Background Setting for Conversations that Matter

Nancy Wales, CSK on behalf of the Federation Ecology Committee

As we know, the various regional hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have concluded and the Royal Commission has released its final report. This comprehensive report offered its potentially impactful and transformative recommendations as 94 Calls to Acton. The Calls to Acton provided “a general handbook on how to achieve reconciliation within Canada.” Lenard Monkman, CBC NEWS

No doubt, our exposure to Survivors’ stories opens our minds and softens our hearts to the unimaginable and horrendous experience of many of the Residential School attendees. How-ever, coming to grips with the ongoing events of our shared Canadian history will require much more than just learning about the legacy of residential schools.

Owning our past calls us to create a shared future, which is “a multi-faceted process that restores lands, economic self-sufficiency, and political jurisdiction to First Nations and develops a respectful and just relationship between First Nations and Canada.”  Centre for First Nations Governance

It is apparent that the task ahead is monumental both in size and significance. However, it’s important to keep in mind the words of Lao Tzu, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

An Important Step: Face to Face Conversations

Reflecting on what reconciliation means to me, and us, collectively, it seemed important to have a conversation with 2, local respected elders. Sister Margo and I met Dan and Mary Lou Smoke while working on a local T and R initiative.

In our visit with them, in their home, Sister Margo and I felt their hospitality and enjoyed Kana’talako Indian Cookies and lemonade. I came away from our time together knowing a little more of their personal journey of discovering their cultural roots with its rich ceremonies and traditional wisdom.

Dan is encouraged that following the process of the Royal Commission and the release of its Calls to Acton there has been an evident surge in interest among Canadians to become more familiar with the history, diversity, and richness of First Nations peoples.

It is significant to him that Western University’s Senate, among other bodies, decided to include the naming of traditional territorial lands on which the group gathers for events. I came away realizing the importance of this simple act as a way to include, recognize, and honour our Indigenous Peoples.

However, Dan laments that 100+ natve communites remain without access to clean drinking water.

Furthermore, in neighbouring Delaware, ON plans are underway to build a new waste water treatment plant which raises concerns for him about the future water quality from the Thames River. This is the source of drinking water for London’s 3 neighbouring reserves, Thames First Nation, Oneida Nation, and Munsee-Delaware Nation.

Does this water crisis of which Dan spoke not raise our group conscience for the need for us to contact our local government representatives to apply public pressure to initiate concrete steps to rectify the intolerable situation faced by boil water communities? Our founding charism of unity and reconciliation urges us to assume our personal responsibility in bringing about the necessary healing of the rupture in relationships between individuals of First Nations or Settlers heritage.

Face to face conversations with our First Nations sisters and brothers offer us opportunities to see our mutual history and shared future from new perspectives.

Dan and Mary Lou encouraged us to visit nearby reserves assuring us that we would be most welcomed. Many communities have gift shops and restaurants where we could begin our conversations. Let us embrace Dan and Mary Lou’s invitation and continue to walk toward reconciliation and right relationships.

“Concern for Our Fine Feathered Friends: To Bee or Not to Be”

Kathleen O’Keefe CSJ on behalf of the Ecology Committee 

“Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures, are dependent on one another” (Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, #42).

As E.O. Wilson puts it, humans have “an innate affinity with nature.”  We are to interact with the natural world with a profound sense of wonder and awe, along with deep appreciation to our Creator God.  In creation, there is “an order and a dynamism that human beings have no right to ignore” (L.S., #221).  “We cannot interfere in one area of the ecosystem without paying due attention to the consequences of such interference in other areas …” (L.S., #130-131).

In my research, I learned that there is a need to be able to assess the state of the environment and to use sensitive indicators to do so.  Both birds and bees act as “the canary in the coal mine” in terrestrial ecosystems.  Bird and bee monitoring have become essential parts of our adaptation to our changing global circumstances.

“The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all” (L.S., #23).

 On the David Suzuki Foundation website, I read that living beings, including birds and bees, “are moving, adapting and in some cases dying as a direct or indirect result of environmental shifts associated with our changing climate — disrupting intricate interactions among species with profound implications for the natural systems on which humans depend.”

The Nature Canada website stated that “climate change can alter distribution, abundance, behavior and genetic composition of birds” and, can affect the “timing of events like migration or breeding.”  Habitat loss and alien invasive species make matters worse for birds.  Extinction risks increase as a mismatch of birds and their environment takes place.

“How many songbirds would there be without the berries that result from pollination by bees?”  Laurence Packer’s book, “Keeping the Bees” sheds light on this important topic.  Climate change is affecting pollination by disrupting the synchronized timing at which bees pollinate.  Flowers are blooming earlier in the growing season due to rising temperatures, before many bees have a chance at pollinating the plants.  Thus, when bees finally begin pollination there is limited nectar available and competition for these valuable resources becomes more intense.

A report from Health Canada reveals that the bee population is in real danger due to the use of “new highly toxic systemic pesticides in agriculture.”  We need bees for their role in pollinating many food crops on which we depend.  David Suzuki declares, “bees are responsible for about one third of our food supply, and the consequences of not taking action to protect them are frightening.”

Pope Francis challenges each person alive today with these words: “Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generations is first and foremost up to us” (L.S., #160).  He urges us to become a part of the “bold cultural revolution.”

 Suggested Resource: 

“On care for our common home:  A dialogue guide for Laudato Si’’ Written by Janet Sommerville and William F. Ryan SJ with Anne O’Brien GSIC and Anne-Marie Jackson.  Ottawa:  St. Joseph Communications, 2016.

Living into Sabbath

Mary Rowell CSJ on behalf of the Ecology Committee

The season of Winter calls us to quiet waiting on life hidden in the dark earth. The liturgical season of Advent similarly invites stillness as we await the re- birth of Christ in our hearts and world; Christ ever-present and yet to come.

The Biblical Tradition echoes the patterns of Earth. Wendell Berry says the Tradition “elevates just stopping above physiological necessity, makes it a requirement, an observance of the greatest dignity and mystery”. It is called, Sabbath. Sabbath is an essential part of the evolutionary and spiritual process. It is a time set aside to honour creation according to the very patterns of creation. We humans must make a choice. Berry asks, “Will we choose to participate by working in accordance with the world’s originating principles, in recognition of its inherent goodness and its maker’s approval of it, in gratitude for our membership in it, or will we participate by destroying it in accordance with our always tottering, never-resting self-justifications and selfish desires?”

These are strong words and yet what a beautiful reflection for living winter and for entering fully into the season of Advent this year.  Earth and Tradition call us into a time of rest and reflection – a time of joy. In his beautiful book, “Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight”, Norman Wirzba says, “Just as God’s Shabbat completes the creation of the Universe – by demonstrating that the proper response to the gifts of life is celebration and delight – so too should our Sabbaths be the culmination of habits and days that express gratitude for a joy in the manifold blessings of God.”

Without a sense and practice of Sabbath how easy it is to forget the gifts of God and to enter into restless, joyless and destructive patterns of being. The personal, social and ecological costs of forgetting Sabbath, Norman Wizba maintains are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. They include stressful living to the point of breaking, a loss of meaningful relationship, a lack of peace, the destruction of Earth and its accompanying rise in human poverty and suffering.

So we are invited to reclaim a sense and practice of Sabbath. Winter and Advent, our waiting times, provide the best opportunities by calling us to rest in the rhythms of life. We are gently challenged to remember who we are and who we are called to be. Like plants that will yield fruit in the Spring only if they lie dormant in Winter we are invited to a fallow season. Wayne Muller writes of this most beautifully; “We must have a period in which we lie fallow and restore our souls. In Sabbath time we remember to celebrate what is beautiful and sacred; we light candles, sing songs, tell stories, eat, nap, love. It is a time to let our work, our lands, our animals lie fallow, to be nourished and refreshed. Within this sanctuary, we become available to the insights and blessings of deep mindfulness that arise only in stillness and time. When we act from a place of deep rest, we are more capable of cultivating what the Buddhists call right understanding, right action and right effort.” May this Winter, this Advent be for us such a contemplative time; a time for God, a time for Earth, a time for one another, a time for gratitude that when Christmas comes we can once again birth Christ in the World in peace and joy. Earth teach us the way!

Why Green Our Faith

Guiding Spiritual Principles For Integral Ecology

In this time of grave ecological crisis, a global cry is rising up shouting, “What must we do to protect and cherish the integrity of the planet?”  Pope Francis, in Laudato Si, is offering one way forward by challenging us to envision integral ecology which holds social justice and ecological justice together as one. This is at the heart of the encyclical’s message.   How will the human family live into integral ecology. It is critical that faith communities actively participate in the dialogue. What is needed are sound guiding principles that will allow us to see more clearly how our Christian faith and integral ecology are interconnected. The emerging field of ecological ethics is striving to do this.

Many principles are being developed to help us as “believers (to) better recognize the ecological commitments which stem from our convictions”. (LS 64).  Following are a few which exemplify the wide range of contexts needing consideration:

Evolutionary Context:  All creation has emerged from an evolutionary process. Humans are not separate beings; rather, we are an integral part of the web of life.

Ecological Context: Humans have a responsibility to care for and protect the existence of and the biodiversity of all life systems now and into the future.

Social Context: Economic activities and institutions must promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner. Gender equality must be affirmed as a prerequisite to sustainable development.

Spirituality Context: All is sacred. All creation has intrinsic value and dignity within their relationships of inter-relatedness which must be respected, apart from their usefulness.

Sustainability Context:

Every aspect of creation also has an instrumental value. Everything is needed by another to sustain its existence. A self-sufficient community will only use what is required to sustain healthy and balanced eco-systems.

One principle not often referred to is that of Beauty.  Jame Schaffer gives us a profound reflection: “Beauty is constitutive of who we are and manifests as intrinsic generosity expanding our experience of inter-dependence and inter-relatedness with all life.” 1

For the full flourishing of the planet it is imperative that we choose to integrate these principles into our beliefs, lifestyles and actions.  A Covenant Model of Global Ethics 2 offers a ray of hope particularly recalling the covenant with Noah made between humans and all living beings. Covenant means to come together by making a promise. For Integral Ecology there is the promise to protect the common good.  However, we know that we are promise- makers and promise breakers. In humility we acknowledge where we have alienated ourselves from the web of life. In hope we rise up again and again to build a new covenant with Earth, with God’s grace and the good will of all peoples. The Paris Summit is the gleaning of such a covenant as countries search together for a global vision to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Encouraging us, Francis offers another principle:“Caring for eco-systems demands farsightedness.” (LS 36). Yet deeper still is Love for earth and the human family which springs forth from our indwelling and sustaining relationship with the Divine.

1. Jame Schaefer, “Valuing Earth Intrinsically and Instrumentally: A Theological  Framework for Environmental Ethics”, Theological Studies, 66 (2005): 783-814.

2. J. Ronald Engel, “A Covenant Model of Global Ethics”, Worldviews 8, 1 (2004), 29-46

Listening for the Heartbeat of God in the World

Written by Sr Mary Rowell on behalf of Sr Nicole Aubé

In his beautiful book, “Listening to the Heartbeat of God”, J. Philip Newell says, “To listen to God is to listen deep within ourselves, including deep within the collective life and consciousness of the world.”  In childhood, this listening to the “beat of God’s heart” in our surroundings often arises spontaneously.  Most of us have memories of experiencing the “music” of a running stream, the “magic” of new shoots in Spring, the magnificent colours of Fall and the “silence of snow”.  Such experiences commonly gifted us with our first sense of Sacred Presence, the call of God to both intimacy and service.  Yet, as Philip Newell says such experiences will not have been affirmed generally in our religious tradition. 

Despite early Christian tradition, found especially in the Celtic Church, that taught that God is revealed in both the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature a dichotomy between the two, historically occurred.  A dominant Roman tradition emphasizing a spirituality in which God is to be “found” only within the context of the Church, its rituals and formal teachings eclipsed the earlier perspective in which as the Celtic theologian, John Scotus Eriugena, claimed, “all things, visible and invisible can be called a theophany” (a revelation of God).

The Celtic vision was inspired by a devotion to St. John, the beloved disciple, who leaned against “the heart” of Jesus at the Last Supper.  This spirituality, as newell says, lent itself easily to “a listening for God at the heart of all life”, an understanding of a world of wonder and mystery in which the Holy Spirit affirms God’s continual presence in creation.

We discover this in the beautiful prayers and blessings of the Western Isles of Scotland handed down for centuries in the oral tradition and which in the nineteenth century were recorded by Alexander Carmichael in the beautiful texts of the Carmina Gadelica.  Here we read blessings of “the ordinary things of life”, praises of God in nature such as “Behold the Lightner of the stars on the crests of clouds.”  In a Christmas carol is written, “this night is the eve of the Great Nativity, the souls of His feet have reached the Earth” and in response, “Earth and Ocean illumined Him, mountains and plains glowed to Him, the voice of the waves with the song of the strand announced to us that Christ is born.”

This all speaks of a deep sense of incarnation and of a spirituality that perceives elements of the Earth as expressions of God’s grace calling us to a prayer of contemplative listening for the heart-beat of God in all creation, in all people as well as in the Church and to see the whole of life as sacramental.  We are called by this listening, as Newell says, in new directions, “social and political as well as ecological” by “the conviction that God is the life of the world and not merely some religious aspect of it.”  As Pope Francis reminds us in his recent and compelling Encyclical, Laudato Si’, “In the heart of the world, the Lord of Life, who loves us so much, is always present.  [He] does not abandon us, [He] does not leave us alone, for [He] has united [Himself] definitively to our earth, and [His] love constantly impels us to find new ways forward!”  Together we live in the pulsating rhythm of God’s heart in all life – let us listen anew.

(It has been my privilege to write this reflection first suggested by Sister Nicole Aubé and which I am sure had she been able to write at this time would have been so much more inspired, steeped as she is in this beautiful spirituality.  Thank you Nicole for all the grace and wisdom you have brought to your work for the Ecology Committee and more generally for showing us how to live in every place and moment listening to the heartbeat of God.)

From Lent to Easter and Winter to Spring

As I write this short piece for the “Green Window” we are nearing the beginning of Holy Week and looking forward to the joy of Easter and Spring with all the hope that accompanies the liturgical season and the natural season – both times during which we celebrate resurrection and new life.  The Paschal Mystery celebrated in our churches and reflected so clearly in the “nature of things” – of all created life, reminds us of continuity and wholeness: cross AND resurrection, winter AND spring. 

This Lent I have been reflecting on (and trying to practice) some ways in which our traditional Lenten practices have been “greened” in churches. Four years ago, for example, parts of the Anglican Church proposed that rather than fasting from usual things like chocolate or other favourite food items, members consider participating in a carbon fast. Examples included carpooling or taking public transport or being more careful with the use of electricity, shopping for local produce and resisting items from far away requiring long-distance transportation to our supermarkets. All of these practices were recommended in light of the urgent call to Christians to respond to the devastating consequences of climate change

The following Lent, the Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales recommended a return to Friday fast and abstinence. This was not solely about the externals of a former “Catholic identity” but was closely linked to current environmental considerations. In particular, the conference of bishops suggested that abstinence from meat at least one day each week during Lent as well as being a “spiritual discipline” reminds us that the over-consumption, especially in wealthier countries, of red meat leads to environmentally problematic farming practices and a reduction in grain so necessary to feed the hungry worldwide.

What was of special interest in the Catholic bishops’ recommendations was the proposal that the practice of Friday fast and abstinence be continued beyond Lent. The Lenten practices were about forming new habits spiritually, or conversion, that could be linked closely to ongoing contributions to wellbeing in the world. So rather than putting a “damper” on our Easter celebrations perhaps some reflection on traditional Lenten practices might lead us to a “green conversion” that will truly allow us and the world to rejoice in new life. What if my prayer became a contemplative prayer of thanksgiving and rejoicing in the gift creation? What if my lifestyle were such that my “fasting” from some things becomes “almsgiving” for the wellbeing of the environment and my poorer neighbours? This truly would be a celebration of resurrection: Lent into Easter, winter into spring, love for life!

In the Tradition of Joseph – An Ecological Reflection

As we embrace this time of Advent and Christmas many of the traditional images of our Faith come to the fore, not least the figure of St. Joseph and the story of his role in Christian history.

The narrative is familiar; Joseph the quiet man, the protector of Mary and Jesus. Depictions of the story are ubiquitous in this season. It may seem to be a stretch too far to link the tradition of Joseph with our call to care for the earth today! But this is precisely the link made by Pope Francis in his inaugural homily given on the Feast of St. Joseph, 2013. 

Pope Francis claimed the tradition of St. Joseph as protector. Joseph was a protector “By being constantly attentive to God, open to the signs of God’s presence and receptive to God’s plans … because he is able to hear God’s voice, is sensitive to those in his care. He can look at things realistically and is in touch with his surroundings.”

Francis, like his two predecessors, is acutely in touch with the realities of our current surroundings in which environmental destruction and human suffering are inseparable. Therefore, he can take a radical leap when he invites us to imitate Joseph the protector. He says, “In him we also see the core of the Christian vocation, which is Christ! Let us protect Christ in our lives, so that we can protect others, so that we can protect creation!” An inseparable bond!

Francis continues, being a protector like Joseph “means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world …. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live. It means protecting people and showing loving concern for each and every person,” especially those who are most vulnerable. Today, some of the most vulnerable are those whose poverty and suffering are a direct result of environmental problems and whose fulfilment of basic needs, in turn, causes further environmental destruction in vicious cycles of depletion.

As we reflect on the gift of our vocation as Sisters of St. Joseph and Associates/Companions, the call to be “protectors” in imitation of St. Joseph, in the environmental and social realities of our time is perhaps especially personal. Our vocation has at its heart the call to protect all of creation.

As we enjoy the images of Joseph in this special liturgical season perhaps we can stretch our limited understandings of tradition, just as Joseph, in his time, was called to engage his deeper questions and listening, to find the courage to risk the next steps in a world of inevitable change and profound need. For as historian of Christianity, Eamon Duffy, has written, tradition is never static. It is “a source of confidence in launching into the uncharted future; a future that in all its complexity and contradictoriness, is abundant evidence that change is a sign of life.” This Christmas may we be filled with the life of Christ and of God’s ever-changing, good creation.