doing good in Jesus’ name.
They want to stop him.

But Jesus says:

“Do not stop him… Whoever is not against us is for us.”

This is a word the Church needs to hear. A word that I need to hear.

Because the work of healing creation is not limited to us.

All around us, people are tending the earth:

•            Scientists restoring wetlands

•            Communities organizing for clean water

•            Indigenous leaders protecting sacred land

•            Neighbors planting gardens, reducing waste, paying attention

They may not speak our language of faith.
But they are not against the work of life.

And Jesus says: recognize them. Honor them. Join them.

Because resurrection is already stirring beyond our boundaries.

And then the tone of the Gospel shifts.

Jesus speaks of “little ones”—and warns against causing them to stumble.

The language is severe because the stakes are real.

So we have to ask:

Who are the “little ones” now?

They are:

•            Children inheriting a changing climate

•            Coastal communities facing rising waters

•            Marginalized Neighborhoods living near pollution

•            Species disappearing without a voice

To harm the earth is not neutral.
It is not abstract.

It is a stumbling block placed in the path of the vulnerable.

And Jesus says: THIS is where my kingdom needs to be!

Jesus names that danger with a word his listeners would have known well: Gehenna.

This was The Valley of Hinnom.

A real place.

A place that had come to symbolize everything opposed to God:

•            A site of idolatry to the false god Molech.

•            A place associated with child sacrifice

•            Later, a place of burning refuse and waste

The Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) is a valley bordering ancient Jerusalem, notorious in the Bible for idolatrous child sacrifices to Molech. Because of these atrocities, it was cursed by Jeremiah and later viewed as a place of filth and burning, serving as the biblical archetype for hell (Gehenna) due to its imagery of unending fire.

Gehenna is what happens when a society decides:

•            Some lives are expendable

•            Some places can be sacrificed

•            Some destruction is acceptable

Gehenna is not just a location.

It is a pattern.

And if we are honest, we still know that pattern.

We see it wherever:

•            Land is treated as disposable

•            People are treated as collateral

•            Convenience is valued over life

“Cut It Off” — The Courage to Change

So Jesus says something startling:

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.

This is not about self-harm.
It is about urgency. Jesus chooses this harsh language to try and emphasize to his followers What true discipleship looks like.

It is about refusing to cling to what destroys life.

In our context, we might hear it this way:

If a way of living is harming the earth—
if it is harming the vulnerable—
if it is placing stumbling blocks in the path of others—

let it go.

Not because God demands suffering.
But because God desires life.

Better to lose what diminishes life
than to keep what destroys it.

Turning Toward Easter

And here is where Easter changes everything for us.

Because the story of our faith does not end with warning.

It moves through death—and into life.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not just a personal promise.
It is a cosmic one.

It declares:

•            Death does not have the final word

•            Sin does not get to define the future

•            And creation itself is not abandoned

Resurrection is not escape from this world.
It is God’s commitment to renew it.

From Gehenna to Garden

And this is where the image of Gehenna becomes unexpectedly hopeful. (Look at the photo in your bulletin.)

Because that valley—once associated with destruction, death and darkness
today bears signs of life.

Green space.
Walking paths.
Places where people gather.

A park where children play.

A place of light and life.

It is not perfect.
But it is not what it once was. It is transformed. Resurrected.

And that is the point.

If a place like Gehenna can be reclaimed,
then no place is beyond the reach of God’s renewal.

Not polluted waters.
Not damaged ecosystems.
Not forgotten communities.

Resurrection means that God does not abandon ruined places.

God restores them.

“Salted with Fire”

Jesus says:

“Everyone will be salted with fire… Have salt in yourselves.”

Fire, here, is not just destruction.

It is refinement.
Transformation.
The burning away of what harms so that life can flourish.

And salt?

Salt preserves.
Salt heals.
Salt makes life possible.

In Easter light, this becomes a calling:

Be people who preserve life.
Be people who participate in transformation.

Practicing Resurrection

Because resurrection is not just something we believe.

It is something we practice.

Every time we choose:

•            Restoration over neglect

•            Care over convenience and

•            Justice over indifference

We are practicing resurrection.

Every time a wetland is restored…
Every time a community gains clean water…
Every time a patch of earth is tended with love…

We are declaring:

Death does not get the last word here.

The Garden

And maybe this is the most fitting place to end.

On Easter morning, when Mary Magdalene encounters the risen Christ, she does not recognize him at first.

She thinks he is the gardener.

And maybe she wasn’t entirely wrong.

Because the risen Christ is still tending the world.

Still bringing life out of death.
Still calling creation into fullness.

Final Invitation

So the question for us is not simply:

Do we believe in resurrection?

The question is:

Will we practice it?

Will we:

•            Remove what harms

•            Protect what is vulnerable

•            Participate in God’s renewal of the earth

Will we refuse the pattern of Gehenna—
and help cultivate something more like a garden?

(Maybe you will have take the picture of renewed Gehenna home and write “practice resurrection” across it.  Post it somewhere you can be reminded every day.)

Closing

Because this is the hope of Easter:

Not that we escape the world.

But that God is redeeming it.

Not someday only.

But even now.

Until every place of death
becomes a place of life.

Thy Kingdom come. Amen.

Until every valley
becomes green again.

Until all creation
shares in the resurrection of Christ.

Amen.

The Encounter

Good morning, and welcome to our annual celebration of Earth Day, which is next Wednesday, April 22nd. You will notice that the liturgy is quite different from our usual one. We will talk more about Earth Day in a few minutes. Cynthia and I spent most of the past week visiting family in Nashville. We stayed with our son Mark and his family, which includes three of our grandchildren. The oldest of these, Bobby, is 13. Bobby is quite mature for his age. He is intelligent, sensitive, and interested in learning about pretty much everything, including religion, his own faith, and Jesus. The family is active in their church and attends every Sunday. I was talking to Bobby after the Sunday service at their church , and as we were talking about the sermon he just heard, I told him that when I write a sermon I try to have a primary message, what we call the “core affirmation statement.” I asked Bobby to tell me about the pastor’s sermon that day. He said the gospel was about Jesus’ healing of the paralyzed man at the pool in Beth-ZAY-tha. He then said that the main message he learned was that we all have “encounters” with Jesus, and like the paralyzed man in the gospel we often don’t realize it when it happens. The core affirmation statement, he went on to say, was to “stay open for such encounters.” Well, needless to say, I was impressed with my grandson Bobby.

          We got home from Nashville on Monday, and in the early morning hours that night, while drifting in that state somewhere between dreaming and barely awakening, it came to me that my sermon today should be about how and where we encounter Christ. Of course our gospel from Luke today about the encounter of the two disciples with Jesus on the road to Emmaus fits nicely with this theme. Those two disciples walking with Jesus had no clue who it was they had encountered as they walked, not until Jesus was at the table with them, broke and blessed the bread, and gave it to them. Only then were their eyes opened, and they recognized him. Importantly I think, he then vanished from their sight, perhaps as if to say “I have been with you all along, only you didn’t realize it. Stay open to such encounters with me. I will always be with you.” “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road…?” they said. Some encounter, don’t you think? Where is it that we have such encounters? I know of a place where such encounters are common, that is within creation itself, and that is a good segue into our special celebration today.

          As I mentioned before today is our Earth Day Sunday, a worldwide celebration of our home planet Earth and its environment, and a reminder of our calling to care for it. This annual celebration began on April 22 of 1970, when twenty million people took to the streets and college campuses in hundreds of cities to protest environmental ignorance and to demand a new way forward to protect the Earth. That first Earth Day is largely credited as one of the key moments that launched the modern environmental movement, including the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency later that year, an essential agency now being threatened by our unenlightened and obstructive administration. The theme for Earth Day 2026 is “Our Power, Our Planet.” This theme reflects a fundamental truth: environmental progress doesn’t depend on any single administration or election, although today we are facing especially damaging environmental policies in Washington. Nonetheless, progress is sustained by daily actions of communities, educators, workers, and families protecting where they live and work. We saw this very type of action this past Tuesday evening with the documentary “Sallie’s Ashes” here at All Saints. That documentary is about three women, all in their 70s, all grandmothers, one named Sallie Smith who sadly has now died from lung cancer. These women decided that they had to do something about the potentially disastrous Alabama Power’s Plant Barry coal Ash pond, which contains 21 million tons of toxic coal ash sludge now polluting our groundwater with arsenic, cobalt, mercury and other heavy metals. The pond is the size of 451 football fields and sits near the bank of the Mobile River in the Tensaw Delta, up Highway 43 just south of Mount Vernon, here in our own back yard. It is held in place by a singe earthen dike. Were that dike to break—as has happened elsewhere in the United States including in Kingston, Tennessee—due to a major rainfall event or hurricane winds, it would be a disaster for the delta and Mobile Bay and the lives of all of us in this area. These three women have rallied to fight for the removal of that pollution and its potential for disaster. This fits right into the theme of Earth Day this year, that every individual has the power to create change. Community cleanups, tree plantings, demonstrations, contacting elected officials, educating our friends and neighbors, and making sustainable daily choices are all ways to use our power to heal our home Earth. While the current administration is doing so much to stand in the way of progress with the environment, the theme “Our Power, Our Planet” calls us to act in the face of such obstruction, and that we the people can and hopefully will overcome any and all such obstacles along the road to healing the Earth. The website earthday.org lists 50 ways for individuals to help the planet every day. There is a lot we can do.

          And what does all of this have to do with our message today about encounters with Christ? I believe that the created world is full of such encounters, if we like the disciples with Jesus on the road to Emmaus will only open our eyes and minds to see them. The reason for this is that all of creation—the universe itself—is the expression and revelation of its maker, the Creator. In John’s prologue it is the Christ who “was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life.” We are all united—every created thing—by our source the Creator. When we are open to see the Christ this way—open to the many encounters we will find in the created order—then we will find ways to care for it. Our calling is to re-establish a loving relationship with creation, with the Cosmic Christ present within all things. Where do we see it? Everywhere! Jesus puts it well in the gospel of Thomas: “Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” Animals of all types—those on and beneath the ground, in the sky, and in the water—the plants, the trees, and the living Earth itself are all our relatives. We are made of the same elements. We share almost exactly the same DNA. There is one life, one breath that we all breath. Everything is interrelated, interconnected, interdependent. We are part of one living system, a unified whole. I love the way Barbara Brown Taylor puts it. She calls this unified whole “The Luminous Web,” and God is in all of it. We must live in harmony with the rest of creation. Spend time out of doors, beyond the walls of our homes, and look at the beauty there. Feel the life all around you. See if you experience that sense of spiritual communion with the Earth, a spirituality born of our source the Creator, from whom came the elements of the entire universe, our solar system, Earth, and out of the Earth ourselves. This will motivate us to stay aware, to stay informed, to stay educated about the current state of affairs, and to act in ways to protect our environment, an environment which is now being further damaged and destroyed by the policies of the Trump administration.

          I will share a few quotes that I found to be meaningful in our celebration of the Earth and its environment.

From the environmental activist and farmer Wendell Berry: “The Earth is what we all have in common.”

From the Native American proverb: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.”

From Albert Einstein: “Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better.”

From the Dalai Lama: “It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the world in which we all live.”

          So back to our gospel today, and to this Earth Day Celebration. How and where do we see the Christ? Is it in the sacraments such as the breaking of the bread as we will do in just a few minutes? Is it in the beauty of the world around us? Perhaps the question for all of us, just as my grandson Bobby said about Jesus healing the paralyzed man, is where and when have we encountered Christ and didn’t know it? Is it in a quiet sunset? Is it in the infinite stars and galaxies of the night sky? Is it in the fragile beauty of a creature, a coastline, a tree? And what would it mean for our eyes to be opened? Perhaps then we will see the earth not as an object but as a neighbor, not as a possession but as a gift, not as something disposable but as something to be loved and protected. Earth Day invites us into that same kind of awakening, an opening of the eyes, a transformation of how we see. And when our eyes open, we like the disciples respond. The encounter leads to action. Earth Day reminds us that caring for creation becomes one way we respond to that encounter with the Christ therein. We live differently. We consume more thoughtfully. We protect what is fragile. We care for what God has made. We teach our children to love the earth, not just to use it.

          The good news of the road to Emmaus is this: Christ is nearer than we think. The Christ walks with us on every road, every journey we take. When our eyes are opened, we discover that the whole world is charged and alive with the presence. It is all holy ground. Creation itself becomes a place of encounter, a place of revelation, a place where our hearts like those of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus might begin to burn within us. So let us walk more slowly. Let us look more closely. And may our eyes be opened so that we may recognize the Christ with us along all the many roads we travel in our lives, and in the good earth God has made. Then, I think, we will take better care of our home Earth.

Rev. Bob Donnell

Can Artemis Break the Spell for Scientific Cassandras?

Easter 3A – Earth Sunday

Luke 24:13-35

April 19, 2026

This morning’s Gospel reading was the Road to Emmaus story. Last Sunday was Doubting Thomas. Of course, the Sunday before that was the resurrection story. We follow a three-year lectionary, rotating through the various readings every three years, but the format of the Easter season readings stays fairly consistent. The first three Sundays of Easter are “appearance" stories, then Jesus the Good Shepherd, then three Sundays of preparing to spread the mission and message of the early church. This is the arc of the stories heard from Easter to Pentecost.

Today we are hearing the 3rd of the appearance stories, when Jesus is still physically appearing to people following his death and before his ascension. First Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, then he appeared to Thomas, and now he appears to two of his disciples who are walking home from Jerusalem, rehashing the amazing things that have happened that weekend.

And with two of these appearance stories, I am puzzled. I wonder how Jesus’ disciples did not recognize him. How did his beloved Mary Magdalene not recognize him? Were his disciples just so consumed with grief that they didn’t even take a good look at who they were talking to? Was it fear of the unknown future? Did Jesus’ appearance so defy what they thought was possible that their brains just couldn’t process who this was? What was blocking them from seeing the truth of what was in front of them? Something about the way they were perceiving their current reality needed to change before they could recognize the resurrected Jesus.

But then, each time, something jolts them into recognition. Jesus simply says Mary’s name, and suddenly she knows him. On the other hand, he has a very lengthy chat with our traveling disciples today, including a whole review of the Hebrew scriptures’ prophecy regarding his ministry, but that’s not enough. It is not until the taking, blessing, breaking and giving of the bread…that most Jesus thing ever…that the disciples recognize him. In both stories, something intervenes to open hearts, minds and eyes to this reality.

So then I wondered, “what might it look like today if someone like Jesus, a truth teller of some sort, appeared to us…would we recognize them? Would we believe what they had to say?”

I was recently reminded of the story of Cassandra from Greek mythology. Cassandra was a priestess in the temple of Apollo, and Apollo had gifted her with the ability to speak true prophecy, so that everything she proclaimed came true. But then he got mad at her and placed a curse on her so that no one would believe her prophecies. So, what she foretold was always true, but no one ever believed her. How frustrating! Again, what would that look like today?

It turns out that our personal biases are very effective at hiding truth from us. For example, as the information we receive today, often through social media, becomes more and more siloed, more curated for what we like to hear, we mainly receive the news that aligns with what we already believe. Psychologists call that confirmation bias. If it becomes too difficult to wrap our heads around a situation, then we tend to just ignore it. That’s called complexity bias…we like things that are simple to understand. If everyone else in our tribe - whether it be our family, our church community, the political party we identify with - believes a certain way, then we tend to think that way, too, whether that group-think is entirely accurate or not. That is called community bias. It’s hard to stand against the tribe because belonging is so important to us. Brian McLaren has put together a little book that identifies 13 common biases that all of us fall victim to.

So, here’s my modern-day example for this Earth Sunday:

Our scientists have been warning for years that the Earth is warming and that it is caused by humans emitting carbon into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels. They have provided mounds of data and analyses and graphs to explain it all. But it’s complex and it doesn’t always track with what we have always believed to be true. Many in our community aren’t buying it, and we wonder why should we? So, we have discounted the scientists’ warnings, even as their forecasts have proven accurate. We haven’t trusted the scientists enough to change our ways to save our planet…and ourselves…from the effects of global warming. And we have generally taken a pass on exploring the questions:

“What is my part to play in this disaster?”

“What gifts do I bring to this work”?

We are like Doubting Thomas, but in our case, we can’t put our hands out and touch the wounds of the Earth, and in many ways it isn’t yet affecting us personally. So we dismiss these scientific Cassandras and go about our business as usual.

Using this season’s terminology, the Earth is still being crucified. It has been Good Friday for the planet since the Industrial Revolution, and the prophets have been shouting about that for at least the past 50 years. In his book Practice Resurrection, Eugene Peterson says that resurrection is God’s project, but we are included in every aspect of God’s activity. We are not running the show, but we are in it to do our part, the part we were given at birth, to make resurrection happen. But to do that, our eyes must be opened to receive; we must become aware of our biases and be open to the truth…and claim the gifts that will allow us to do our parts.

Perhaps recent views of the Earth from space will provide that jolt we need to see the truth. How about that picture from the Artemis II expedition, in which we see the Earth surrounded by that incredibly thin layer of atmosphere, along with those iconic photos from the 1968 Apollo mission…the ones known as Earthrise and the Blue Marble? The usual reaction to these photos is an overwhelming sense of our interconnectedness with each other and with the entire planet, and our dependence on each other, because that’s all there is. Otherwise, we are surrounded by just the vastness of space.

It’s being called the Overview Effect, being able to see that what we do in one place affects everything everywhere. It makes us realize that we need to deal compassionately and kindly with all living things, and as we learn in the Genesis creation story, we must preserve and cherish this place because we are all in this together on this planet, the only place we can call home. We can’t mess this up, y’all.

Perhaps reactions to pictures from the Artemis mission will help us see with new eyes and burning hearts…and leave us willing to make the changes needed for a renewal of all of life on the planet. Because resurrection is an ongoing process. And we have opportunities every day to do our part.

One of those opportunities can be found in a program we are featuring in the parish house this morning called Homegrown National Park. The idea is that if everyone planted a small pollinator garden in their backyard, combined we could create the largest national park in the country, as a series of connected micro-refuges for our wild neighbors. Biodiversity loss is one of the major threats to life on Earth right now, with bees and butterflies among the most threatened species. We can each do our part to help with that. Come check it out after church. We even have packets of seeds to hand out, along with other information to get you started.

Experiencing the risen Christ does not come at the end of a lesson on a road…or through a sermon. There is something about faith that is “made known” outside the normal ways of knowing. It is in the breaking of bread that the disciples finally “see.” Perhaps it is the vision of our Earth floating all alone in a vast expanse of space, or in working in the dirt with native plants for the benefit of the smallest creatures, that we finally see how we can participate in the ongoing resurrection of all Creation.

Lella Lowe

The Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi: A Celebration of our Brother Sun and Sister Moon

Welcome, Opening Comments

Rev. Bob Donnell

Welcome to our celebration of the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi. Today is also the last day of the Season of Creation, which started September 1st and which we celebrated a few weeks ago on September 21st. That was also Sun Day, on which we celebrated our star the Sun, and its promise to help heal our home Earth by providing us with clean energy. As you will see this evening, these three themes—St. Francis, the Season of Creation, and Sun Day—are closely interrelated. You will hear about each. All Saints and Gulf Coast Creation Care are co-hosts for our celebration, and you will hear from both Lella Lowe and Rhoda Vanderhart. Thanks also to Josh for our music. I am sure you have noticed our fire. Perhaps a little warm for a fire, but it reminds us of the never-ending light and energy of creation, and especially of our star the Sun. I hope you enjoy the evening.

Brother Sun: Our Hope for Healing

Lella Lowe

Humanity has honored the sun for millennia, through poetry and song, art and dance. St. Francis’ 13th century poetry referred to the Sun as “brother”, who bears the likeness of God and brings the day and the light. As early as 1500BC, ancient Vedic hymns celebrated the sun as the source of light and life, with practitioners physically and spiritually worshipping the sun. Indigenous tribes have continued traditions such as the Sun Dance every spring.

We do well to recognize the sun as a symbol of God’s ongoing care for all of creation, as it reliably provides light, warmth and food through photosynthesis. Today, we are increasingly aware that the sun can also supply all the energy humanity needs.  In fact, the sun constantly bathes the earth with about 10,000 times more energy than humans currently use. With modern technology, we can harness just a tiny portion of that energy and move beyond our reliance on fossil fuels.

In his new book Here Comes the Sun, environmentalist Bill McKibben notes that, in a world where everything seems to be going wrong, this is the one big thing suddenly going right. Economic forces are finally on the side of renewable energy, and there will be no going back to fossil fuel dominance. He points out that:

1.     In the early 2020’s we reached a point where the cost of generating solar energy dropped below the cost of producing energy from burning fossil fuels, and

2.     Globally, we are in a period of exponential growth in the production and installation of solar panels, due to countries’ desire for energy independence.

We have reached a tipping point with solar energy. There. Will. Be. No. Going. Back.

However, as they say, “we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way”. In the United States, we appear to be choosing the hard way, while the rest of the world moves on without us. That is especially the case in sunny Alabama, where currently only 1% of our electricity comes from solar energy. Last year, in the United States, 80% of new electric generating capacity was from solar panels and batteries, while in Alabama the Public Service Commission is still permitting new natural gas power plants and denying permits for utility scale solar projects.

You are probably aware, because you can see with your own eyes, that there is precious little rooftop solar installed in this area The main barrier is a fee imposed by Alabama Power, with the blessing of the Public Service Commission. This fee acts as a “tax on the sun,” significantly reducing the financial return for homeowners who install solar panels and remain connected to the grid. As a result, solar energy adoption remains minimal in the state.

In response, Gulf Coast Creation Care decided to participate in a national movement called Sun Day that, for other groups, involved everything from electric vehicle parades…to field trips to solar installations…to presentations by solar installers and advocates. But given Alabama’s unique challenges, GCCC chose to focus on a postcard writing campaign directed at the Public Service Commission. The goal is to urge our elected officials to create policies that support, rather than hinder, solar energy development in the state.

While the official Sun Day was September 21, the postcards can be sent any time, because the PSC needs constant reminders that the public cares about solar energy—for the savings it provides, the jobs it can create, and the promise of a healthier planet for us and for future generations. Postcards are available tonight for anyone willing to participate in this important advocacy effort

The sun shines impartially on all life, reminding us of our interconnectedness and the divine power that cares for and sustains us. It is a universal gift that binds all of creation together. For this, we join in offering our praise to God, grateful for the blessings bestowed by our Brother Sun.

A Sun Reflection: Sacred Imagination

Rhoda Vanderhart

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor, and all blessings.

To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.

Praised be You, my Lord, with all your creatures;
especially Brother Sun, who is the day, and through whom You give us light.

And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
and bears a likeness to You, Most High One.

This is a part of The Canticle of the Sun, a song of praise composed by Saint Francis in 1225. It is considered the first poem in vernacular Italian. 

Can you think of anything more worthy of praise for Earth dwellers in God’s creation than our sun? Is there anything more beautiful and useful to us than humanity’s personal star? What a blessing it is to wake up every morning, knowing that no matter how difficult yesterday was, the sun will rise in the eastern sky to bring light to our world. Even if the sky is covered with clouds and it rains all day, our sun is powerful enough to bring light through the clouds, enough light to see and go about our business of the day.  Is there any miracle more astounding than the process of photosynthesis? Sunlight, collaborating with plants to use water and carbon dioxide to create sugar and turn it into food that sustains all life? As I sat in San Juan del Sur bay a few weeks ago on vacation and watched the gorgeous sunsets every evening, it occurred to me that the sun gives us the most stunning artwork in the world. Can you think of anything more awe inspiring than the sun coming up or going down to a vast array of pink and blue and orange and coral and purple and red clouds spread across an endless sky? 

And yet, with the large-scale burning of fossil fuels that began in the mid-eighteenth century, we have made the sun into our enemy. We have created a blanket of smog that traps sunlight and prevents its rays from leaving our atmosphere, thereby setting in motion a steady rise of heat that will one day make life on earth impossible for humans. By living outside of right relationship with this beautiful God-given gift, we have turned the burning power of the sun into something that will eventually be our demise if we don’t repent—that is, change our minds, which will lead to a change in our behavior. 

Bob has asked me to paint a picture of what creation might look like today if we truly followed the way of Francis. So come with me as we imagine life on Earth powered by renewable energy resources. A world where our power plants do not release harmful gases into the environment, where climate change slows, where habitats that have been lost begin to renew, where air and water pollution from extractive processes plummet. 

Air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels is estimated to currently be responsible for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide. Imagine……deaths from asthma, cancer, heart disease beginning to fall.

Imagine…..oil spills being a thing of the past…..some scary occurrence our grandparents lived through.

Imagine…..our groundwater and drinking water no longer contaminated by arsenic, lead, chlorine, and mercury from fracking operations.

Imagine….the health disparities of black and brown communities living near oil refineries and industrial zones begin to dissolve.

Imagine…sheep grazing on millions of acres of solar farms that power our world. 

Imagine…throwing away your car’s windshield sun blocker as every parking lot is covered by millions of solar panels that provide shade for us to park under.

Imagine….college students powering their laptops with solar panels hung off their balconies.

Imagine…your energy bill cut by a third or a half.

Imagine…never going to the gas station again to fill up your car, and never having to remember to change your oil.

Imagine…coral reefs teeming with life as ocean waters cool.

Imagine….no city in the world ever having to clean soot off of historic buildings again.

Imagine…our financial and political systems not controlled by billion dollar industries and rich, powerful men that can cut off supplies of energy and perpetuate war.

Imagine…instead of a Department of the Interior, a Department of Earth Stewardship, responsible not for licensing extraction but for healing the land, restoring watersheds. Instead of pipelines, soil trusts and community reforestation programs.

Imagine…instead of the EPA, a Department of the Common Good, to protect and co-govern what we all share—forests, seeds, water—not as commodities, but as sacred trusts to be passed down to future generations.

This world doesn’t have to be in a far off future. We have the knowledge and materials and technology to fully create this world right now. Many communities around the globe are already leading the way. In 2024, approximately 57% of California's in-state electricity generation was from renewable resources. Renewable energy sources collectively produced 81% of Denmark's electricity generation in 2022, and are expected to provide 100% of national electric power production from 2030 on.

This week, Richard Rohr’s daily devotional reminded us that up to the point of St. Francis’ ministry, “most of Christian spirituality was based in monastic discipline, theories of prayer, or academic theology, but not in a kind of practical Christianity that could be lived in the streets of the world. Francis emphasized an imitation and love of the humanity of Jesus, and not just the worshiping of his divinity.” Let us quit theorizing about caring for God’s creation, and begin the work of restoring relationships, building community, welcoming and harvesting the energy of the sun, leaving the world of exploitation and greed behind, and being a blessing, not a curse to our  incredibly precious natural world.

O God, grant us a whole new mind that we may help usher in a new world already on its way. Amen

Homily

Rev. Bob Donnell

Allow me to tell a few stories that shed some light on the life of St. Francis.

There is a little book called “Into the Green Future” with daily meditations written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. In it is a quote by the Native American leader  Si’ahl, chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples in what is now the state of Washington. The Anglican pronunciation of his Si’ahl is Seattle. The city Seattle, Washington is named after him. He and his people lived on the islands of the Peugeot Sound in what is now the state of Washington in the mid-1800s. He is famous for among other things a letter he wrote to President Franklin Pierce in 1855, some 700 years after the life of St. Francis. This speech and letter was a response to the treaty of the American government for buying the land of native Americans. It throws light on the carelessness of the White people towards the environment. Here are a few lines from that letter: “The President…wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sand shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy…we are part of the earth and the earth is part of us…the perfumed flowers are our sisters…the bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers…the rivers are our brothers…the earth is our mother. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected…Man does not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.”

That sounds a lot like St. Francis to me.

Let’s move now from the American west across the ocean to Russia.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. His literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. The following is from his book The Brothers Karamazov:

“Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.”

That too sounds like St. Francis.

Dostoevsky wrote this in the 1800s, during “the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres” of Russia. Are we not in the midst of just such troubled times here in America today? The temptation for many of us is to dive into this bottomless pit of hatred and lies and fear, to join the cacophony of angry voices screaming at one another. Yet Dostoevsky’s message and the message of St. Francis is a message of love.

This is the path we too are called to follow. Could the ultimate solution to our troubled times possibly be as Dostoevsky suggested? “Love all God’s creation…and you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.” Imagine! It sounds naive doesn’t it? Yet it is the very message Jesus taught over and over again. And it is the message that the life of St. Francis of Assisi teaches us as well. Don’t succumb to the fear and the hatred we see around us. There has to be another way, and the way Francis chose was the way of simplicity, of unity with creation, and of love. St. Francis was more than just a gentle animal-loving and earth-loving man. He was a political activist in his opposition to the crusades. He took vows of poverty and lived a life of solidarity with and care for the poor. He was later named the patron saint of ecology. He is credited as the author of “The Canticle of the Sun,” also called “The Canticle of the Creatures.” I will close with his words:

“Be praised Lord through all your creatures…through my Brother Sun…he is beautiful and radiant…Sister Moon and the stars…precious and beautiful…Brothers Wind and Air and clouds and storms and all the weather…through which you give your creatures sustenance…Sister Water…she is precious and pure…Brother Fire…beautiful and cheerful and powerful and strong…Mother Earth who feeds us…and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs…for those who forgive for love of you, through those who endure sickness and trial…through our Sister Bodily Death from whose embrace no living person can escape…”

St. Francis came, in the words of Dostoevsky, “to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.” This is who we celebrate tonight.

Restoring Peace With Creation: A Sermon for Sun Day

All Saints Episcopal Church, Mobile, Alabama

Proper 20 Year C 2025 (Sun Day and Season of Creation)

Luke 16:1-13

In the name of God the Creator, the Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Today’s Gospel from Luke is called the “parable of the dishonest manager.” If you can understand it and interpret its meaning, then congratulations. If not, then join the myriad people including scripture gurus and theologians who throughout the centuries have had a hard time understanding exactly what Jesus was getting at in his parable of the crooked manager! The parable’s meaning has stumped even the best and most creative interpreters of Scripture. Hold that thought. We will return to it a little later.

But first, welcome to our annual Season of Creation celebration at All Saints, which today is even more special because it is September 21st, which has been designated as Sun Day. Today is a worldwide day of action and celebration of the power of clean energy, a celebration of our life-giving star the Sun, which offers us the power to clean up the environment. It provides for us a way to reverse the devastating effect of the burning of fossil fuel and the climate change it is causing.

Today is a day for honoring and protecting this God-given created world out of which we are born, in which we find our home, and of which we are a part, just like every other created thing. Barbara Brown Taylor calls this creation a “luminous web” within which we live and breathe and have our being. All things are connected, all part of one whole. In her book An Altar in the World she beautifully makes the point that the entire world is sacred, that we can find God in all of creation, probably more so in the great outdoors than within the walls of any church.

We must protect this sacred space. We are called to help heal it. The sun itself is available for such healing. It is the stimulus for a clean energy revolution: we have the technology to harness its energy; all we need is to build the political will to make clean energy accessible to everyone.

Why was September 21st chosen as the first Sun Day? First, because it is the solar equinox—one of two days of the year when the axis of the Earth is no longer tilted toward or away from the Sun, so that the northern and southern hemispheres get an equal amount of sunlight. Incidentally, although most of the world won’t be able to see it, there is also a partial solar eclipse today, as the moon passes between the Earth and the Sun.

And second, because today is right before the UN General Assembly’s annual meeting, giving us an opportunity to send a message to the US and other world leaders about the urgent need to accelerate and scale up the transition to clean energy.

There are several clean alternatives to the burning of fossil fuel for our energy needs: solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, nuclear, and bioenergy sources such as hydrogen and ocean energy. These are referred to as “clean” or “low-carbon” because they don’t directly emit green-house gases like carbon dioxide. These sources therefore help to improve air quality and mitigate climate change.

Today we focus on the solar energy provided by our star, the Sun. Why solar energy? Here are a few quotes.

From environmentalist Bill McKibben: “We now live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce energy is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. This isn’t ‘alternative energy’ anymore—it’s the common-sense obvious path.”

From former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, “It’s time for all of us who know that windmills don’t cause cancer and that not all energy comes from deep underground, to stand together with our kids and grandkids on Sun Day to stop the mind-numbing rhetoric and jumpstart our clean energy transition.”

From the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., “No one hoards energy from the sun and wind; billionaires and fossil fuel executives can’t hold it in ‘reserves.’ It’s energy for everywhere and everyone.”

And from marine biologist and author Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s book What If We Get It Right?, “We really could get it right—we have the clean energy technology we need, and what we need now is the human energy to make it happen despite the obstruction of Big Oil. That’s what Sun Day is about, harnessing photons to power our lives.”

The transition to clean energy is happening across the world. California is showing how a big state can power itself without fossil fuels (with 45% of their total energy consumption coming from clean sources in 2024). Texas broke its solar, wind, and battery records in one week this spring. Ranchers in the state of Washington have turned to a new crop: solar power. Reaching “net zero” carbon emission is getting easier and cheaper in the UK. Pakistan has had a “solar boom” by using cheaper Chinese solar panels, creating a bottom-up energy revolution that could become a blueprint for energy transition worldwide.

As Bill McKibben wrote in the New Yorker a few years ago: “In a world on fire, stop burning things.” People are acting across the country and across the globe, but sadly the powers that be in our state of Alabama are making the transition to clean energy difficult. In a few minutes you will hear about Gulf Coast Creation Care’s campaign to take our case to the Alabama Public Service Commission and how you can participate.

The Season of Creation is an annual celebration running from September 1st through October 4th, which is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology. The season was first celebrated in 1989 and is now a worldwide ecumenical celebration calling on all people to come together to care for our common home, Earth. It is a time for repairing and restoring our relationship with God and with all of creation—the worldwide church family invited to pray, protect, and advocate for God’s creation.

Each year has a new theme, and the theme for this year is “Peace with Creation,” inspired by these words from Isaiah 32:14-18: “For the palace will be forsaken, the populous city deserted...until a spirit from on high is poured out on us, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field...then justice will dwell in the wilderness... the effect of righteousness will be peace...quietness and trust forever. My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.”

What a beautiful vision—justice, secure dwellings and peaceful habitation: peace with creation. This passage challenges us to reflect on our role in healing a world harmed by the environmental destruction and conflict and injustice we are now seeing.

We hear a lot from this pulpit about social justice. What we are addressing during the Season of Creation is the dominant social justice issue of our time. It is the mother lode of social justice, the issue that affects all of the other social justice issues we face. That issue is climate change. We are seeing it all around us now: the heat, the fires, storms, melting ice caps and sea level rise, instability of our weather patterns, displacement and migration of millions of people.

Much of what we are seeing started with the Industrial Revolution which began back in the 1760s, the age of industrial manufacturing. That’s only 265 years ago, a millisecond in terms of how long Earth has been here, over 4 1/2 billion years. Climate change is happening quickly. Can the Earth sustain life as we know it with this pace of change? What can we do to reverse this change?

One thing we can do is to stop burning fossil fuel, and begin using clean energy, which brings us to our focus today—Sun Day—to our star the Sun, to its potential to reverse this unsustainable change. Theologian and environmentalist Gus Speth said this, “The main threats to the environment are selfishness and greed and pride. And for that we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.” Yes, caring for God’s creation is a spiritual and moral imperative. In choosing to live our lives with respect and care for all of life we are choosing the way of love, of justice, and of righteousness, those same things Isaiah said nearly three thousand years ago.

Let’s go full circle now and return to our parable of the dishonest manager that we heard today. This past Tuesday I was sitting at the dinner table with my wife and daughter, trying to decipher what Jesus was trying to say with this parable. Not only that, but how could this parable about a crooked manager have anything to do with caring for creation? With celebrating our star the Sun and the energy it can provide? My wife said “Why not just go to the last line? I think it may be saying something you could preach about." Here is the last line again: “You cannot serve God and wealth,” or as Eugene Peterson translates it in The Message, “No worker can serve two bosses: He’ll either hate the first and love the second or adore the first and despise the second. You can’t serve both God and the Bank.”

In our care for creation we are serving God. In our search for clean energy sources such as solar we are serving God. We are acting out of our moral imperative to do what is best for creation including our Earth home. It is in resisting the transition from fossil fuel to solar and other sustainable energy sources that we are serving the Bank. That is where the big money is made. That is where the deep pockets, the “reserves” are stored, the cost of which is determined by those in power deciding how the most money can be made. It is greed. The powers that would prevent us from moving to clean energy sources are serving wealth, not God, or as Peterson puts it, they are serving “the Bank.”

I will conclude today with this translation of the words of the psalmist: “O Lord, send us forth with your Spirit to renew the face of the earth, that the world may once again be filled with your good things: the trees watered abundantly, springs rushing between the hills in verdant valleys, all the earth made fruitful, your manifold creatures—birds, beasts, and humans—all quenching their thirst and receiving their nourishment from you once again in due season.”

And we give thanks for the Sun, as Saint Francis puts it in his Canticle of Brother Sun, “Praise for the sun, the bringer of day, he carries the light of the Lord in his rays; the moon and the stars who light up the way unto your throne.”

Amen.

~Rev. Bob Donnell

Climate Change, Risk Denial and Collective Hope..."Or we are not Christians?"

A meditation after reading the Washington Post’s 2-part series about climate-related flooding on the Northern Gulf, particularly in coastal Mobile County (4/29/24). 

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For over a half century in the USA, we've known that--statistically--1 in 4 persons will get cancer. We're smart. We look around at our family of 4 and can do the 'maths.' Yet, we deny our own risk because we feel impotent or unable to grasp just how we'd cope when our world is turned upside down and inside out. Or, hey, maybe soon there'll be a cure. (BTW, technology is not our friend but rather that forked-tongued bad boy your mom told you to steer clear of, but that's another reflection.) 

Grasping climate change presents a similar predicament. We know the risk, we can do the math. We devote thoughts and prayers to a "cure." "Let this cup pass from my hands." But, don't ask me to give up my riches, comfort, convenience, security, complacency. I'm pampering myself now in case the tragedy comes tomorrow at 8am. The parable of the rich, young ruler does indeed jump to mind!

And tragedy is coming for all of us. The "new normal," it is named. 

Since we feel impotent in the face of the enormity of the challenge, never having lived through tragedy beyond our control, we cannot imagine it happening to us. Maybe the next hurricane will take out my neighbor's house rather than mine? Certainly, I'll take them a green bean casserole and express my sympathies. Maybe that rising water inching up my dock is an aberration that will bring the crabs nearer to catch but then soon recede. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

(Psst...we're there.) 

With waning empathy in modernity due to diminished community, we "let the good times roll," denying both our impotence and our failure of imagination. God forbid we should sacrifice the good life for the common good. Not while we're rolling snake eyes with loaded dice. 

Maybe it’s true that pilgrims go to Lourdes seeking the Virgin Mary, not so much believing they'll be healed but seeking the strength to endure when no miracle comes? 

Even in an egregiously individualistic society where everyone in a rich country inhabits their own climate-controlled, security-enabled bubble, what if that is what resilience means? Shared strength. Perhaps "misery loves company" because that is where hope lives? 

If hope is collective, perhaps there's a reactive role for faith communities in climate destabilization. If so, it will be the greatest test of faith Christianity has ever faced. 

If you've lived and worked on the frontlines in poor countries that have faced unrelenting, sequential concurrent tragedies, you can imagine both the gory and the glory, the incapacity and the resilience. The former are humbling, the latter ennobling. Scarcity brings out the worst and best in us--sometimes at the same moment. Like when we are called to nurse an enemy with the resources intended for a loved one. The test of hospitality is when there simply is not enough to go around. Amidst abundance, hospitality may be lacking or not, but it is never tested. Abundance evaporates in the blazing direct light of unrelenting, sequentially concurrent existential crises. 

Collective hope is sharing. Both the sustenance and the suffering. A distinguishing hallmark of the Primate Order (monkeys, apes and humans)--unique among social mammals, is that it is hard-wired in our nature to share in times of abundance and scarcity. 

The eisegesis of Christian theologians seeking scriptural relevance for creation care waxes poetic on the transcendent significance of the incarnation, transfiguration and resurrection. Yet, all the practical theology one needs for creation care is in the Sermon on the Mount. Of course, that depends on how inclusive and expansive your Kingdom of God is. 

The climate catastrophe now unfolding, and irreversible, will rekindle community. Bubbles will be burst. We'll survive if we can truly live Micah 6:8 and Matthew 25:35-45. If we can't, we'll face the dilemma of the Medieval scholar who first encountered the Gospels in a Monastery library and mumbled: "Either these are not the Gospels or we are not Christians." 

Photo credit: Rob Bearden

Does a tree falling in the rainforest make a sound in the neocolonialist mind?

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds..."--the Prophet Bob Marley.

If a tree falls in the forest and there are no humans to hear it, does it make a sound?

In post-Soviet times, we harp--legitimately--about neoliberalism yet often fail to conflate it with neocolonialism. Neoliberalism is an elitist tool using the global legal system to steal and direct the flow of resources from the poor countries to the rich countries. It is aided and abetted by the Bretton Woods institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Climate change is the ultimate form of colonialization: plundering resources to feed the insatiable appetites of those whose addiction to comfort, choices, convenience and personal security overrides any sense of equity, obscures the suffering of millions in the Majority World and the frontlines rural people, and shows no respect for the Commons. If you are reading this right now, the odds are good you join company with me as one of those elites who are amusing themselves to death with the ease and flippancy of fossil-fuel fed keystrokes.

Decarbonization and decommodification of Nature are essential features of decolonization. From the Berlin Conference to Bandung, plunder has been the primary instrument of domination and supremacy. In recent decades, the International Criminal Court has made a paltry attempt to redress crimes against humanity. However, until we codify ecocide and the legal rights of Nature, there simply are no tools to stop the plunder. While the crime of genocide is in the Rome Statute, genocide will continue unabated until we stop the ecocidal looting. The current definition of genocide is not sufficiently expansive to protect indigenous people and the land upon which their survival depends. We can do that legally amongst the community of nation-states, or as Naomi Klein suggests, the laws of Nature will prevail over the laws of [capitalist] economics. She wrote:

"Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity's use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it's not the laws of nature." In other words, the biosphere will collapse.

In the immediate, near-term, please remember that there is no true enforcement mechanism on the frontlines of the Developing World. A corrupt, bad-faith multinational corporation can toss a few $thousands to bribe government officials to look the other way, throw a few worthless beads, blankets and assorted trinkets at an impoverished community, and plunder the timber, rare-earth minerals, gold, diamonds, fossil fuels that modern technology requires to keep us deluded in our comfort and pomposity. It is truly the "Wild West" where "might makes right." And soon enough, we see the level of deforestation that changes microclimate, then global climate, but moreover deprives locals of their heritage and livelihood, and denies us the forest's gift of carbon sequestration. Since the Age of Exploration [circa14th-19th Centuries CE), we've lost perhaps one-half of the estimated 6000 pre-contact societies--each a unique manifestation of the human spirit and the accumulated wisdom across the millennia about how to be fully human and live in communitas.

That lovely dining-room furniture set made of rare mahogany or teak you enjoy comes from a round log [ancient tree]--since it was stolen and had no intrinsic value placed upon it by capitalists--cost only a few $thousand to extract, transport and fashion into consumer items worth an aggregate downstream rich-country value of $1million for every round log.

By the way, watching one of those towering, majestic creatures being felled is a horrendous, PTSD-inducing physical and emotional experience. As it creaks, moans, cracks and begins to topple--being attached in communion to nearby trees with vines and branches intertwined--it pulls down all vegetation with the forest creatures in residence, the entire canopy of plants and animals screeching, wailing, and screaming in a high-pitched cacophony of tongues such that it deafens the bystander. The massive roots, rootmass and buttresses are ripped from the forest floor community, leaving a gaping-pit wound that swallows even the tallest bystander. The final sensory experience the bystander feels is the knee-buckling, chest-rumbling earthquake caused by hundreds of tons crashing with a death-rattle rustling of leaves and somber thud onto the forest floor that echoes interminably across the forest. Then, eerie silence. Like that in the savanna after the lion roars. Nothing dares to breathe. Or, make a sound. Or move. In the chaos that ensues next, and provided no bystanders have been crushed in the football-pitch sized treefall zone, the wildlife poachers begin shooting the stunned and maimed animals--some rare and endangered--to cook as bushmeat stew to feed the timber workers. "Living off the land," they say in laughter. And then, it all begins again when the treefinder designates the next giant to be felled, ad infinitum, to appease our wellbeing and complacency in the style to which we've become accustomed.

"When a tree is felled, a star falls from the sky. If you are going to chop down a tree, you had better ask permission of the Keeper of the Trees and of the Keeper of the Stars"--as told to me by a Lacandón Maya shaman.

The arrogant loggers do not even ask permission of the forest spirits to enter when they come to defile the forest and destroy the communities of the forest keepers. The Forest will have the final word.

The poisonous mercury used in gold-mining, and natural toxins [arsenic, uranium, etc.] released from massive extraction of minerals will cause immediate health effects in local people, and long-term congenital defects for generations, in areas totally without medical care, clinics, medications. The emotional trauma of experiencing the loss of sacred lands and being separated from one's native human and nonhuman community of beings will become epigenetically encoded in the DNA of victims and inherited by children and grandchildren whose suffering will last their entire lives.

Those indigenes living by their wits and ancient wisdom on the fringes of survival can, at best, hope to endure the intentional consequences: desecrated sacred groves, polluted water sources, poisoned earth and creatures, degraded land destined to be stripped by erosion such that it can no longer support subsistence gardening. Most likely, they will be forced into migration to urban areas where their survival skills and preliterate intelligence confer no means by which to subsist, forced to live in squalor and hunger, or they will be forced into local indentured slavery to the extractive multi-national corporations, primarily mining and palm-oil plantations.

They are us, our ancestors, only 100 years ago. Have we grown too smart by half? Unable to remember lessons learned, deceived by our affluence into a failure of empathy, unwilling to sacrifice for the common good which is the legacy of our shared humanity? Unable to rekindle our shared community on a very fragile, sacred Planet Earth? Does a falling tree make a sound? Listen. The sound is likely there in your genetic memory. If you can't retrieve it, sear the description above into your compassion and hear it every time you look at an online photo of deforestation and resolve to empathize with, to be in solidarity with, frontlines people in this war on Nature, on our communal soul.

As we live into allyship, know this: "Another world is not only possible...She is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."--Arundhati Roy

When Fear and Anxiety are Rational, Hope and Joy are Catalysts

In times of rapid social change, our leaders often speak glibly of hope and joy as antidotes to fear and anxiety. When we have deep attachments, fear and anxiety are very real, rational, justified. But hope and joy as cerebral nouns have no agency over visceral fear and anxiety. Certainly, hope--as well as joy--can be galvanizing, but as Hannah Arendt said, it can also be paralyzing. 

Passive hope and joy are not antidotes. Hope and joy must be catalyzing. Hope and joy are, and elicit, a promise by acting on a promise. 

In Nowness (sentience) with all the senses (faculties) centered, the nouns hope and joy become verbs with agency, and then as verbs they move from the infinitive to the participle. They become adjectives that describe, that activate, our agency. Work, Working, Working woman. Hope, Hoping, Hoping man. The working woman tills and keeps the soil. The hoping man plants a seedling.

When one plants a seedling, hope-the-noun becomes hope-the-verb and then hope-the-catalyst of one's agency. When you let joy-the-noun catch you, joy-the-verb becomes a catalyst for reciprocating joy. 

Hope and joy, then, are like infectious agents (nouns) that hijack the molecular machinery of our soul and churn out (verbs) prodigious quantities of clones of themselves amplifying hope and joy in ourselves that is transmitted to others. Hope and Joy become catalysts for promise.

The promise of Hope and Joy is revealed when a seedling pops up through the early Spring snow cover. Working woman and hoping man made a joyous, transformative promise and the seedling received and fulfilled it. And that is how we get out of this environmental mess. Or, as Inez Aponte more eloquently and poignantly explains: "The wrong question is: How do we reduce carbon emissions? The right question is: How do we meet our genuine needs versus our manufactured wants while regenerating the ability of the Earth to sustain life?" 

Photo attribution: An embed from Getty Images by Jana Engel