Category: Environment

The Daily News

‘It comes the very moment you wake up each morning.  All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals.  And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.  And so on, all day.  Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind’ – C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity

I blame the dang cell phone. 

I wake up in the morning, shuffle downstairs to make breakfast, and there it is.  I don’t know why it should be so enticing.  But before I know it, as I wait for my eggbeaters to cook, I’m on it, fussing and fretting over the morning news feeds.  On the one hand, it’s important to stay informed, especially in the dire times we live in.  On the other, it’s probably not the best way to start the day.  Especially since the daily news doesn’t seem to be anything particularly new.  Basically, and as per the Book of Ecclesiastes, there isn’t much new under the sun these days.  I can summarize the daily news as it has appeared for months, even years, as follows: 

The Pandemic

Covid is still here. Many function as if it isn’t. People won’t get the vaccine or wear masks. The government response is very often incoherent. You are basically on your own. 

Politics

Republican politicians and power brokers are working to end democracy because it behooves them to do so. They are willing to lie, cheat, shrug, etc., to hold onto power. They have no shame. (Yeah, there exceptions, but even these aren’t exactly profiles in courage, and so few they are scarcely worth mentioning). Oh yeah, and Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump…

Democratic politicians and power brokers can’t seem to understand that they have one job: to save democracy. Instead, they are fighting amongst themselves, fiddling while the torches that will burn society are lit. From the naive progressives who dream of the unattainable to the self-serving ‘moderates’ who seem to enjoy standing in the way of even a little progress, we see a party incapable of tying its own shoes. If you thought this ship of fools would save us, you had best think again.

Basically, the news of the day in the arena of politics comes down to this: ‘Autocracy! Coming to a country near you!’

The Environment

The earth is toast. Literally.

The Rich and Powerful

They are going to space, not paying taxes and unaccountable to anyone. They don’t care and there is nothing you can do about it. 

Violence

The nations still rage.  People still think violence is the answer to the world’s problems.  An ‘eye for eye and tooth for tooth’ is making steady progress toward the creation of a blind and toothless world.  Sorry Jesus.  Sorry Gandhi.  The world likes war. 

Racial Injustice

White supremacy continues unabated in America. For all the talk of making things better, it’s getting worse. If democracy falters, look for the return of Jim Crow.

Truth

Just kidding.  There is no such thing anymore.  You are now free to believe anything you want, no matter how divorced from reality it is. 

Entertainment

Some actor/singer/musician/influencer/sports personality just did something stupid. Another had a baby with someone else. Another got divorced. Someone else was arrested. Or gave money to charity. Or won an award and thanked Jesus. Oh, and whatever it is, it’s the most important thing in the world, far more important than ending the pandemic, saving democracy, stopping global warming, making a more peaceful world, ending racism, etc. BTW, who advanced on Dancing with the Stars last night?

White American Evangelicalism

A famous church leader who you should have known all along was no good has: (a) been caught in a scandal; (b) promoted Christian Nationalism; (c) said something racist; or (d) all of the above.  Oh, and Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump…

Sports

The Philadelphia [insert Eagles, Phillies, Union, Flyers…] let down their fans again last night.

Such is the daily news.  Has been for months.  Has been for years.  And probably will be for months and years to come.  Again, it is important to keep abreast of things.  Many of the things I have summarized are as serious as a heart attack, and it does no good to stick one’s head in the sand and ignore the problems of the world.  But at the same time, given that it isn’t really new, should we allow it to consume us?  Should the daily news be the first thing we run to in the morning, or would we do better to run to something else?

I think C.S. Lewis was right.  The first job of each morning, for everyone, but perhaps especially for Christians like myself, is not to immerse oneself in the news of the day, but to push back the noise of the world and listen to that other voice, that still small voice that counsels us to see things from another perspective, and to allow that larger, stronger, and quieter life of the Kingdom to flow into us.  To stand back from all the world wants us fuss and fret about; to come out of the wind once more. 

I think if I started my days like that, rather than riling myself up and only thereafter trying to listen to that other voice, I would be in a better position to face each day.  I would be in a better position to take on the challenges of an increasingly daunting world. 

So I think that’s what I’ll do.  No more daily news first thing in the morning.  And even throughout the day, I will do my best to keep abreast of things without letting them overwhelm me.  Instead, I will begin by listening to that other voice, and let the Kingdom flow into me.  And then, instead of driving myself nuts with what’s happening in the big picture world, I will simply practice my faith by doing small things in the circles of my little picture world that witness to another way. I bet that I will be better for it.

Maybe the world will be too. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Bee Sense

‘Don’t just look to your own interests.  Consider the interests of others’ – Philippians 2:4

I recently spent some time in a community garden watching bees and butterflies.  Pollinators are amazing to observe, and I filmed several video clips and took even more pictures as they drank nectar from flowers.  One thing the pandemic era has taught me is to appreciate the simple things.  Enjoying God, the company of family and friends, and the beauty of the earth are pretty much all I need these days to be content, so spending an hour or so with my daughter and mother-in-law in the garden watching bees and butterflies was a kind of bliss. 

It wasn’t long after this experience that I serendipitously read an entry concerning bees in Peter Wohlleben’s, The Inner Life of Animals.  Bees are fascinating creatures, necessary for the health of our planet, but also capable of teaching lessons.  One such lessons struck me as I read Wohlleben’s discussion of how bees stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  In the summer months, the intense activity among bees can raise hive temperatures considerably, which could prove fatal to the colony, but bees have found ways to stay cool.  Worker bees bring water into the hive to cool things down, and the fluttering of wings produces breezes.  In such ways, the hive is climate controlled, and the bees don’t overcook. 

In the winter, warming measures are undertaken.  If it gets cold enough, the bees of a colony will huddle together in ball.  The queen, who must be protected at all costs, is of course placed in the center of the ball where it is warmest.  Moving out from the center, the temperature of course drops, placing the bees at the outer rim in peril of freezing to death, except for one thing: the bees take turns.  They take shifts on the ball’s surface, allowing each crew to take a turn closer to the center and warm up before returning to duty on the outer edge.  In this way, the colony, and each bee within it, has a chance to survive the winter. 

One wonders what motivates bees to look out for one another in this fashion.  Perhaps it is too much to suggest they care for one another (then again, perhaps they do).  It seems more likely that they simply understand that the success of the hive depends on the success of each bee.  If they lose even a single member of the colony, the ability to stay warm collectively is diminished.  Essentially, bees know that they need each other.  Each individual bee therefore considers the interests of the others along with their own.  Each bee knows that unless they look out for the other members of the colony, no one will make it. It is of course natural for bees to feel this way; they are inherently collectivists, not individualists.  They don’t live their lives in terms of ‘me’ and ‘I’ but ‘we’ and ‘us.’  They value one another’s contributions to the collective, and are willing to sacrifice, in this case, a little bit of warmth, for the sake of saving the whole. 

I could run in a thousand directions on this, most of which would produce controversy.  This would only prove the point of this post, but honestly, I’m just too tired to deal with it at the moment (I’m on vacation).  Suffice it to say that we humans could learn from bees.  It breaks my heart, and makes me more than a little frustrated, that some people (I won’t say most, although I confess, I’m tempted these days) can’t seem to understand that we need to look out for each other.  They can’t seem to understand that each one of us has value, and that we need to look, not just to our own interests but to the interests of others.  They can’t seem to understand that if we don’t look out for one another, say, by taking a shot in the arm or wearing a mask (okay, I just went in one of those potentially controversial directions), we will all be impacted detrimentally.  They can’t seem to understand that we should be willing to make sacrifices, for the sake of saving both the vulnerable among us and our society as a whole. 

Perhaps bees are just programmed to act the way they do.  Perhaps they don’t think nearly as much about their behavior as I have suggested.  But to my way of thinking, that only makes things worse.  We human beings have been gifted with the ultimate grace: we have been made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).  We have the ability to reason, to think things through, to feel compassion for others, to experience community, to love.  Those of us who claim to be Christian claim not only these extraordinary graces, but the power of God to activate them fully.  How sad then, when we neglect our birthright and ignore the gifts we have been given, when we, instead of considering the needs of others, choose to only, and shortsightedly, consider our own. 

I leave it to you, reader, to consider the myriad of circumstances to which this lesson may apply.  Like I said, I could take this in a thousand directions.  All I choose to say in closing is this: its time we started acting a little more like the bees.

It’s time we all got a little bee sense. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Future Generations

‘One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts – Psalm 145:4’ (NIV)

David states a simple principle in this verse.  Each generation is responsible to pass to the next the evidence of God’s mighty works.  Typically, we think of this in terms of telling the stories of what God has done.  We find people doing this throughout scripture, recounting stories of God’s great acts in Israel’s history in their writings, festivals (Passover being one example), and songs.  In all of this we perceive the responsibility to preserve the stories of God’s great acts and to pass them along to the next generation. 

But the works of God are found in more than stories.  In another Psalm David wrote, ‘the heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the skies display the works of his hands’ (19:1).  This sentiment is expressed throughout the Bible, that the works of God are manifest in creation (see, e.g., Romans 1:20).  Indeed, you might say God tells the story of his existence and glory in the things he has made.  Consider the words of Augustine:

‘Some people, in order to discover God, read books.  But there is a great book, the very appearance of created things.  Look above you!  Look below you!  Read it.  God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink.  Instead, he set before your eyes the things he has made.  Can you ask for a louder voice than that?’

The Church Father Irenaeus agrees: ‘the initial step for a soul to come to knowledge of God is contemplation of nature.’  Who can doubt it?  A starry sky, the expanse of the ocean, the forest primeval, the mountains in their Autumn hues, the remarkable complexity and diversity of life – it all bears witness to the mighty works of God.  In all this, we perceive another facet of our responsibility: we must preserve God’s mighty works in nature and pass them along to future generations. 

But we aren’t.    

I have been reading David Wallace-Wells’ remarkably comprehensive and terrifying book, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming.  It is a scientifically informed exploration of climate change, both the evidence for it (which is overwhelming) and the consequences that we can expect to experience in both this century and the next.  I commend the book to your reading list.  But if I may bottom line things, we are in deep trouble.  No matter what we do from this point forward, the damage we have inflicted on God’s creation over the past 75 years or so is almost certain to raise global temperatures two degrees Celsius by 2100.  The Paris Climate Accords, which the United States recently rejoined after an insane hiatus, are designed to keep warming below that threshold.  A two-degree rise will invoke drastic consequences, most of which are at this point unavoidable.  But even worse is that if we do not do something equally drastic to curtail our rising carbon emissions, the rise will be even higher, anywhere from three to six degrees according to conservative estimates, perhaps as high as eight.  The consequences along that continuum are not just drastic, they are catastrophic.  And we are headed for them.  As of today, very few countries have met their goals under the Paris Climate Accords.  Most, including the worst offenders, are increasing their carbon emissions as we speak.  We are, by our actions, racing through a century during which the temperature will surely rise significantly more than two degrees. 

Which means that in the coming decades, and certainly by 2100, we can expect the following:

  • Rising temperatures that will make life near the equator impossible
  • Massive crop failure and farmland loss across multiple continents
  • Flooding of Biblical proportions along coastal areas throughout the world
  • A surge in wildfires and consequent property damage and loss of life
  • Massive hurricanes, typhoons, and tornadoes
  • Water shortages (this is already a problem.  Wallace-Wells notes that ‘as soon as 2030, global water demand is expected to outstrip demand by 40%’).
  • Dying Oceans (rising acidity, eco-system destruction, and species loss including the loss of oxygen producing diatoms that are responsible for much of the oxygen we breathe)
  • Widespread loss of animal habitats
  • Mass extinctions
  • Biodiversity loss
  • Toxic air
  • Plagues (viral and bacterial)
  • Economic collapse
  • Climate Refugees, as many as one billion
  • War (depleted resources will ignite them; it should be noted that the United States military takes climate change very seriously.  They are well aware of the instability it brings).

This is NOT hysteria or alarmism.  This is verifiable scientific fact.  There is more than mere consensus in the scientific community about this.  There is near unanimity of opinion (the outliers are the sort who put Galileo under house arrest for claiming the sun was the center of our solar system).  My God, if only ¼ of the items on that list come to pass, and I should note the list is far from exhaustive, we will be, by century’s end, in a world of hurt. 

This is the world we are passing on to our children and grandchildren.  This is the manner in which we are commending God’s wonderful works to future generations.  If we don’t pull our heads from the sand quickly, we will have failed to do what David – what the whole Bible – commands. 

It’s time to educate ourselves, change the way we live, and demand that our leaders take dramatic action to stave off the worst that climate change will bring. 

I end with a story.   

In the Babylonian Talmud, we read of the sage, Honi, who was walking along the road.  He saw a man planting a carob tree.  Honi asked him, ‘How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?’

‘Seventy years,’ the man replied.

‘Honi then asked, ‘Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?’

The man answered, ‘I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me.  Likewise, I am planting for my children.’

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent