Staying centered for me is greatly helped by a trifecta of things that combat the anxiety of caring. The tension that can sometimes creep up on me when I want to see changes sooner than they want to come. When people or situations aren’t changing soon enough I feel the tension. Especially if I believe what needs to change is causing pain, harm or the perpetuation of injustice.

PHYSICAL:SPIRITUAL:SOCIAL

PHYSICAL: I find that putting my body through a morning routine gives me the best chance at sustaining my mental energy, clarity, peace and probably a cocktail of calming hormones to boot. Meditation, exercise, cold plunge, vitamins and coffee. If this drops off during a time of stress, then other things begin to de-optimize as well. The world suddenly becomes a more difficult place to maintain optimism in.

SOCIAL: You know those activist friends who just ‘get’ you? It is indescribably life-giving for me to connect with these precious ones over the issue that is troubling me. They ‘get’ me or at least they hear me out with a deep listen and offer of support. And this makes a noticeable difference to my nervous system right away. We do this for each other and over time it becomes like a safety net of support. We hold each other up.

SPIRITUAL: For me, this intellectual-spiritual part is huge. It begins more heady than feely. But it deeply effects the feely parts. Thinking on these larger issues like “Who am I? Why am I here? And why now? What is the world for? Who, what and where is God/Source/Spirit in all this?” matters. Really contemplating these and allowing myself to come to new conclusions over time helps me reconnect with myself and feel connected to the Divine as well. 

When I remember what I believe about who I am and why I came here this helps me stay centered. When I think of how much I’ve changed, this gives me hope that we live in an ever-changing and ever-evolving world where others can change too. In fact, we can’t not change, eventually. 

I’ll briefly summarize what has been calming to me recently. It begins with considering that perhaps before I was born here in this lifetime I was some form of soul-energy with God in God’s place or dimension of heavenly life forces. And at some point we decided that I would come to this place at this time for a purpose that would unfold as my life. The key is that I came not only for the easy parts, but for the whole range of feelings within this experience. 

In short, I have felt both better within the tension and more confidently propelled to act as I have accepted that in this world I will have, see and experience troubles. That trouble and tension are inevitably part of it. And it doesn’t even need to mean I have done something wrong. It just is. Yet I live here in physical form as a learner knowing that I came to experience both joy and pain, both flow and tension. So also, I bear witness to both justice and injustice. It is all here and I came to interact with all of it. Where I choose to focus my energy this time around is my choice. And I will feel better if I focus it on my Main Purpose. Recalibrating to this makes me feel calmed almost immediately. Then I trust that opportunities will come for me to do the next right inspired action toward positive change. 

I also come humbly acknowledging that it is possible that there may have been another time here where I was the oppressor, not yet ready to work on behalf of the oppressed. Considering this likelihood shakes me out of my smug slumber like a cold plunge and helps me seek to understand those around me with both humility and empathy. It does not mean that I excuse injustice. No, it gives me pause enough to be curious about what is going on in ‘the other’ to try and understand it. In understanding, I feel more empowered to help promote shalom more effectively in the situation.  

In my considering my choicefulness in coming here at this time, I have hope. I hope because I have a sense of power over who I become and the spirit in which I choose to live here. I believe that the world does not have to be perfect for me to be able to achieve peace within it. And I try to remember that I am a more effective leader as one centered and in peace. Though I cannot always maintain a peaceful escape from the tensions, I can lean on my practices and trust that rebalance will happen. So I hope as I move forward and rediscover my purpose and my place at this time. It helps me to feel both small in light of time and big in this place at this time. Both ok with being insignificant and yet significantly empowered within to do what is right now.   

My hope returns when I get enough energy going to determine not to give my power away to overwhelm or any condition. I get centered again and feel hope in the knowing of peace unconditionally now. In imagining what I can do about it all now, beginning in me. Of knowing that I can effect changes both within and around me now that will continue to unfold in good ways, laying tracks of positivity into my future.

Book title: ‘Imagination is Still the Key to Unlock Environmental Crisis’. 

The above book by Chris Sunderland was a good and a disturbing read.  The premise of the author is that unless we can begin to imagine the environment as it could be, then everything remains the same. But if we can imagine it as it could be then we have started to progress.

I quite like the idea of imagining things into being, because after all everything starts with a thought  in the mind first. If a Carpenter wants to make a table, s/he first needs to see it in his mind’s eye, (his imagination) then he / she makes a plan and then builds it. If a sculptor wants to create a piece of artwork out of marble, s/he has to see the beauty that’s already there in the stone waiting to be released. Everything starts as a thought first. 

I find the idea of harnessing the power of the imagination to bring about transformation in individuals and society very interesting and powerful.  

At  Ammerdown we did a  ‘Deep Adaptation’ exercise. We were lead through the soundscape of the wind, rain and projected images of destruction and walked around ‘stepping stones’ describing the effects of climate chaos – for the earth and for societies in general. 

That weekend was the first time that I ‘woke-up’ and acknowledged that we were at a very crucial point in history; and as a species we are destroying the earth. The rainforests and some animal species are disappearing, the climate is changing, there’s plastic in the sea and pollution in the air and in the soil; and sadly, we haven’t got an answer on how to deal with it. What is obvious is that what is being done, is too little and too late.

The images of earth, seen from space is inspiring and humbling. Chris Sunderland, in his book, recalls stories of astronauts who have been transformed because they have seen the world from the perspective of space.  They see the earth as a whole and from above and they see how beautiful yet fragile our planet is. On their return they have Picked up the baton for environmental change. Some astronauts have been so transformed by their experience that they work together to find ways of giving a similar experience to those men and women who will never be able to leave terrafirma. Their hope is to offer  a virtual reality experience to seen the world from outer space so that those who have this experience can ‘fall in love with the world’ in the hope that this will fuel a new passion to  champion the protection of the earth and the environment. 

During the ‘deep immersion experience’ at Ammerdown, as I  imagined the world collapsing into chaos, there was a realisation that there wasn’t much that I or anyone really could do about it. Certainly not enough to make much of a difference before we reach the date of no return which I think is about 17 years from now. 

Because of that experience, I’m getting more conscious, that we need to develop more of a relationship with the earth, to ‘fall in love with her’. It’s only when we have a passion for something that we are single-minded enough to want to see it  change and flourish and to become what it could be. I do believe that this holds true for the environment.  

At Ammerdown we experienced a shared imagination of climate crisis which was very powerful.  So, what would it be like if we could harness that power – the power of shared imagination?  Can we have a vision of us all working together on this one problem? 

What would it take for world leaders to set aside their power and territorial claims, and to use the energy they put into keeping power and domination into uniting together to find a solution to the crisis of climate change?  

Would taking part in a deep adaptation exercise, and shared imagination bring about any transformation in them too? 

Will they too ‘fall in love’ with the earth?

Since returning from Ammerdown, I have thought about how I can live out, in a small way, that transformation exercise.  

My family ( 3 of us) get through 6 litres of milk a day. Yes, we are big milk drinkers! But the danger for the environment of our milk habit is:  4 x 2 litre plastic bottles each day; 4×7= 28 plastic milk bottles in my bin each week. 28×52 =1,456 a year which end up on some land-fill site, somewhere in the world, and most likely a land-fill site in a poorer country. 

That startling piece of information led me to buy our milk ,from now on, in carboard cartons. 

I’m very ashamed of not giving it much thought before. Yes, I’ve fallen in love with the world. 

About time! Said my ever-so-eco-green friend. 

At first, that thought made me sad. It made me wonder if I felt no real sense of connection to a specific physical place because of how nomadic I have been and my family has been for generations. I then wondered at the sense of entitlement I have had toward the earth, assuming that where there is land, there is an invitation to inhabit it. (This is one of the areas where I have been/am exploring reconciliation with the earth: deconstructing past beliefs about humans being the crowning achievement of creation with authority over it, and exploring then human as one element of an ecosystem.) 

But then I thought about how each of these places, and this entire planet, has sustained me and my deep gratitude for that. I thought about how the earth holds me, feeds me, comforts me, gives me shelter. How I have come from it and how I will return to it. 

This type of relationship with the earth made me think of my own mother, and the cycles of being held by her, first in her womb and then in her arms, and then in her illness, the reversal of that as I held her on the opposite end of life. Since her death, I have often felt a mothering spirit when I am under large trees. There’s something about their branches arching over me, their roots stretching into a strong network underneath me, that makes me feel safe and secure and in the presence of great peace and wisdom. I wondered if perhaps these are my sacred places. 

My theology of earth is not well-developed. I am exploring and questioning many ideas. But one thing that has been true for me, is that in a long season of rejecting any belief in God or the spiritual, it was always the natural world that drew me back. 

There is a small poem that I copied down on a bit of card years ago that I have carried with me, literally and metaphorically, in many moments of questioning and doubt. (I can’t find the original author now, unfortunately.) It says: 

So I asked the whole universe about god and it answered back, “I am not he, but he made me.” 

For me, this really encompasses my view towards the sacred nature of earth and the universe of which we are a part – it is sacred because it points me to things above in ways that words, and questions, and answers can not. 

An embodied, sacred relationship with creation requires a break from all the consumption and the waste it produces. I have the opportunity to travel to Portugal this spring and spend a week learning at the A Rocha Center there. A Rocha is a faith-based global conservation organization operating in 20 different countries around the globe. As I read and prepare, I am struck by the prevalence of birds and birding in general as a focus during our week. And I am curious. What do birds have to do with it? So many of the environmentalists and conservationists that I’ve read about or heard of in one way or another have ties to birding. Does studying birds have some link to developing a more embodied, sacred relationship with creation? Could the tide turn on our waste obsessed culture if we take the time to learn from the birds? Some verses in the book of Matthew come to mind, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Is not our wasteful consumerism driven by that first verse? Concern over food, the right diet, the latest trends; concern over our bodies, exercise equipment and classes; clothing, fast fashion, ethical purchases. These worries and concerns lead to so much waste. Instead, Jesus tells us to look to the birds. They are free of these wasteful worries and concerns. Perhaps paying more attention to birds and less to consuming all the things is an excellent step to breaking free of waste of our culture. The founder of A Rocha, Peter Harris writes that birds are “like a touch of God’s Holy Spirit bringing colour and a sense of special presence in the middle of everyday urban life.” In my longing to move toward a more embodied, sacred relationship with creation, I hope to learn from the birds.

In all honesty, I have seen myself in a similar light. I’ve always had a deep desire to be good that is coupled with a deep fear that I am not good enough. I have seen myself as good only in terms of what I can offer to others. So I strive to help, to achieve, to produce, to fix, to give – hoping that it will prove my worth. I didn’t pay much attention to the cost on my body and my soul because I knew my time on Earth was limited so I needed to do what I could before it was too late.

Somehow slowly over time, I began to understand the truth that we find in Genesis 1 – that I am made in the image of God. Though I’d been taught to believe in original sin and therefore only saw my own brokenness and lack, this truth reminded me of my original goodness. God created humanity in his own image, “and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). I don’t have to earn my value or prove my worth because it has been imbedded within me since my conception.

When I learn to hold that truth for myself, that changes the way that I move throughout this world and interact with those around me. I don’t have to run myself into the ground striving for that unattainable status of “good enough.” Instead, I can root myself in the One who created me and loves me and calls me good, the One who doesn’t see me for my lack but who desires to lead me into wholeness. And from that rooted identity, I can walk forward in the fullness of who God created me to be, playing my part in his work of restoration in the world around me.

When I learn to see myself as inherently good, I learn to see others as good, and I learn to see all of creation as good. Each day as God created, he looked around and saw that it was good. Even before there were people to take advantage of what he had created, it was already good. Creation was good simply because it existed and it had been brought forth in love.

God, in his goodness and grace, decided to share his power and give humans the right and responsibility of dominion over creation. With that power, the temptation from the beginning has been to reach out and grasp what God has created for our own benefit at the expense of others and creation as a whole. We can choose to live in that fallen, distorted manner, or we can choose to reclaim our original identity as humans created in the image of God to steward creation, to bear fruit that lasts, to work toward the flourishing of all.

As Randy Woodley talks about, the way we rule over creation should reflect the way that God rules. God does not rule by force or solely for his own benefit. God rules as One who co-sustains. God sees that his creation is good, and he invites us to look around and see that it is good as well.

This past summer, climate change became starkly real as the prairies experienced severe drought and record high temperatures.  If that wasn’t enough, wildfire smoke originating from fires hundreds and thousands of miles away filled the sky, changing the noon sun to a pink ball. I found it very unsettling. Terrifying.  And as I looked into the face of our newborn grandson, tears welled up as I wondered what the future holds for him.  

How do people of faith authentically respond?

Dr Randy Woodley’s discussion of historical wrongs and white supremacy were illuminating and thought provoking, as was his explanation of Indigenous understandings of living in concert with nature.  But during our time together, the topic of “Indigenizing our theology” arose, and it is a concept that I have struggled with – just as I have struggled with the historical wrong of Christianizing the Indigenous population.  Our First Nations people have much to teach us if we open our hearts with humility to their wisdom, much that can help us live in deeper relationship with one another and with Creation, and much that can help us in this time of climate crisis.  As the church has strayed over the centuries from its historical roots to the support of Empire, horrendous wrongs have and are being perpetrated in the name of Christianity.  These wrongs are based on beliefs and understandings that have drifted far from the teachings of Jesus and his way of being in the world – a way of being that holds remarkable similarity with many Indigenous ways.  Is our best response to Indigenize our theology?  I wonder if we would be wiser to truly acknowledge the wrongs while intentionally seeking the Divine through our own path, moving from belief about God to deeper and deeper relationship with God.  Perhaps our place of error is in straying from our root connection to Truth. 

None of us have a monopoly on what is completely “right”. We are all learning. To fully be the person God created me to be, to authentically offer the world the gifts that only I can offer, requires me to be true to who I am.  I am not Indigenous.  I cannot be Indigenous.  I am white.  I am Christian.  I remember the analogy of spokes on a wheel.  We start on the outer portion and move inward.  Regardless of our faith tradition, moving inwards moves us closer to Ultimate Truth.  Deepening relationship with the Divine though our own faith tradition can lead us to a place of respect and reverence for all of Creation. Solid in who we are and our place within Creation, we can then be open to Indigenous understandings that can help inform our actions towards right relationship, as together we work to protect and care for our shared planet.  

As our brother Bayo Akomolafe shared: we are more bacteria than we are human. We have more bacterial cells than human cells. We are emergent and interconnected.

Science is suggesting what Indigenous peoples, witches and medicine men and women have known for centuries- that Earth is interconnected and alive, not separate but inclusive of us as a human animal species.

The water we drink is Ocean. Loch and River. It is blood and sweat and tears. It is Spirit and Life.

Our outbreath is the inbreath of trees and Forest.

In a less romantic but no less real or true sense, the toxins we put into our soil, air and water re-enter our own systems. The plastics we wear and use everyday are all part of and (try to) return to Earth.

And at the same time, we have co-constructed and constantly contribute to complex human-centric systems such as capitalism, colonialism and consumerism. We are complicit in our conflict with Earth, at war with ourselves. Even though we may not want to be. What a bind we are in. The myth of individualism allows us to deny this truth by letting us believe we can escape our complicity and wash away our guilt by recycling and buying green energy and planting wild flowers for bees. These are important actions but not if moral righteousness means we move further from more true reconciliation and the revolutionary, truly transformative action we need and deeply long for.

We are clogging our internal Rivers with toxins just as we are trying to clean up our external Rivers with community litter picks. This litter is then burned or buried or shipped overseas. Where it it out of sight and out of mind. In these out of sight out of mind places of our planet we are wounded and hurting. Places of neglect and abuse and exploitation. Where our human and more-than-human Brothers and Sisters are wounded and dying. Just as within our bodies, we are cutting off the parts of ourselves which are crying out for attention.

Reconciliation with Earth begins with me. It begins with my body. With reconnecting to the disassociated parts of myself, mind and this soft mammalian body. For me reconciliation with Earth began with my gut. For years I binged on sugar and salty foods and then compulsively exercised, a form of bulemia and body dysmorphia. My compulsive eating left me bloated and uncomfortable and probably in more pain than I was able to feel at the time. Somehow the human body can compartmentalise and numb on order to cope and survive. Incredible and necessary coping and survival mechanisms. Just as the human collective can turn its back on humans who are part of our collective human body. Just as part of Earth we disown and destroy ourselves. I am learning to reconnect with parts of my body and mind I was previously ashamed of. Parts that were painful or uncomfortable.

Through self-massage, herbal medicine, meditation and a mysterious more-than-human magic I am spiralling towards healing. And I have to hope and have faith that our human family are spiralling towards healing, health and wholeness as well.

Reconciliation to me means Solidarity. Solidarity to me means that those of us who are able to turn away from our collective pain turn back towards and face it, feel it, witness it and transform it if we can. And even when we can’t, which let’s face it is most of the time, we are still willing to witness our wounds and tend to them, be with those thorns we play a part in perpetuating.

I pray that we will walk together the path of peace and reconciliation, praying for a destination but experiencing the pain, discomforts and joys of the journey.

Image credit: River Don in Sheffield after floods in 2018, source Daily Mail https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5796715/amp/River-clogged-foul-smelling-sludge-rubbish-finally-cleared.html

This Journey of Hope continues with Module 2, and something is beginning to shift. I am starting to recognize the presence of a weight that I have been carrying, a weight that has become a part of me, a weight that I didn’t even realize was with me, for I have been carrying it for so long. And this weight is slipping. It is still heavy upon me, but it feels different, maybe even a bit lighter. In the same way, this urgency that I have felt to help my church move from the comfort of power and control to the vulnerability of community is also shifting, slipping, changing.

During this Journey of Hope gathering, Canon Sarah Snyder talked about the journey from conflict to reconciliation, and she told of the ways in which conflict can burden faith leaders. She shared from Conflict and Reconciliation in Churches by Sandra Cobbins about a group of clergy who were severely impacted by conflict within their congregations, and that while these clergy thought that they just needed to be more organized, the reality was that “they also needed to be equipped to deal differently with the destructive and unhealthy behaviors in the parish,” for those were the things that were draining them of energy and their personal time. These faith leaders needed to care for themselves and address their own wounds in order to be better equipped to lead their congregations. Canon Sarah Snyder reminded us that “our ability to love others is deeply connected to our ability to love ourselves.” Is this what is happening with me? In my effort to try to help move my own congregation with love, am I neglecting to love myself?

Father Adam Bucko then spoke on the importance of monastic spirituality and contemplation, and that it is through the inner transformation that we will be able to show up as a healing and reconciling presence in our own communities. Again, have I been working so hard on trying to help move and guide my church that I have failed to care for myself? And how can I be a part of the reconciliation in my own church if I am holding on so tightly to something that, ultimately, I even don’t have the ability to control? I love my church. I have been at my church for almost my entire life. But I am holding on so tightly that it hurts. So, I start to loosen my grip, and when I do, I feel that weight shifting. I sense the beginning of a release of control, the beginning of reconciliation. I sense peace.

Image Source: https://www.tripsavvy.com/basic-types-of-climbing-handholds-755334