Earth Day

After 5 and a half years here at my current congregations, I was introduced yesterday.  A dear friend of mine who is an elder in the Skagit Tribe, visited us, and he introduced me to the congregation in such a way that they could get a glimpse of who I am—from his perspective.  He asked me questions and I answered.  He asked me what gives me joy.  I responded by describing one of his own paintings (he is an accomplished artist) depicting his great-grandfather.  When I see that painting, it looks to me like his ancestor is one with the world around him.  In the painting, there is only one world full of many kin, human and otherwise.

Earth Day began because western European culture doesn’t see humanity as part of the one world.  Split off from it, we have to choose to care for it—or not.  Either way, it’s “out there,” not “in here.”  It is essentially “other.”  We are slowly becoming aware that what happens to what is “out there” also happens to us.  Earth Day is a commitment to do something “out there,” so that we all can be OK in the long run.

That’s a noble and important thought, but incomplete until we put ourselves in the same category as what is now “out there.”  My Skagit friend says it well when he says, “We’re all Indigenous—to the planet!”  So go plant a tree, walk in the mountains, go out on the water, or whatever you are going to do for Earth Day, but know that it is your own soul you plant, it is your own bones you walk upon and it is your own blood you float on.

Elephants

Last week I attended a lunch engagement arranged by a mutual friend.  He wanted me to meet someone who had spent some time in Ecuador.  When I arrived, introductions were made, and then the man in question asked me right out, “Do you know a man named ‘…’?”  “Yes,” I told him, “I grew up with “….”  He had met my childhood friend on several trips to Ecuador and worked with him on some innovative ways for Indigenous people to protect the environment.  ‘…’ has always had an innovative mind, a clear sense of power-flow in political systems, and a willingness to push the envelope.  It didn’t surprise me at all.

He is also not afraid of elephants.  He was raised among an Indigenous people in the Amazon region of Ecuador, who claim him as one of their own.  He told me he learned not to be afraid of seemingly impossibly big tasks when a tribal elder gathered him and a number of other young men around a fallen jungle tree.  It was enormous.  It had lain on the jungle floor for decades, but a quick check with an axe showed that beneath only 6 inches of rot was sound wood.  It would make a fantastic canoe!  Many long and arduous days later, a full 50-footer was hauled out of the jungle and shoved into the water.  As big as an elephant?  Go for it!

He took on his own lack of resources and launched a successful eco-tour business, employing members of the tribe.  Then he took on the oil business’s decidedly eco-toxic practices—and won a name for himself in the halls of government and the press.  He started selling carbon credits to large international corporations to raise money for his community endeavors to help his people.  Then he claimed a million acres of still-pristine forest along the eastern slope of the Andes, all the way to Colombia, and won rights to protect it—as a tribe.  He has emerged as the tribe’s undisputed chief.  His wife is now transplanting and documenting native plants that the Indigenous people utilize for various purposes on a new farm they just bought.  So far she has well over 150.

I find it easy to look at the situation in Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Sudan, and in Washington D.C. and see herds of rampaging elephants.  ‘…’ reminds me not to be afraid, but to do what we can do, innovatively, compassionately, and passionately.

Let’s not be afraid of elephants.

Eclipse

Two of my sons and their families are gathered today at my sister’s house in the Dallas area, hoping to get a glimpse of the solar eclipse through predicted clouds.  I’ve seen partial eclipses before, and it’s always spooky to get a bit of night invading the day, only to retreat once more.  The word, “eclipse,” however, is decidedly earth-centered.  If you were standing on the moon watching this, you might see a trail of a shadow tracing across the face of the planet, but it wouldn’t “eclipse” any of your experience.  We stand on the earth, however, where the whole of the sun is blocked out, and night and day get mixed up with one another.  For us the moon eclipses the sun.

Point of view is hugely determining of everything we say and do.  Where we stand in the universe, who and what our references points are, our cultural context, our racial heritage, our history, all converge to create a world we and ours live in.  Others, however, live in a different constellation of these things.  What happens when a dominant such world eclipses another by the social structures they create for both with only themselves as referents?  Just like the celestial bodies and the earth, what it looks like depends on where you stand.  It is notoriously hard for the eclipser to understand the experience of the eclipsed.  We call it racism, but it is so much more than color of skin.  It’s world against world.

And that’s a human tragedy every time the word “against” describes the relationship.  What if instead, the dominant world took the time to try to glimpse, ever so slightly, into other worlds?  What if a self-imposed eclipsing was made, such that the worlds of others might enrich rather than challenge?

I know it can be done.  I live in two worlds all the time.  I’ve seen it happen between people.  I believe that it MUST be done, or we will continue to needlessly destroy one another, leaving only draconian impoverishment in our wake.

Faith Made Custom

Many years ago, I saw a sign on a church in northern Peru that read, “Faith Made Custom,” (La Fe Hecha Costumbre.) It was something I brought up to members of the clergy of the Anglican Diocese of Mexico in a retreat last week. The theme of the retreat was “Faith and Culture.” These people are careful thinkers, committed to their work, often working on limited resources, and fun to be with. They caught sight of the issue immediately. If faith practice is woven into the customs of a people, the symbols of the faith are rooted in native cultural soil and people have little difficulty understanding them. However, if faith practice is woven into the customs of one’s people, how can the faith community be a voice of critique?

The actual reality is a bit more complex. Christianity, a missionary tradition from the very beginning, has sought to enculturate the message of Jesus Christ around the world. The missionaries themselves were most often least capable of doing this, but the first generations of believers did it automatically. Rather than silence the prophetic voice, it gave it legitimacy. Just as Jesus critiqued the Judaism of his day from within that very tradition, these clergy are critiquing the practices of Mexico’s institutions, practices and customs from within. They are not interested in shepherding people whose faith practice is merely a prop for practices that are really unconscious cultural expression. They want to invite their faithful into a faithful critique, loving and challenging their cultural identity at the same time.

In the nation I live in now Christian Nationalism is alive and growing. In some I’m sure it is subconscious, but there are many in power for whom it is an overt agenda. Christian Nationalism makes the Christian faith into a blind pretext for political agendas, “Faith Made Custom” as an opiate of the people. The Church should stand up and say, “Give me liberty or give me death!”

War as Failure

We have all been shocked by the sudden descent into violence between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip. Pundits have bravely stood up and demonized one side or the other (which actually is quite cowardly.) Calls for peace have come from surprising quarters and strange bedfellows. But a step back is always wise in these times.

First, this is not the only place war is being waged. Ukraine continues to dominate the headlines, only because Central Africa is not as economically significant to us and the people at war don’t look like the powerful in the world. Central America is a powder keg, with violence erupting in Guatemala. Venezuela is almost collapsing. The website Wisevoter.com (https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/countries-currently-at-war/) lists 32 wars being waged in the world today.

Second, many of these are ancient wars. The struggle in Ukraine dates back centuries; in the Middle East, millennia. We’ve been round this block before. We should remember that it always ends with one side winning and one side losing until the losers can rise to power and maybe become the winners next time. In the long run, nobody wins. War is always a failure, a short-term solution to long-term ends.

Until humanity finally owns this, we pray for the victims, whoever they are, the dead, dying, suffering and mourning. We carry in our hearts the pain of the world. Maybe that will stir our memories enough to find a way off this trainwreck.

Turning of the World

Today was the first day of the Fall when the experienced time of day was shorter than 12 hours. The fact that we actually experience more daylight than dark on the equinox is due to the curvature the earth’s atmosphere and applies to every day of the year. We only notice it at these two points in the calendar. So experientially, last night was the lived equinox.

Darkness gathers at the expense of light. Cold gathers at the expense of heat. The world turns. Our world seems to be turning to cold and darkness, as pundits pontificate confusion and social agendas threaten the good of the whole with impunity. World-wide division of such magnitude feels rare compared to so much of my life. Darkness and light. Cold and heat. Pendulum swings silently by the center unnoticed.

What if there were a center where all is still, where darkness and light, cold and heat, are both present, where the pendulum is still? Maybe this center is the very heart of God, and the arc of the pendulum God’s heartbeat, an anchored perpetual imbalance from which life itself springs.

Music

Music is an enormous part of religious practice. It’s an in-my-face issue right now since we lost our music director and I am choosing hymns for Sunday morning worship. I’ve not had to do that since seminary days. It’s a lot of work! Though I am beating the bushes as hard as I can for a replacement, nobody is stepping forward. Churches that do not have a budget sufficient to pay much are low on the priority list for musicians seeking work. There may be Sundays when we sing acapella.

Some churches sing acapella by tradition. Other traditions utilize chant or other forms of music. It’s like you can’t practice a religious tradition without involving music somehow. It is popularly attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo, that great Doctor of the Church to have said, “He who sings prays twice.” I have not found it in any of his writings, but the experience is accurate, whoever said it. Music moves us on many levels.

I like the Hindu idea of “Ohm,” the original sound, that resonates with the essential vibrations of the universe. Perhaps music in worship is just a harmonic of that.

Desperately Poor

I’m in Honduras—again. I come every year. My goddaughter has two daughters who call me “abuelo,” (grandfather,) and the older, bolder one is always demonstratively affectionate. The younger one is shyer and takes her time. Both of them warm my heart.

They are happy, well-adjusted kids who live in one of the poorest areas of the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere. But they have no concept that a day’s wage here is less than $10, and that only 1% of the population has access to advanced medical care. It doesn’t come up on their radar that many of their classmates will hook up with someone in their teens, and when the second baby comes along, will find themselves living back at home with no means of making a living. They hear about, but don’t understand, the number of people who leave Honduras to go to the U.S. to work, and how many of them will never be seen again.

Compared to my standard of living, they are poor, but they are not desperate. I know people who are desperate and have a lot more money than I have. What is it like to feel oneself pressed to the edge of the precipice, desperate for a change of fortune but with no sense of control? Perhaps these are truly the desperately poor.

Unless there is a sense of agency (the inner strength and the outer opportunity) to step back from the precipice, desperation will continue to impoverish the human experience.

Home

I leave on Sunday for 10 days in Honduras. I look forward to this trip every year. I see old friends and make new ones, I visit my goddaughter and her family, and we do good work while we are there. We take medical care to remote villages in the area we serve. In many ways it reminds me of my youth in tropical western Ecuador. In other ways it is different enough to feel like I’ve not quite gone home.

I go other places in Latin America as well, each with their flavor and their common ground. Some of that common ground is shared here in the Pacific Northwest, though differences are also apparent. Differences change faster than the grounding on which they depend. I suppose that is why you can never really go home again.

But if “home” is in the grounding, then perhaps you never really leave home.

Life

Several months back I bought some native flowering shrubs for my house. The man at the nursery told me to cut all the limbs off at about 15 inches before I planted them. I asked if I could root the cuttings, and he reluctantly agreed it might work. I put some root stimulant in a bucket of water and stood the cuttings up in it. In a couple of months they started to show little white rootlets at leaf-bases below the waterline. Now I have 15 new starts in the ground. I have no idea how many of them will make it, but their buds are green. I’m amazed once again at the sheer power of life. Given the right circumstances, life flourishes. Given the right circumstances I would like to think that anyone and anything will flourish. Inner circumstances require that there be that inexplicable spark contained within, and not too many adverse dis-eases to corrupt it. Outer circumstances need to provide those few things not available within. It might take months, years, decades or maybe even centuries, but life will grow again.

I think of the Native tribes close to where I live. The parents of my generation were sent off to boarding schools whose whole purpose was to strip them culturally naked, sometimes in most brutal and inhumane ways, resulting in broken and empty communities with few external resources and fewer within. Now they are recapturing their unique understanding of the world, resurrecting their languages, and amassing significant political and financial clout.

If life draws from the Mystery behind the universe, I am amazed but not surprised.