FFF #14 – Climate change anxiety

Climate, , , , , , , , , ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future. The strikers are probably all out of school today, since it is New Year’s Eve, but the problem of climate change is not taking a break.

We all are carrying the weight of anxiety associated with climate change. More and more, our troubled feelings are topics in therapy, in the church and around our tables. In their 2017 document: Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, implications and Guidance, three partners summarized the groundbreaking work people have been doing to assess the impact of the warming atmosphere on mental health: the American Psychological Association (APA), Climate for Health, and EcoAmerica. There is trouble, literally, in the air. We can feel how other people and whole communities are changing and adapting. The experts are helping us sort it all out. If you are practicing psychotherapy, church leadership or any institutional oversight, the health and effectiveness of what you do is being impacted by climate change and the associated mental health challenges we all face.

According to the APA doc, mental health is “the ability to process information and make decisions without being disabled by extreme emotional responses.” As you read through the new names experts are suggesting for what ails us, you can decide how disabled you are. You know that all emotions are part of a fulfilling life. But I think you also know that extreme negative feelings can interfere with our ability to think rationally, plan our behavior, and consider alternative actions. It is easy to see that extreme weather events are sources of trauma; the experiences can cause disabling emotions. You may have already endured such an event. Less-noticed are the indirect effects of climate change which add stress to our lives in varying degrees and are cumulative over time. The stressors to our climate translate into impaired mental health which is resulting in alarming amounts of depression and anxiety.

Everyone has ways to cope with stress. But the accumulated effects of relentless stress can tip a person into mental illness. Just the uncertainty of expecting further trauma can create psychological distress on its own. What’s more, we are negatively affected by hearing about the negative experiences of others, and by fears—founded or unfounded—about our own potential vulnerability.

The stress on the climate also produces stress on the bodies living in it. Compromised physical health creates stress that threatens psychological well-being. Conversely, mental health problems can also threaten physical health, for example, by changing patterns of sleep, eating, or exercise and by reducing immune system function.

The stress is not just about individual well-being. Individual mental and physical health affects communities. The changing climate stresses our community fabric and strains interpersonal relationships. It alters our opportunities for social interaction, the ways we relate to each other, and our connections to the natural world.

I hope talking about climate change anxiety makes it a subject we can discuss and examine and not just a menacing “force” we can’t quite identify. The experts have been hard at work helping us put names to what we are experiencing. Here are a few identifiers which have been coined in the past few years that you might find useful. You don’t need to try each of them on to see if it fits. Let the understanding increase your security.  If you recognize a threat, call on God to help you endure it or let it go.

Eco-anxiety

Over the past several years, climate change has moved from an abstract idea to a reality in many of our lives – a reality that has a lot of us increasingly worried. An APA survey in February 2020 found that two-thirds of American adults said that they felt at least a little eco-anxiety [APA podcast], which is defined as worry or concern about climate change and its effects. Some say eco-anxiety is the chronic fear of environmental doom, which will feel appropriately dramatic (and traumatic) to a few readers, no doubt. In the survey, nearly half of those under age 34 said that stress about climate change affects their daily lives.

Ecological grief

Ashlee Cunsolo, one of the contributors of the 2017 APA study noted above, coined the idea of “ecological grief” to describe what Inuit people experienced as they tried to adapt to the most rapidly-warming place on Earth: the Arctic.

We have so much grief associated with the last few years of Covid: loved ones dying, and all the community and traditional experiences we lost! Then we had fires, floods, drought, wild tornados, habitat loss, and the list goes on. Climate change anxiety may be a feeling closer to the surface than ecological grief. People are grieving both the current changes they are experiencing and the future loss that might be coming. The loss and fear can create a constant sense of anxiety. Young people feel a loss of power when they want to “future proof” a choice or relationship; their hope and imagination can be blunted.

Click pic for article by Ray in Sun Chronicle

Climate hostage

Many of these terms are collected in Sarah Jaquette Ray’s book A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet. She’s an activist and undergrad professor who realized the fact-driven and blame-casting techniques many activists have used in the last 20-30 years have not worked. So she teaches and writes with a more narrative approach full of vision and creativity, not division and damnation.

One of the reasons for her change of direction is most of us feel like we’re hostages to a larger process that is going on in spite of us. The average citizen doesn’t have a lot of power to direct the government or corporations to address climate change. It is important bear witness to this reality, name it, and validate it. It is soothing to validate whatever the problem happens to be in one’s life. It is empowering to elevate it; we lift it up, and say, “This is important.” It is transforming to look at it from different angles and get creative about it, “What are we going to do about this?”

Life is beginning to feel like a prison for many people, an experience we never imagined. It is exhausting. The climate, coupled with the economy, COVID, political polarization is very real anxiety for people. We tend to toggle between grieving, mourning and disorganization and then experiences of growth, new beginnings, and creativity. It is a normal sort of oscillation. So we should not be surprised if climate change anxiety takes us up and down, like we are locked into the roller coaster car. We should look at people charitably to see where they are on the oscillation curve when we are relating. One of my favorite proverbs says:

Like a man who undresses in winter
or a woman who pours vinegar on a wound,
So is anyone who tries to sing happy songs
to a sorrowful heart. (Proverbs 20:20 The Voice)

We can feel or make others feel it is shameful to feel troubled, as if life should be dancing with the stars! It is helpful to check out our own state with some understanding and compassion as well as that of others with the same charity.

Solastalgia

The philosopher Glenn Albrecht in Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World (2019) invented a new word: solastalgia, to describe the experience of being in place in one’s home community, but it no longer looks or feels like home. Solstalgia comes from the Latin word for comfort (solacium) and Greek word for pain (-algia). It names a sense of homesickness without actually leaving home. People experience this when their neighborhoods and churches change around them, of course. But the changing of the whole planet amplifies the sensation. Think of all the native people in the United States and Brazil who have been overrun by the ravages of industrial capitalism. They undoubtedly have felt the profound discomfort of their environment being degraded and changing around them, nevertheless, it is their home.

Anthropocene

The anthropocene is a proposed new geologic age marked by the irreversible ways in which human beings have affected the climate and environment. It has not been approved by the International Geological Conference, yet, but the discussion continues. Some proponents would like to mark the beginning of the age with the Agricultural Revolution 12-15,000 years ago. But more would prefer it to begin with the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945.

If you were born between the early 1990’s and 2000’s (the GenZ/iGen marketing label), you are the first to have spent your entire lives within the cultural consciousness and obvious effects of climate change. You are the “climate generation” or the climate change anxiety generation. Stereotypes of this generation include: 1) linking climate change and social justice, 2) feeling  financially insecure and being in debt, 3) being troubled by wealth disparity/the 1%, 4) growing up with  smart phones, social media and internet access to everything, 5) being more stressed, lonely, depressed and suicidal than previous generations, 6) being more aware of and more likely to report trauma, 7) being more ethnically diverse and identity fluid, 8) being less likely to vote or trust any institutions. You are the humans who best represent the anthropocene.

Age of Overwhelm

Laura van Dermoot Lipsky wrote The Age of Overwhlem: Strategies for the Long Haul in 2018 and the description stuck. The following viral YouTube video of an overwhelmed child epitomizes what the age of overwhelm might feel like to children and to your inner child.

Pre-traumatic stress disorder

Lise van Susteren, co-founder of the Climate Psychology Alliance defined the term pre-traumatic stress disorder. The disorder is dread about the future combined with feelings of powerlessness to do anything to shape that future. I contend it is what we are all feeling as the evil fruits of capitalism continue to ripen, unabated. A similar idea is “anticipatory grief” – what you might feel when standing next to a forest about to be logged and you connect that event to all the other desperately-needed forests about to be destroyed. Such feelings of stress, helplessness, fear and fatalism are linked to physical ailments, even a weakened immune system.

Apocalypse fatigue

This aspect of climate change anxiety is the exhaustion of having to make endless moral choices when they don’t seem to make a difference. It is the psychological rebellion against always having to worry about every choice when other people’s lack of concern negates your efforts. Per Espen Stoknes gave a popular Ted Talk on apocalypse fatigue, hoping to help us overcome it.

#BirthStrike

Fearing ecological Armageddon, singer-songwriter Blythe Pepino set up BirthStrike in 2018, an organization based in the UK for men and women refusing to have children because of the climate crisis and bureaucratic inertia over dealing with it. When she spoke to Tucker Carlson she assured him that BirthStrike is different from nihilistic anti-natalism. Rather than trying to convert the masses to childlessness, they are presenting people with a choice. They hope women (and their partners) will channel their mothering skills into activism. Women can soothe the grief of forgoing motherhood with something more active, regenerative, and hopeful for humanity. Pepino teamed up with Meghan Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli of Conceivable Future, a women-led network of Americans who come together to discuss the intersection of climate change and reproductive justice, to put their responses to climate change anxiety into a video.

[Sep 2022 update. Even before I wrote this, BirthStrike had morphed into a support group named “Grieving Parenthood in the Climate Crisis: Channelling Loss into Climate Justice” (see report). Their previous posture was criticized as white privilege.]

Piling up names for our maladies may increase, not decrease climate change anxiety! How did you do? As a Jesus follower I am joined with billions of people in history who knew where to turn in their own “ages of overwhelm.” Hold on to the Lord’s hand as you venture into the unknown threats of our troubling times. You are the beloved of God and God is with you.

FFF #13 — Our plans to go solar

Climate, , , ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future. The strikers are probably all out of school today, since it is Christmas Eve, but the problem of climate change is not taking a break.

They do it on Lake Como. What prevents us?

The family lake house has an expansive roof. It looks like it could be good for solar panels if the trees do not overshadow it too much. We’ve got to do more about climate change, so we are exploring the possibilities. I’ll tell you what we are doing and you can tell me what I am doing wrong, OK?

Consumer nightmare

One of the reasons most of us homeowners are not going solar is because everything in the world is subject to consumer capitalism. The providers need to make a profit; that’s the “bottom line.”

On the way to that dotted line there are many issues. There are a lot of challenges associated with making and selling solar panels. For instance, polysilicon is the semiconducting material refined from quartzite used in most panels. China-based companies bake the material in giant ovens and treat it with chemicals until it condenses into ingots. Those ingots are sliced into wafers using diamond-edged saws, and then cut into squares to make solar cells that transform sunlight into electricity. Recently, several plants in China have been shut down due to ecological disasters. What’s more, gold, silver and solar glass, also used in the manufacturing, have been in short supply and more expensive. So increased cost to consumers is imminent.

Once I started researching this big purchase, I realized why solar energy costs so much. Global competition and conflict, greed and the disastrous shortcuts it causes, and opportunism all shadow every step the panels take toward our roof.

Finding a provider

We shopped around for a provider. Philly-centered Solar States did what they could by looking at our house with Google maps. But they don’t really travel to the Poconos. Green Power Energy, based in New Jersey, became the outfit we started with.

So far, the process is a bit like buying a used car before Carvana. We talked to a salesman who made a proposal from looking at the house from the air. I strung him along as I did some shopping. When I called back, he said he could give me $500 off if I signed up right now. He talked to the manager and came back with more discounts. Now I receive regular emails telling me I can get money for referring my friends — I get more if they actually buy  something.

I have a time constraint issue adding anxiety to my process. The 26% tax break for this project begins to expire in 2022. There may be more breaks coming, maybe not. “So buy now before it’s too late!” I will probably need to put a new roof on to do this project, which is also covered by the tax break but maybe only relating to the percentage of the roof covered by the panels. Nothing is really clear about the process immediately. Green Power works with a roofing company that would do the work. Do I have time to get another, possibly cheaper, roof on before the tax breaks expire? That remains to be seen.

After a lot of proposing based on the aerial views stored in the vast data available to anyone who cares to use it, a workman finally came to the house last week. He crawled into attic spaces, measured everything, and gave some advice he said he was not really qualified to give. He found out I already have a 200 amp electrical service, which is unusual and important since a lot of people need new electrical services when they add solar.

How to heat the home makes a difference

I began exploring the electrical devices I might install so I could get rid of my oil heat and have an all-electric house. The proposal the installers give to my utility (PPL) will not include these future draws, so I have to figure out if I would be over my limits somehow should I install electric heat. So far, my science buddy says I am good (I am not sure how he found this out). The solar sellers don’t really care about such things. They are primarily getting solar panels off their truck and onto the roof. This means I will have to find a heating company qualified to do our work and get into their profit making system.

Will the roofers, solar installers and heating contractors talk to each other and form a cohesive system we can use? They will if I become the general contractor who forces the issue, I suspect. My scientific friend, said I could call him every week about this project. That’s a blessing since he is fount of information. I need help. In this project like all our relationships with corporations these days. Whether we are going to the hospital or having the sewer line replaced (I’ve done both in recent days), we need to be experts on what we are getting into and project managers for the employees who have limited interest in us. Sorry to be cynical, but we can’t trust most of the systems we encounter to help us. They are mostly interested in  making their profit on their segment of the project. They will not be talking to one another. I could hire a project manager of some kind or trust Green Power Energy, but my experience tells me that is expensive and still unreliable. So I think I’m the guy for the job. That daunting assignment is another reason we aren’t all solar yet.

We also have to get our homeowner association board to approve the change we are making to our roof. Our solar panels will be visible from the road. Will they be beautiful? Will they be a blight on our forest? I am very sympathetic to the board’s desire to preserve the aesthetic of our little nature preserve. I would be more sympathetic if they were not assessing our project, of course! They recently approved someone else’s solar plans. I suspect our plans will demonstrate the slippery slope they were afraid of, since our positioning is much more intrusive. That is, our panels will be intrusive if you don’t see solar panels as a climate necessity.

Climate Change Strengthens Earth's 'Heartbeat' — and That's Bad News | Space
Seasonal temperature variations and trends are visualized and depicted on NASA’s “Blue Marble” image. (Image credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

Should we so it?

So what do you think? Should we do it? So far, we are at an estimate of $31,000 minus $8,000 in tax credits for a total of $23,000. This does not count the cost of the roof or the cost of making the heating system electric. It does not yet consider just how much electricity we can generate due to our angle to the sun, shade from trees, and days without sunshine in wet PA. Will we recover our investment in less electricity cost? The initial estimate from Green Power says it will take 25 years. But the main savings would be in heating oil, which would likely cut that recovery time in half.

More important, are we actually doing our part for the planet? That is the main question that drew us into the process. I might be will to donate $10,000 to the charity called Earth if I thought Earth would actually get the benefits. I am worried about the Earth getting some benefits as we humans drive around in our cars wondering if we can do anything to end our contribution to climate change. The use of coal actually rose last year as the Senator of Coal, Joe Manchin (and fifty other Republican senators, of course), blocked the climate action money in the Build Back Better bill! I know my small actions may not push climate action to a tipping point, but I would rather go down swinging than wringing my hands.

You’ll probably get an update when we get further into the process. Pray for us and don’t be shy about giving some advice in the comments.

Achmed the Angel — 2017

Fiction, , , , , ,

We invite each other to write a Christmas story every year. Here is mine from 2017 after a trip to California and a year of concern about Syria.

Achmed noticed the old nun sitting in the bus shelter on Brookhurst. This was not unusual since an assortment came to the stop in their unmistakable outfits. Even though she was clear across the parking lot, he could tell she was the same one he saw at the Thrift Store when he was there with his Auntie the previous week — she was the shortest and roundest of them all. At the time, he was showing his mother’s sister and her little children around the shops. They were just in from Lebanon and he was helping them get acquainted with the neighborhood.

Now he saw the nun from his perch on a stack of pallets in front of the grocery store as he attempted to do as little as possible. He was acting like he was not slyly watching people. But he carefully scanned the streetside boundary of the strip mall where his parents had a restaurant fronting on the back lot. He had a feeling his father might kill him if he were caught with a toe off the property, but he enjoyed seeing as far through the boundary as he could. He looked and looked for hours. He also needed a reason not to venture into the back lot, where one of his busy parents would find something for him to do. For instance, he was good at peeling cucumbers, even though he was only nine, and his mother did not mind who knew about it. But he did not want to peel cucumbers. They felt slimy.

The restaurant was doing well enough. He knew this because his parents yelled about how much money each of them was spending and what exactly should be bought for the new baby on the way. There was a lot of fighting. In a way, the name of the restaurant: Aleppo, was a good name, since it often seemed like it was the site of a civil war. Achmed knew all about the war in Syria because his aunt and uncle, who had just arrived, told them all about it. New refugees had basically crowded his uncle out of Lebanon, so he had to come to little Syria in Anaheim.

No one who worked at Aleppo had actually lived in Aleppo. His father was from Jordan, but mainly from the United States. His mother was from Lebanon. She’d been to Aleppo as a teenager, before the war started, and before pictures of starving people and bombed out buildings made everyone cry. Aleppo was an old city. He had heard this over and over when she told the story to old Americans with nice clothes and careful haircuts who came to the restaurant because they had never had Syrian food yet. Aleppo was Turkish, Armenian, Lebanese and who knows what else all mixed together with a cuisine all its own. Aleppo was like a jewel, combining all the many lights of ancient peoples.

So they had a new jewel in Anaheim, a little pocket of memories in a strip mall along with a barbershop, a hookah parlor, a little grocery — which was one of the few places you could find old copies of Lebanese newspapers, and a store where Muslims could buy clothes. Technically, Achmed’s family were Muslims and they did Eid and Ramadan in their own way. But his father did not go for praying and did not own Muslim clothes. He said, “I did not come to America to stay in Jordan.” But when the Imam came to the restaurant for lunch he acted Muslim enough.

Achmed saw a lot and heard a lot. He was quiet and stayed off the radar as much as possible. There were not a lot of kids his age in the families who managed the shops. And since he could not go off the premises, it was somewhat difficult to have friends among the native Americans, many who spoke Spanish and thought he was weird, and many who were as white as Disneyland and stared at him like he was in a display case.

The bus came by and the nun did not get on it. Pretty soon another came by and she still did not get on. Achmed was curious. He secretly thought she might be dead like a character on TV. He had never seen a dead person and did not want to, really. But he also did not want to tell his father there was a dead nun in the bus stop if she were not really dead. So he quietly went across the parking lot and stood right outside the shelter like he was waiting for a bus. His mother would have rather died than see him get on a bus, but he did not expect the nun to know that; besides she might be dead.

He turned his head ever so slightly so his eyes could see her from their farthest right corners. Was she breathing?

She was not only breathing, she was crying.

This scared him mightily. The nuns, dressed in their black and white armor, seemed impervious to bad things. But this nun was proving to be surprisingly human. He could not help himself, and he felt responsible for the honor of strip mall. So he went over and sat on the bench next to her.

She did not immediately see him. But when she turned to get a Kleenex from her sleeve, she was startled. She took off her eyeglasses, wiped her eyes and looked at him more carefully. “You must be an angel,” she cried.

Achmed did not know a lot about angels, so he let that pass. “I saw you crying,” he said.

“And why wouldn’t I? The world is full of sorrow and I have almost no idea where I am!”

“You are on Brookhurst” he said.

“Yes, so the bus says. But I have forgotten my way home. I have become too old to be of any use to a needy world. I have been sitting here waiting for someone to find me and so you did. God must have sent you like a little Jesus to save an old lady.”

Achmed had even less idea of Jesus than angels, although he had heard the Imam say “Isa be praised” a few times.

“Aren’t you a nun?” he asked.

She straightened her habit and said, “What was your first clue?” And for the first time she smiled. “What is your name?”

“Achmed.”

“I don’t think I have ever seen a more handsome angel. Would you like to save my life?”

Before he thought clearly he said, “I guess so.”

“All you have to do is get me home.”

“But I don’t know where you live, either.”

“Oh, you probably do. You’ll have to think about it. It can’t be far or why would I be here?”

That made sense, somehow. So he said, “OK. Let’s go.” He got up and so did she. When she got up she was not much taller than he was.

“You are not very tall are you?” she said. He wasn’t. Then she took his hand in hers. Achmed looked back at the barbershop to see if anyone was looking.

He usually saw the nuns coming from the direction of the fireworks at Disneyland, to which he had never thought of going. So he crossed Brookhurst. He figured it was OK since he was with an adult. The nun took his arm in the crosswalk like they were husband and wife.

There were two white girls on the far corner. He decided to ask them where the nuns lived. But as soon as they saw him they started laughing. By the time they got across the street, one of them said, “A penguin and a terrorist. Merry Christmas!” Then they ran off laughing.

“Those were nasty little girls. You’ll have to pray for them after you save me,” she said.

They kept walking, even though he had no idea whether they were really going the right direction. Halfway down the block an older man was up on a ladder putting up Christmas lights. He couldn’t see anyone else, so Achmed took the nun up his walk.

“Hello?” he softly said.

The man dropped his lights and grabbed on to his ladder. He looked down on the two little people on his walk and said, “What are you two doing here? You scared me to death.”

“Do you know where the nuns live? This one’s lost.”

He looked at her and she smiled back through her glasses. “No. I make it a practice not to know where nuns live.” And he turned back to his lights.

So they kept going. It seemed like a long way. Pretty soon they were at Euclid Street and Achmed thought he might forget where he lived, too.

She noticed the puzzled look on his face. “God is with you wherever you are,” she said.

“That’s nice. But I’m not sure where you live.”

“I know. It is quite terrible isn’t it? But you shine like a star. I suspect you will figure it out.”

He stood on the corner stuck to a nun who thought he was a star. This was only the first time in his life he would be in over his head. But he did not know how that felt yet. It was terrible.

Just then a Honda van rolled up and out burst three more penguins. They all started praising God, one in Spanish, “Gloria a Dios! Gloria a Dios!”  One in some Asian language, “Vinh danh Thánh Chúa trên trời,” and one in English. “Thank God! Sister Clare, we found you, you naughty woman! We will need a tracking device soon.”

They hugged and kissed and then did it all again.

Sister Clare wrested herself free of their clutches and straightened her habit a bit. She formally turned to Achmed with a little bow, and directed their attention to him with a sweep of her hand. “Sisters, I would like to introduce Achmed the angel. He graciously decided to save me.” They descended upon him.

He did a respectful amount of wriggling, and protested, “I really did not do anything. I don’t really know where you live.”

“We will show you!” And they dragged him into the van.

“Oh my god,” he thought. “I will never see my parents again. I should be peeling cucumbers right now.”

They were only on the road for a minute. “Here it is. We would let you in, but we don’t allow men in.”

“But he is an angel,“ protested Sister Clare, “And I have a tin full of cookies from Michigan.”

The nun who seemed like the leader was having a theoretical problem. “He is obviously a male angel.” She turned to him with a jolly but inquisitional attention, “Where do you live?”

“Aleppo.”

“Isn’t that in Syria?”

“No it’s on Brookhurst.”

Sister Agnes took him home in the van.

When they reached the strip mall she turned to him with tears in her eyes, “Thank you so much for caring for Sister Clare. She used to love this entire area so well. She would still like to do it. But she can’t keep her mind on it anymore. Here, have a sucker. She handed him a red tootsie pop and he popped out the door. She roared out of the parking lot, assuming cars were going to stop. They did.

He sat back down on his pallets and determined to never tell his parents one bit of what had just happened. That would work out as long as no one in the nail salon saw him take a tootsie pop from a nun; if they did, everyone would know within half an hour. He decided it would take about a half hour to dissolve the sucker, so he unwrapped it.

The only problem was, on December 24 his mom came into the restaurant and yelled, “Achmed!” He turned away from the futbol rerun he was watching and saw that she had a shiny red and green package in her hand. She came right up to him as soon as she saw him and showed him the tag. “Do you by any chance know anyone named Achmed the Angel?”

“Um. Uh. I have no idea?”

“Your friends the nuns were glad to meet your mother. One of them took one look at me and called me Mary, then gave me this.” She held up another red tootsie pop.

FFF #12: Climate messages looking for ears to hear

Climate, ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future.

There is no lack of information, no shortage of prophecy when it comes to climate change. But there is a distinct lack of listening and repenting. There is so much hysterical information and misinformation around people tend to generally tune out and miss crucial stuff!

Here is a set of guidelines for communicating in a crisis in a way that does not close the listener’s ears in case you are looking for an audience [link].

Since I decided to add my voice to the process, I have heard a lot of congratulations. But I think my subscribers to my blog tend to skip the titles dealing with the climate and wait to see if something looks more intriguing.  They hear about the climate every day — and media is full of the novel for a reason!

Communicating is important, but finding ways to advocate and act in more communal and personal ways are probably more important. That being said, I want to make sure you have seen two amazing and terrifying stories from two go-to sources: the New York Times and the Washington Post.

From NYT article

On December 13, the  Times published a monumental piece of research to tell us what was happening in every country of the world, one by one, in regard to climate change – 193 stories called Postcards from a World on Fire.  The editorial board summary is a must, “The planet is sending an SOS. Answer it.”

Rainfall in Greenland has been unusual, here seen from Zion’s Church in Ilulissat, Greenland (WaPo)

On December 14, the Washingtom Post published an article about the 2021 Arctic report care from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): Climate change has destabilized the Earth’s poles, putting the rest of the planet in peril. It says, “Record highs have also sounded the death knell for ice on land. Three historic melting episodes struck Greenland in July and August, causing the island’s massive ice sheet to lose about 77 trillion pounds. On Aug. 14, for the first time in recorded history, rain fell at the ice sheet summit.” Wow!

Maybe you are with my hero, Greta Thunberg, who hears old people talking and says, “Blah. Blah. Blah.” I know I feel that way. So what if we feel that way? What shall we do? There are a lot of people who are telling us exactly what is happening and exactly what needs to happen.

Jesus laments

“Though seeing, they do not see;
    though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”

In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
    you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
For this people’s heart has become calloused;
    they hardly hear with their ears,
    and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
    hear with their ears,
    understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them. (Matthew 13:13-15)

Letting love in: Mary the beloved leads us

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , ,
The Annunciation — Henry Ossawa Tanner

On the second Sunday of Advent, Hallowood Institute provided some space for clients and friends to prepare a room for the Lord, to welcome love in. We created space to follow the full arc of Mary’s journey of receiving the angel’s message to entering into the fullness of God’s grace. She moved from doubting her belovedness to confidence in it, from “How can this be?” to the Magnificat. Here is an outline you might like to use to follow her example. I know it can’t really replicate everything that happened, but it might help you stay on the Advent journey.

The Annunciation of a Woman — Harmonia Rosales

First movement:  Doubts about our belovedness

Mary pays attention to the word coming to her and to the doubts it arouses. She listens to her body and to the thoughts that automatically come to her mind.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,  to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.  And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” — Luke 1:26-34

When our “angel” comes to us we, like Mary, probably ask, “How can this be?” We doubt God can or would come to us. We doubt we could be important. We doubt we could be worthy. We doubt we could be loved.  We need to go through a process to let love in, to become the beloved of God we are.

Our brains and the rest of our bodies are accustomed to patterns that have defended us from not getting the love we crave and defended many of us from further abuse and disrespect. Our brains are rutted with programs of self-protection that don’t meet our needs and don’t protect us any longer. Our bodies have memories of trauma and fear that cause us to keep reacting in certain ways.

Mary was afraid when God came to her in the angel and doubted she could be part of the wonderful future he promised.

During our retreat we worked a little on getting our left and right brain to integrate. We found a place in ourselves of safety where we could return when we felt afraid. We created a container in our imagination where we could store intrusive thoughts that invaded our meditation.

Then we tried to welcome our doubting parts — the voices that tell us we are not loved. Maybe you would like to try it. Picture a time when you doubted you were loved or even lovable.  What makes you doubt you are loved? Is there an event from your past (distant or near past) that captures the feelings of this doubt? Put it into words. Then, if you can, float back to being 14 years old with Mary. Picture yourself at about that age. Identify the negative beliefs about yourself that go with this doubting picture. Write them out.

The Castello Annunciation by Sandro Botticelli

Second Movement:  Mary lets love in to talk back to her view of self

Mary turns from her former view of self and attends to the new life she is being given.

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”  

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. — Luke 1:35-38

The various depictions of the annunciation tell different stories. The one above shows the second movement we are exploring as Mary shies away from this angel. Is she saying, “Don’t bother me I am trying to read the Bible?” Or is it, more likely “What do you mean ‘nothing is impossible with God?’ I feel quite impossible myself?” The process of moving from doubts about “For nothing will be impossible with God” to “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” is what we were exploring. It takes a process to see ourselves as the beloved of God, to turn away from other views of ourselves and turn into that one.

From Henri Nouwen in Life of the Beloved:

I am putting this so directly and so simply because, though the experience of being the Beloved has never been completely absent from my life, I never claimed it as my core truth. I kept running around it in large or small circles, always looking for someone or something able to convince me of my Belovedness. It was as if I kept refusing to hear the voice that speaks from the very depth of my being and says: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.” That voice has always been there, but it seems that I was much more eager to listen to other, louder voices saying: “Prove that you are worth something; do something relevant, spectacular, or powerful, and then you will earn the love you so desire.” Meanwhile, the soft, gentle voice that speaks in the silence and solitude of my heart remained unheard or, at least, unconvincing….

Try this exercise to name those different “voices” competing to speak the loudest to you. Find a negative view of self that comes up in you. Do not collect all the views you can think of, just one. It might be as simple as when you look in the mirror and you go right to the body part you don’t like like: “too fat” or “bad hair.” But the voices can come from a deeper place: “I don’t deserve to feel good. Someone will discover what I am really like. You are all alone” — even “No one loves you or wants you.” Once we start listening, these often become quite clear as voices competing for our attention. Naming them does not feel good, but it begins to loosen their power on us.

Turn into a positive view of self:  “I am the kind of person who tries to grow” or “I have a very good grandmother” or “I see how I have good choices I can  make.” The big one is, “I am the beloved of God.” Nouwen talks about Listening to the gentle voice of God with great inner attentiveness. That attention makes the “angelic” voice surer and our true selves more obvious. Depriving the other voices of attention makes them weaker, fainter — “I can’t hear you!”

Painting in the Church of El Sitio, Suchitoto, El Salvador

Third Movement: Mary receives validation from Elizabeth

Mary welcomes support to face her fears and enter into her context with confidence.

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!  And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.  And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” — Luke 1:39-45

Recent scholarship on healing from identity wounds based in trauma says, “Radical healing involves being or becoming whole in the face of identity-based ‘wounds,’ which are the injuries sustained because of our membership in an oppressed racial or ethnic group.”

We acknowledged how our spiritual journeys differ because of our racist and sexist culture. For some of us, the wisdom of our communities has been deeply damaged by racist practices. Some of us have experiences of both healing and trauma from our interactions with our communities, in our neighborhoods and families, in our interactions with systemic violence, in our churches.

Mary experienced isolation and rejection as her story became known.  She and her young family had to flee oppression and slaughter based in part on race.  In this part of Mary’s story, she seeks much needed validation — even though she has spoken with an angel and knows she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit.  The encounter with Elizabeth validates what she knows inside, what her body is certainly telling her.

Take some time to consider your own journeys and where such validation may emerge for you. Note a few aggressions you have experienced recently.  Gwen’s was “The invisibility I often feel as a woman in leadership positions, or when I am left out, like when my husband got an email that should have also been addressed to me.”

Now consider how you responded to these aggressions. In your childhood were there any practices that you found comforting when faced with hurts — cultural practices or personal practices? What current social networks/systems are offering you support? Where do you feel empowered as Elizabeth empowered Mary? Are there ways you might help create further spaces where you can find this social support?   Notice what’s coming up in your body right now as you consider aggression. Deep breath and long exhale.

We need to meet our Elizabeths.  To listen to them and receive their love and encouragement, even though we already know that the life of Christ is growing in us.

Magnificat by Sister Mary Grace Thul

Fourth Movement: Mary takes her place as the beloved with her “Magnificat”

We created a final space to follow the full arc of Mary’s journey in Belovedness. She moves from doubting her belovedness to confidence in it, from “How can this be?”  to the Magnificat. In her prayer, Mary owns her belovedness and acts out of it.

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home. — Luke 1:46-56

I was inspired to own my belovedness by Osheta Moore’s Dear White Peacemakers earlier this year. Both Mary and Osheta Moore show their beloved selves in their context, in their families, and in their societies. And they both speak out of this belovedness, claiming their birthright to be the beloved of God, sent with reconciliation into their own space. I actually got in a little trouble with my some people when I quoted Moore teaching that being beloved is where the Lord starts when he calls for truth and justice. It’s a radical and important principle. As beloved is how we should see ourselves and others, even those nazi-like guys who paraded through the Lincoln Memorial the night before our retreat. Even in the battle against white supremacy and the scrourge of racism, we lose our cause if we lose our souls by not seeing ourselves as beloved of God and not insisting that everyone is a potential member of the beloved community.

Osheta Moore is keeping it radical and I am with her. Here is a bit of what she says in Dear White Peacemakers

Jesus says that in this world we will have trouble, but to take heart, for he has overcome the world. He did this by first owning his Belovedness and then proclaiming it to every single person he met. His Belovedness empowered him to challenge societal hierarchies based on fear of the other, offer relief to those who have been oppressed, and eventually to sacrificially love on the cross. When you are grounded in something other than your work or results, when you are grounded in a truer, deeper, soul-healing confidence, you can continue to press on—even if it means death to all your comforts and control. This is your calling when trouble comes as you practice anti-racism….[O]wn your Belovedness so that you can proclaim mine. Belovedness is like a flowing river of renewal and justice. It allows us to challenge systems and have difficult conversations. It moves us from individualism into community.

Many of us wrote moving, personal “magnificats” of our own, to take a stand as the beloved of  God, to affirm we are letting love in — and out.

Mary’s prayer is called “the magnificat” because the first line of it in Latin is “Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum” — in English, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Familiar prayers have often been known by their first word.

Try writing a prayer of your own. Write it for God, not for anyone else. You could use Mary’s prayer as a model. Better, use the spirit of what she is doing as a guide. She is pulling together the most meaningful thoughts she has into a song of belonging to the Beloved, graced with wonderful things going on inside her. She sees amazing opportunities to offer love to the world.

Our own magnificats sum up the whole process of letting love in. When it is time for you  to speak yours, what have you overcome? what are you standing up against?  When you say, “This is who I am, this is how God sees me, this is what I am for, this is what I intend to do, this is what I hope, this is what my truth in Christ is,” etc., what competes for that view of yourself? It could be your own family, government systems, or oil companies; the list goes on.

What do you say? If it is just: “I am the beloved of God, there’s nothing you can do about it. It is what it is.” That is good enough. That’s a short magnificat I am using this Advent as Jesus is newly born in me in this new era of the world being born.

FFF #11: Philly Tree People — Climate action street by street

Climate, , , ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is warning us that our over-heated cities are only going to get hotter as the climate changes. Cities are “heat islands” due to all those crammed-together roofs and endless pavement. There are many solutions to this problem being implemented, haltingly, but let’s concentrate on trees.

All over the world cities are committing to replant the trees they uprooted to plant their city.  Jesus helps us!

Tampa thinks it is #1 for trees. Click pic.

Of all the many benefits trees offer a city, the impact on climate change is probably the greatest.

  • Properly placed street trees shade the sidewalk which can result in a reduction of 20°F in sidewalk temperature. Unshaded sidewalks store a lot of heat and then radiate it to everything around them, including the people walking on them.
  • Street trees transpire, meaning that they give off water vapor through evaporation of moisture from their leaves (like those misting fans in Las Vegas). Evapotranspiration from trees can reduce the temperature around the trees by 2°- 9°. This compounds the cooling effect of shading. Each 10% increase in tree coverage in an urban context can reduce mid-day temp by 1.8°.
  • Trees are the walk appeal superfood. The combined effect of shading the sidewalk, shading the humans, and evapotranspiration can transform a walk in hot weather from something 10% of the people can tolerate to something 90% can tolerate. Some say one young, healthy street tree equals the cooling power of 10 room-size air conditioners running 20 hours/day. Street trees have close to 16 times the cooling effect on the human environment as trees in a forest. More walking to daily needs means less driving, which means less combustion heat from car engines adding to the heat island.
  • More severe heat raises the cooling load on buildings because the air around them is hotter. Air conditioning operates by expelling indoor heat to the outdoors. As a result, the urban heat island gets hotter and requires more indoor cooling. The first step in unwrapping this vicious spiral is more street trees. They can cool things down enough to restart virtuous cycles.
Amazon burning or being burned?
  • Trees are atmospheric carbon reduction champions. They continually inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, while humans and other animals do the opposite. They also sequester carbon within the tree as the tree grows. Plant enough trees, and they will actually absorb all carbon emitted by humans today. We need a LOT more trees to do that! Unfortunately, humans are going the wrong direction by deforesting places around the world for more cattle farming, among many other reasons. Planting street trees is part of reversing that direction. If there are 4 million miles of streets and roads in the US today (not counting Interstates) and street trees were planted 25 feet on center on either side of all of them, that would total almost 1.7 billion trees. That’s not all the trees the world needs, but every tree planted is a hopeful step in the right direction.

I did not give you all the references for the claims above. They are likely debatable in one form or another, like most science about the moving target of climate change. But our common sense tells us the city is hotter than the countryside and neighborhoods with trees are cooler.

Philly Tree People meet the neighbors in 2019

Philly Tree People

Because Philly needs to be the greenest city in the U.S. (another reason to beat Tampa!), our climate change contribution this month is going to the Philly Tree People.

I was looking around for a local group with whom I could connect since I have already discovered major players statewide and nationwide. I lived in leafy West Philly and now overlook the sea of trees in Fairmount Park – those places make a difference. But I happened upon people pushing into the miles of relatively treeless areas in 19125 and 19134: The Philly Tree People. I wrote them and Jacelyn Blank, the co-founder, wrote me back! Then I wanted to talk and she answered the phone!

The letter I received said, “Philly Tree People (PTP) is a neighborhood- based environmental stewardship non-profit organization that focuses on engaging and educating the community in tree planting, tree care and maintenance, and growing the urban forest in the 19125 and 19134 zip codes of Philadelphia, PA. PTP works in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) and the Philadelphia Parks and Recreations Department (PP&R) on behalf of property owners to receive free street trees through the state subsidized Tree Vitalize program. We also educate, train and empower residents as they plant and care for trees, improving the neighborhoods in which they live, learn, work and play. PTP is a volunteer-based organization that subsists solely on the generous donations of individuals, a handful of donors, and a few companies.”

Jacelyn and two other women met each other at the neighborhood association and then the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and ended up starting their own tree-planting squad fourteen years ago — and they are still at it! Only now they have 1000 people on their volunteer list. They continue to work with people who have been volunteering with them for years!

The first time they put shovel to sidewalk they planted 50 trees. Now they not only keep putting trees in the ground, they are involved in Parks and Rec’s 10 year plan for greening the city. That plan is undoing the fact that rich people are more shaded, the poor and Black/brown are less. They want to hire youth and teach them green economy skills and are involved in plantings at schools. One middle school student who got involved years ago now brings her daughter to plant.

Before they got involved, the Parks and Rec wanted to plant more trees but did not have the money. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society made an alliance so the system could get grants. The way I understand the process, a homeowner or business makes a request for a free street tree. The request goes to Parks and Rec which makes a site visit (since we have planted some ill-suited trees in the past and we need a strategy).Then the request goes to PHS which parcels it out to one of the growing number of neighborhood groups who are the main boots on the ground. (Use the comments section for corrections, anyone!) In Fishtown, you dust off your hands after planting day is over and head down to the Phila Brewing Co. for a luncheon (sponsored for 14 years, as well!!). Its all about being neighbors, face to face.

Here are some final facts from their informative letter:

  • Their largest community events are tree plantings. To date they’ve helped plant over 2000 trees. A few weeks ago they planted 46 street trees, and have submitted 43 more street tree applications with PHS which will be planted in April 2022.
  • In addition to plantings, they run a tree Pruning Club which maintains and beautifies the tree cover. They’ve helped to prune over 500 trees so far.
  • They have partnered with other organizations in their zip codes, including “friends of” park groups and local schools to to help them build and grow their green spaces, including teaching people how to plant and tend trees.
  • Their newest program is the PTP Green Corps, an environmental stewardship program for local youth. They help youth develop green job skills, learn about arboriculture, and heighten their awareness of environmental issues impacting the neighborhoods and the planet.

The Philly Tree People are working on a shoestring but it looks like the more money they have, the more good they will do. Efforts like:

  • build and maintain their tool library
  • buy branded swag as gifts for volunteers
  • buy meals for tree planters
  • pay for discounted mulching services at pruning club events
  • secure supplies for Green Corps
  • fund administrative costs
  • procure a new storage location and operations hub to stage their plantings
  • grow their programs and “branch out” (pun intended) to make a greater impact

Thanks Philly Tree People Board! Consistent, long-term, leadership makes all the difference:

  • Jacelyn Blank, PTP Co-Founder, ISA Certified Arborist #PD-2783A
  • Nykia Perez Kibler, PTP Co-Founder, ISA Certified Arborist #PD-2135A
  • Jen Brown, New PTP Board Member
  • Eli Gorman, New PTP Board Member
  • Kara Kneidl, New PTP Board Member

How to Bless Someone — 2/28/05

A life in the Spirit,

This is longer than a usual post, since it was a message in the Sunday meeting. I offer it to stir up some good-speaking in a mean era.

I love weddings. So I have had a good time presiding over quite a few of them in the recent past. I keep trying to convince the couple and the crowd, too, that the high point of the wedding comes after the bride and groom have exchanged their vows and rings and I say a prayer of blessing. This is the point we have all been waiting for, not the kiss. This moment of prayer is why the bride and groom came from their respective camps and made a processional through the town and up the aisle to the altar before God, to get the blessing, as pronounced by his duly-assigned representative, me. It would make more sense for everyone to clap after the prayer, not as the couple is  introduced. It would make more sense to stand for the prayer of blessing, not when the bride appears at the door.

I am not making much headway with my reforms. I think that is  because few people know how to be blessed anymore. We’ve lost consciousness of blessings, and that is not a good thing. So I want to talk about it. Before I am done, I hope you will know what a blessing is, to some degree, know how to receive the blessing and the blessings that God would like to give you, and, most of all, know how to bless someone else.

 What is a blessing?

 Literally, a blessing is “good-speaking.” In Greek: eulogy – like saying a few nice words at a funeral. In Latin: benediction – like the pastor says at the end of the meeting “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and give you his peace.” A blessing is the act of speaking goodness into being, naming goodness as present or calling it out, covering something with goodness. Like my father-in-law always prays before the meal: “Bless us O Lord as we take of Thy bounty. Help us and keep us in Thy way. Bless portions of this food to our bodies and us to thy service.”

When I bless the marriage, I am, in a sense, transmitting God’s power to seal the couples’ love with goodness, to grace it. I am being used by God to sanctify the union. Like when my father-in-law blesses the food, officially receiving the Creator’s powerful, good work and, in a sense, setting the food apart as having a special meaning, as the gift of God it is.

Many people kind of blow by such actions (even at our own wedding!), because they think they are a little weird. We don’t have much skill in handling spiritual things. I think a lot of people shy away from spiritual things because the whole idea of something being blessed or of some words conveying some kind of power can get way out of hand.

El Santuario de Chimayó | State Employees Credit Union
El Santuario de Chimayo

In many ancient religions people would recognize a place where a good thing happened and assume that such a place had good power. Soon people would go there for a blessing. I visited such a place called Chimayo a couple of years ago in New Mexico. There is a chapel built on the very site where in around 1813 a farmer named Don Bernardo Abeita had a vision while working in his field one day. The vision told him to dig beneath his plow where he would find earth with great healing powers. The farmer did as he was commanded and discovered a cross and pieces of cloth belonging to two long-ago-martyred priests. Ever since, pilgrims have come to the site to get a bit of this holy dirt in hope that it will cure them as nothing else can. Special dirt, special words in a special place will convey the goodness.

I suppose God could convey healing through dirt, but I doubt the actual dirt has much intrinsic power. Because one of the many great revelations to Israel that came after God chose to dwell among them as his own people was that God is not an impersonal force, God loves us and relates like a parent to us. So she bestows her favor as she chooses in relation to those she loves.

  • God’s first blessing can be found in Genesis 1:27-28. It shows how we can bless someone by speaking to them.  It says: God blessed [humankind] and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’ ”  To bless someone is a creative act. God is speaking goodness into being. Be fruitful. Be activated. Work well.
  • We bless someone when we speak well of them. When Jesus first revealed himself to the world in his baptism, as he came up out of water, taking on the form of a person who needed to be baptized, they heard a voice saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” To bless someone is an affirming, praising act. God is naming and calling out the goodness in Jesus. You are my pleasing Son, whom I love.
  • You also bless someone when you speak well over them. The prophet Ezekiel was speaking for God when he looked into the future and saw a better one. He spoke this blessing for God over the whole nation: “There will be showers of blessing…, the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them” (Ezekiel 34). It is like God is wrapping up their future and putting a wax seal on it. Setting the whole nation apart for goodness. You will be free. You will be alive with love and fruitfulness.

These days in this country, it is very popular to reduce the blessing of God down to a commodity you can get by saying the right words. A few weeks ago, Creflo Dollar, the pastor of the 23,000-person World Changers Church International south of Atlanta said, “The blessing of God is the ability to have success in every area of your life. When God’s blessing rests on you, it will transform your ‘average’ existence into a life of overflow. He teaches that we who are created in the image of God so we are little gods, since Gods do not give birth to other kinds of species any more than dogs do. So what we speak into being will occur, so we best speak into being the blessings of God.”

It is a compelling twist for people surrounded by what all the recording stars call the “blessing” of their wealth and what the the politicians call the “blessings” of democracy – everyone wants to get some of this American blessing! Meanwhile, Jesus looks suspiciously poor and unsuccessful. Meanwhile, when Jesus talks to the poor he says: How blessed are you who are poor, who hunger now, who weep now,…because great is your reward in heaven.

I definitely think we need to learn how to bless people. We are moved to participate in God’s creative activity by the Spirit of God who moves in us. But we dare not forget that it is God’s Spirit moving and whatever blessing we give is by God’s grace, not just a matter of dialing something up, as if we were qualified to commandeer God’s goodness. God speaks to us and names us and surrounds us. When God blesses us, he is speaking good – that good comes to us, it is called out of us, it creates and environment in which we can thrive.

Try it. People need a blessing.

I have never known anyone who found it easy to receive an authentic blessing from God. I remember one of my spiritual directors, tentatively but tenderly holding my shoulder as he prayed a blessing on me once. “May Rod know he is loved, beyond the lacks he feels, beyond the hurts he carries. May you reveal your tender love to him. In the name of Jesus, you are Rod the beloved of God.” Warmth flooded my body! My usual defenses began to melt and I sensed I was receiving that truth: I am the beloved of God! But almost immediately, it seemed, something in me kicked in and I was doubting what was going on. I inexplicably started to resist it.

The beginning of 4617 Woodland

It probably takes a half an hour a day, for who knows how long – maybe years for some of us — to listen long enough to God’s blessing: “You are my beloved child. I am pleased with you,” before we actual receive that message. To be blessed is not fast food – you can’t drive up to the window, demand your blessing, get it, and then drive through to your next success. It is a discipline of being transformed. God is takes a broken, bent up, corrupted creation and, according to its own design, brings it back to goodness, blesses it. It is like what Gwen and I and many friends have been doing with 4617 Woodland. We have been pouring ourselves and our riches into the new house where Circle Counseling will live – we are “blessing” that ruined building and transforming it. It takes time and effort. God wants to rehab us by blessing us with her presence and her wealth.

But even when we are good at it receiving this, there is so often the voice of contradiction that tells us we are cursed. God speaks well of us, or someone else does, and we say inside, “If you only knew.” I’ve got news for you – we know. You cannot hide how messed up you are. God knows very well and we know most of it too — we can see how banged up you are and we are going to speak well of you anyway.

How to bless someone else.

So you know something of what a blessing is: to speak well, to and of and over people. And you are at work to receive that blessing from God. Here’s the final thing and the point I wanted to get to: how does one bless others?

When I was a little kid I was taught an old song about blessing others. It was written in 1924, so it was about as old when it got to me as early Beatles songs are to Sadie Petersen. I’ve always remembered it — so let’s teach Sadie some good songs, too! It is called “Make Me a Blessing.” I couldn’t remember all the words, so I looked it up. If you know it, sing it with me:

Out on the highways and byways of life, Many are the weary and sad;
Carry the sunshine where darkness is rife, Making the sorrowing glad.

Make me a blessing, make me a blessing; Out of my life may Jesus shine.
Make me a blessing, O Saviour I pray, Make me a blessing to someone today.

That might sound a tad sentimental to most of us, since it is apparently part of this generation’s birthright to be responsible for no one but themselves and to be alienated about their chosen alienation. But the song shows the essential discipline for how to bless someone: you want to do it and you ask God to do it through you.

It happens just like I have been talking about, just like God does it and how God does it to us.

First, to bless someone, speak well to them

There is some power in our words. They can create or destroy. You may have heard what James said to the first believers: James 3:9-10 “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. …This should not be.” We need to determine to say good things to people.

“You are a good friend. You are a good person. Your hair is beautiful. You are God’s child. You are a gifted leader. You just spoke well to me. I love what you are trying to do here.” These are easy blessings. But they still take discipline.

One reason they take determination might be because you question your motives, or you listen when others question you. “Am I being dishonest about my true feelings? Won’t I be living a lie? I’m really mad – what if I just let that go? I’m bored – if I’m nice, will they stay around? I’m unsatisfied – I don’t want them to give up trying.” Blessing people is not for the shallow or the spiritually faint of heart. It takes heart muscles. It might take suffering to speak good to another person.

Second to bless someone, speak well of them

You call out the best in others, you strengthen what is good when you name it and bless it by setting it apart as notable, noble, holy. Proverbs 25:11 days, “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” At the end of Proverbs the family is blessing mom: Proverbs 31:28-9 “Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:  [he says] ‘Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.’”

I don’t think anyone can get enough affirmation. We are on the edge of the cliff of curses ready to fall off into self-loathing, which we think is very realistic. When you speak well of me, in my hearing, I am blessed. When it gets back to me that you have spoken well of me when I cannot hear, it is like you are providing me a solid place to stand. It is person -building. It opens us up to our original goodness and reconnects us to the goodness of God.

Here’s few blessings from me (Who could use a blessing from you?):  Courtney has been an amazing addition to the office. Paul went to such lengths to make sure we were ready for drywall last week he got sick. Everyone, over ten people, who I asked to lead us during Holy Week said yes. You amazed me by coming up with more than our budgeted income so we can give a substantial amount for tsunami victims. Trevor Day has been a faithful cell leader for nearly four years. Dan Kayser has worked overtime to get plans for our new building done. It is really quite fun to bless. But it is not easy.

Blessing is not easy because we usually ask ourselves, “Am I being dishonest about these people to present just one side? Shouldn’t we get a balanced view?” No we don’t need a balanced view. Leave the news to Dan Rather. I don’t think anyone should be treated objectively at all. We can’t be “balanced.” We are to be loved. Jesus is so unbalanced he says: bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you (Luke 6). Peter teaches blessing as a discipline we practice:  Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing (1 Peter 3:9).  It will definitely take some effort. If we don’t make the effort we will probably lapse into cutting others down to build ourselves up – the most useless way to self-bless there is.

Finally, you bless someone by speaking well over them

This is kind of the “graduate school” of blessing. Isaac, son of Abraham, father of Jacob and Esau in the Old Testament beginnings of Israel, bestows his blessing on his heir in a very formal, irrevocable act of transmission of his power. “May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed” (Gen. 27).

People need to know they are blessed, that God is with them, that they are getting something spiritual and good. It is hard to receive these things. So if you stand in the place to give it, do it.

Yes, it does seem theatrical – the movies regularly make fun of people who do it. It does seem arrogant – but whenever you think, “Who am I to say this?” just say what you believe God wants to say, because all blessings flow from God. Maybe it seems a little grandiose? – but the blessing of God is grand, to feel surrounded by grace, endued with power is grand. We are grand. Why should we submit to what curses us? The blessing lifts it off and shields us from the power that would reduce us back to dirt. It is a very powerful weapon for good.

That’s why I wanted to encourage you to learn it, receive it and use it. Bless someone. Bless as many as you can. Will there always be results? No – for some the reception of the curse is deep. But quite often yes, quite visibly. Talk about that in your cell this week – name a time when you felt blessed by someone. It was probably a lovely moment, very worth sharing.

Fridays for the Future #10: My letter from Senator Casey

Climate, , ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future.

Jews Demand Senator Casey Hear the Call for Climate Action Now! -- Dayenu | PRLog
Click pic for news about the Dayenu demonstration in Philly in September

I wrote to Senator Bob Casey to ask him what he was doing about climate change. I’m not too interested in what he is saying about it. Two months later I received a letter back.  He said:

As a member of the Environmental Justice Caucus, I will continue to work with my colleagues to address the legacy of environmental injustice in frontline communities and to advance bold climate solutions that prioritize the health of our communities.

I looked up the Environmental Justice Caucus. They do have a Twitter account with less followers than I have. But I did not find out too much more. So that might not be going too far.

He also said,

If done properly, our national climate change policy will reduce greenhouse gas pollution to the levels scientifically proven necessary, while strengthening jobs, re-energizing the manufacturing sector in Pennsylvania, and revitalizing our Nation’s and the world’s economies. Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind as I continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate to develop legislation that will help Pennsylvania’s workers, economy, and environment.

National climate change policy?

I researched what the “national climate change policy” might be.

At the EPA  website I discovered Executive Order 14008 from January 27. Biden got going on climate change not long after he was inaugurated. One thing the EPA is doing “pursuant” to Biden’s order is figuring out how to best adapt to the climate disasters in progress such as fires and floods associated with extreme weather.

As far as Congress goes, it might just give me an anniversary present on Dec. 13 when Chuck Schumer intends to bring the Build Back Better bill up for a Senate vote. There is powerful opposition to some of the climate provisions, so we will see what happens. This would be a good time to talk to your senators. Here are some of those provisions:

  • The Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP) will pay utilities to switch from greenhouse gas-emitting electricity sources, such as coal and natural gas, to non-emitting sources such as wind, solar, hydropower and nuclear. New gas power plants could still be built if they have costly systems to capture their carbon emissions. But the plan mostly favors renewable and nuclear power. Coal would take the biggest hit. The plan would eliminate coal-fired electricity by 2030.
  • There is $13.5 billion in the bill for more electric vehicle charging stations and for the conversion of trucks to electric. This investment, combined with a proposed $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles, could mean 61% of total vehicles sales in 2030 would be EVs.
  • There is also a proposed fee on methane, or natural gas, that’s a big concern for oil companies.
Click pic for FoodTank article

Senator Casey?

He is a sure vote for Build Back Better

About a year ago Casey was on a 300-person Zoom hookup sponsored by PennEnvironment, a statewide environmental organization. There were a couple of things he emphasized that show what he is interested in doing:

  • “Agriculture is the top Pennsylvania industry and our farmers are dealing with floods, drought and pests as the front-line managers of land in the state. Forty-eight of the 67 counties are considered rural, so it’s essential to have our farmers at the table and have their support for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
  • Many participants on the call voiced their opposition to hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” in the state’s Marcellus and Utica shale gas regions (PennEnvironment wants it banned). Senator Casey will not talk about banning it, but said, “I support responsible gas extraction, including tough regulation at the federal and state levels and the resources that that level of regulation requires.” He has repeatedly offered the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act for approval since 2009, which would require oil and gas companies to disclose chemicals used in the fracking process and allow the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate and monitor those operations. It has not passed.

This year 

  • Senator Casey introduced the Restore Environmental Vitality and Improve Volatile Economy by the Civilian Conservation Corps of 2021, or the REVIVE the CCC Act (S.2414). He wants to revitalize the 1930s-era Civilian Conservation Corps into a modern-day employment, job training and conservation program. The act would advance efforts to tackle the climate crisis while creating well-paying, quality conservation jobs that “protect and restore waterways, working lands and the health and resiliency of our rural and urban communities. My legislation would renew vital efforts to bring conservation jobs to our communities, invest in our local economies and ensure farmers continue to play a critical role in climate change mitigation. It is past time for us to take action to address the climate crisis and create jobs while we do it,”
  • I was interested in the groups listed as sponsors of his bill. I am especially interested in the two groups of evangelicals and the two groups of farmers.

“The REVIVE the CCC Act is endorsed by: Accompanying Returning Citizens with Hope, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Evangelical Environmental Network, Forest Hills Borough Council, Keystone Research Center, National Wildlife Federation, National Young Farmers Coalition, PASA Sustaintable Agriculture, PennFuture, ReImagine Appalachia Coalition, The Corps Network, West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy and Young Evangelicals for Climate Action.”

I hope you already understand more about the process of government than I do. I am convinced that its monopoly on power either helps the planet recover or propels us into deeper disaster. So I am trying to understand.

As a Jesus follower, I think it is my duty to care. So I am wondering how to do that in new ways, since my church does not appear to be super-interested (and that may be typical of most churches). There are many organizations that do care, however. I have already joined a few in a small way. If I want to be part of getting Senator Casey’s attention, it is apparently better to come in the name of a group of like-minded people.

Jesus Collective is taking us back to the future on the “third way”

A life in the Spirit, Life as the church, , , ,

Jesus Collective is having a hard time keeping their “third way” idea from sinking into the polarization that dominates North American thinking these days. Here’s a podcast that reveals the struggle.

I think some Christians, likely more “progressive” types,  might bristle when they brush up against Jesus Collective and hear “third way.” They might think we refer to more third way politics, which is an idea common enough to have its own Wikipedia page.

A third way approach to politics is probably why “the squad” is usually frustrated with Joe Biden who practices a kind of centrism which tries to  reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by synthesizing elements of center-right economics with some center-left social policies — a third way between the binaries.  Some elements of the church have been meandering through the minefields of post-modern discourse for some time with this third way political approach. It feels tepid to much of the new generation.  The newest regimes are busy deconstructing entrenched compromises that perpetuate evils like white supremacy and heteronormativity.

At its best, the “third way” Jesus Collective is talking about is older and newer than finally taking a side within the politics of the present era. The best way of Jesus is not one side or another in the endless arguments of the world and not a tepid way of conflict avoidance down the middle. It is a transcendent way of love following Jesus in his death and resurrection.

Click pic for James Emery White post

A new flowering of the third way

There is a new generation of leaders in the church, worldwide, who have taken the Third Way baton from thinkers in the 1970’s, who were experiencing what some people name the “fourth great awakening” in the United States. In his famous book, The Dust of Death (1973), Os Guinness said,

How often in the contemporary discussion a sensitive modern man knows that he cannot accept either of the polarised alternatives offered to him. In Christianity, however, there can be a Third Way, a true middle ground which has a basis, is never compromise and is far from silent.

Jesus Collective is fond of referring to Paul Hiebert and his 1978 application of “bounded” and “fuzzy” sets to human groups and proposing the church as a different, or third, kind of set: a “centered” set. Heibert, the great missionary and practical theologian, suggested rather than staying stuck in a Western, left-brain-dominated prison, Christianity needed to be released to regain its natural dynamism and allow everyone, as it traditionally had, to be a part of the movement toward Jesus as their definition of belonging rather than a set of superficial and static identity markers.

The new leaders carrying this old baton are running into a difficult world. It is hard to say where the politics of the world is moving right now. It seems hopelessly polarized. No one knows what to do. In some sense, the politics all seem very new, since the world has never been so united by common media, by huge technologies, by a pandemic and by climate change. But something very old is at work, too. An authoritarian spirit has often accompanied social disruption throughout history. It is here again. Leaders are promising troubled people a return to what was, or a reform to what should be — promises of safety sure to disappoint.

I think Gerald L. Sittser in his book, Resilient Faith: How the Early Christian “Third Way” Changed the World (2019) helps people who only know third way politics to understand third way Christianity — a way that transcends whatever are the most common ways the godless world relies on and presents an alternative way.

Sittser says the Christian alternative,  the new or “third” way, was first identified in a second-century letter written to a Roman official named Diognetus. You can read it, here. In this letter, an anonymous apologist is trying to explain the essence Diognetus has noticed in this new people group expanding across the Roman Empire. Other people were writing similar things at the time but this letter is the first, extant piece that alludes to a “third way:”

You want to know, for instance, what God they believe in and how they worship him, while at the same time they disregard the world and look down on death, and how it is that they do not treat the divinities of the Greeks as gods at all, although on the other hand they do not follow the superstition of the Jews. You would also like to know the source of the loving affection that they have for each other. You wonder, too, why this new race or way of life has appeared on earth now and not earlier.

When the author uses the word “genos” to describe the “new race or way of life” of the Jesus followers, it is a bit hard to translate since the word has some dynamism to it, much like the movement Hiebert sees in his centered sets. Jesus followers are a people defined by how they were born and where they are going. They don’t match the definitions of the present age. They are born and live just as the Apostle John said:

[Jesus] was in the world (a fuzzy set), and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own (a bounded set), and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name (a centered set), he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:10-13)

The way of Jesus in the second century was noticeably in contrast to the Roman way (the first way) and the Jewish way (the second way) which Romans respected. Neither of these distinctive features of the church lasted, unfortunately, and the “third way” became a persistent minority in the church at large. At least in Europe, the church became Rome and reinstated the imagery of the sacrificial system of the Jews along with its legalism. But at the time Diognetus received the letter, these things were not yet true. He was a Roman searching out the way of Jesus which is presented as a new or third way.

What makes the third way an ongoing new way?

Many people are talking about the third way these days, which is why Jesus Collective is being found by people all over the world. In every denomination and nation people are seeing beyond what polarizes them, moving toward Jesus, and travelling with others on the way. Many people are teaching what the third way means. Here are three of its distinctives I can name for you.

  • The Third Way is about a transcendent destination

Sittser says

Christians believed in the reality of another and greater kingdom over which God ruled. It was a spiritual kingdom—not of this world, but certainly over this world as superior and supreme, for this world’s redemption, and in this world as a force for ultimate and eternal good.

Moving with Charles Taylor here, Jesus followers have an appreciation for what lies outside the immanent frame of modernity.  With a nod to Iain McGilchrist, they are not in bondage to the left-brain philosophies and practices associated with scientism and capitalism. Like James (4:4) says, “Friendship with the world is enmity with God.” Having a relationship with Jesus conditioned by the ways of the world is unsustainable.

  • The Third Way is a movement

Like the sun overwhelms the lesser light of the moon and stars, God’s kingdom transcends lesser authorities. This revelation can only be known if one is moving toward the center. One day, mercy and justice will be revealed to all. Now is the time to move with the light we have toward that glorious day.

I don’t totally understand this chart, but i feel it.

Heibert struggled for a way to help people out of their static orientation when it came to knowing God:

Centered sets are dynamic sets. Two types of movements are essential parts of their structure. First, it is possible to change direction—to turn from moving away to moving towards the center, from being outside to being inside the set. Second, because all objects are seen in constant motion, they are moving, fast or slowly, towards or away from the center. Something is always happening to an object. It is never static.

Illustrations of centered sets are harder to come by in English, for English sees the world largely in terms of bounded sets. One example is a magnetic field in which particles are in motion. Electrons are those particles which are drawn towards the positive magnetic pole, and protons are those attracted by the negative pole.

Much of Christianity and most of postmodernism is bound by definitions and power struggles about purity. Heibert was struggling to present a deeper picture. I think he is moving with the Apostle Paul, who writes to the Corinthian church:

 Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God [here are those three ways again],  just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, so that they may be saved. (1 Cor. 10:32-3)

He is not trying to find a secure place in a well-defined and protected territory, he is moving with the mission of Jesus.

  • The Third Way is fueled by a passionate motivation

Love is deeper than righteousness. The Apostle Paul struggles to get this across in his letters. To the first way Romans he writes:

“I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-9).

That is the subversive conviction that undermined the authoritarian Roman Empire.

To the second way Judaizers in Galatia he writes,

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”

We always need to keep ourselves reminded that law condemns but love forgives. Law makes for fuzzy or bounded sets, but love is the centering impulse of the Lord.

If love for Jesus and others, love from Jesus and others, does not hold the church together, there is no center, nothing to keep it together and moving together. It is only a fuzzy or bounded set and has rejoined the way of the world at the cost of the Word. The growing, new understanding of the Third Way which was so humbly powerful in the Early Church is still the best way to move with Jesus through this troubled time.

Fridays for the Future #9: The joy of climate action

Climate, , , , ,

Posting every Friday at noon is how I act in solidarity with young climate strikers all over the world who want their elders to save their future.

Climate change is like a dark cloud hanging over every week. We try not to see the changes when they roll in like stormfronts; we try to make them coincidental; we are tempted to call all truth about climate change fake news. But it is hard to hold back the flood of reality. Sometimes the truth comes in the form of a 100 year flood, like the one we had five years ago!

Climate change is depressing. But climate action can be full of joy and wonder, even hope!

Stormclouds and lightbeams

I recently read a book called The Sea Is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook by Cynthia Kaufman and Bill McKibben. Kaufman is a community organizer (and she teaches people how to organize!). Along with her several books, she has written about social justice at Common Dreams. Bill McKibben received the Right Livelihood Prize for The End of Nature. He is the founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement.

Their book is blunt-spoken, succinct and well-researched. They lay out what we are up against with climate change in all its depressing peril and perfidy. But they spend most of the book on what we can do about it. They painstakingly include what fine people are actually doing, all around the world, to fight for the future of the earth.

If you have not read a book on the most important subject in your lifetime, apart from  following Jesus, this would be a good place to start. These two paragraphs give you a good idea of their core message.

Those of us close to the world of climate action know that huge changes are already happening [in response], as cities develop sustainable and egalitarian systems of transportation, as countries invest in renewable energy, and as regenerative agriculture is developing. But we also know that those better systems won’t naturally “outcompete” the fossil fuel–based ones for as long as our political systems remain captured by the forces of free market capitalism. As we will explore further in chapter 2, capitalism is a social arrangement that allows major social decisions to be made by for-profit businesses, those businesses operate through markets which are shaped by those with power, and it allows “externalities,” such as fossil fuel companies being able to use our atmosphere as a dumping ground for greenhouse gases.

We know that to get the changes needed, at the speed and scale we need, governments will have to be captured by those interested in a just transition to a sustainable society which serves human needs. And while that may seem wildly unimaginable, especially in the US, where our government is controlled by the interests of the 1 percent, something like this has happened before and it needs to happen again.

“Sustainable” and “egalitarian” vs. “capitalism” and “1 percent” may cause those paragraphs to feel good to you or feel out of your normality. But it might be time to stop ignoring the realities of the moment and get into the dialogue about what to do. It is a new climate out there and it is changing rapidly. We are living in it, not in a media-induced argument.

The joy of bus rapid transit

One of the many examples of creativity and invention noted in the book comes from the city of Curitiba, Brazil. Mayor Jaime Lerner, a trained architect, successfully argued that expensive subways were designed for the wealthy and the city needed to do something cheaper and better. He famously said, “if you want creativity, cut one zero from the budget. If you want sustainability cut two zeros.” He moved the discussion in his city from the idea of expensive trains and polluting cars, to making buses into something that really work.

Over two million people a day ride Curitiba’s system, and more than two hundred cities in the world now have bus rapid transit. What’s more, in 2018 the country of Luxemburg made all public transportation free. Last week, Joe Biden signed the infrastructure package that includes billions to increase the number of public charging stations for electric vehicles. The package yet to pass includes subsidies for EV purchases. People are doing things!

At the end of their book the authors do a little cheerleading.

The alternative to  playing out our trauma by living online and trying to win the Oppression Olympics, is to focus on the bigger picture of the beloved world we are trying to create and to try as much as possible to enact that world in our work to get there.

I did not note too much overt Christianity in Kaufman’s and McKibben’s book. But that last bit sounds like some pretty good theology, doesn’t it? Jesus followers can look into the future with confidence no matter what happens. That security frees us to be the presence of that future in a troubled world with real joy.