A United Methodist Insight Column
How do we find the spiritual and emotional strength to persevere in the midst of a global climate emergency that grows worse each day? That’s a question to ponder during the month-long ecumenical “Season of Creation” observance now underway. A new book “All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis” — may be able to help in unexpected ways.
All We Can Save
Cover of "All We Can Save" (UM Insight Screen Shot)
Washington Post writer Sarah Kaplan reviewed the collection of essays, poetry and art created by 41 women in the climate movement. The book is scheduled for release Sept. 22, while “Season of Creation” is still going on.
Ms. Kaplan writes: “I contacted the anthology’s editors, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist, policy expert and podcast host, and Katharine Wilkinson, editor in chief of the climate solutions nonprofit Project Drawdown. After reading 41 reflections on Earth’s altered future and editing 41 arguments for not giving up, I figured they would know better than anyone what it takes to be hopeful.”
It turns out that the editors surprised Ms. Kaplan. Instead of merely having hope, Ms. Johnson and Ms. Wilkinson favor becoming fully engaged and active in efforts to change the human activities that science has found are fueling the climate emergency. The editors say that the book’s subtitle answers the question, “If not hope, then what?” The subtitle says: “Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis.”
Even though we may think we can’t bear one more loss in an already unbearable year, Ms. Wilkinson counsels us to open ourselves up to the grief of climate emergency – a mass extinction event that’s killing off plants, animals and people.
“One of the things that I’ve found really helpful is to create the time and the space to really feel the grief … and then rise back out of it,” Ms. Wilkinson said to Ms. Kaplan in an interview. “Sometimes when we just sort of shove the grief to the side, or stuff it down, it ends up creating this kind of malaise. And I think there is something about that willingness to go there that actually then lets you kind of move with more energy out the other side.”
In faith-speak, we call this act “lamentation.” Just as we’ve been lamenting the scourge of racism, we also can lament what the climate emergency is doing to the planet of which we’re supposed to be God’s stewards. The key is not to let ourselves wallow in grief, but to move through it until we resolve to do what we can to reverse the climate emergency before it’s too late.
Ms. Wilkinson and Ms. Johnson give more examples of perseverance in the Washington Post interview, and we commend it to your reading. Sorry it’s behind a paywall, but it’s worth the price of admission.
Ban on evictions announced
As you may have already heard, there’s news from the coronavirus eviction front we mentioned on Aug. 31: an NPR report, CDC Issues Sweeping Temporary Halt On Evictions Nationwide Amid Pandemic. The edict, which bans evictions through December, is getting mixed responses, however, because it doesn’t include any way for landlords to recoup lost rent, which often is translated immediately into mortgage payments on rental buildings.
NPR’s Chris Arnold reports: “The new eviction ban is being enacted through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The goal is to stem the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak, which the agency says in its order ‘presents a historic threat to public health.’
“It's by far the most sweeping move yet by the administration to try to head off a looming wave of evictions of people who have lost their jobs or taken a major blow to their income because of the pandemic. Housing advocates and landlord groups both have been warning that millions of people could soon be put out of their homes through eviction if Congress does not do more to help renters and landlords and reinstate expanded unemployment benefits.”
At least now there’s something of a breather about evictions. Here’s hoping Congress does something soon about the situation. The General Board of Church and Society has a webinar video on imagining a post-COVID-19 economy that recommends contacting your local representatives to urge action on the pandemic. As of Aug 31, NPR reported,”more than 6 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus and some 183,000 have died from it, according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.”
Meanwhile, the eviction ban means that churches will be able to shift their local aid from rent support to food assistance, which is the “other shoe” of the economic upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Church and Society has a COVID-19 video on food insecurity as well.
Media Mentions as of Sept. 2
Maine pastor defiant about outbreak as anxiety increases in Sanford – The Portland Press Herald *
With science and scripture, a Baltimore pastor is fighting COVID-19 vaccine skepticism – Stat
Pope Francis makes a heartfelt appeal for the environment: 'Creation is groaning!' – Religion News Service
*Paid subscription required.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.