The Day After (Earth Day)

 

This Sunday is the day after Earth Day; a day begun in 1970 America to draw attention to environmental concerns and provide a voice for emerging environmental consciousness. By 1990 Earth Day went global as more and more countries were experiencing environmental crisis brought on by global warming. Today another 30 years down the road, the entire planet is in climate crisis such that the life of every person, creature, and plant is affected.

Marking Earth Day is important, for our very life depends upon the health of Mother Earth.

Today we can raise our voices and pray the well known prayer - Blessed are you O God of the universe who brings forth bread from the earth and creates the fruit of the vine.

But this isn’t entirely true.  Not if one lives in a place of prolonged drought - the world map as of August 2022 has crippling drought in many areas, outside of Antarctica no continent is exempt. And bread from the earth and fruit from the vine are not present if one lives in a growing number of areas affected by flooding - either by rains from intense storms or from rising sea levels.

I find Earth Day hard to celebrate – not the part of celebrating the earth and the abundance found therein- but daily I am saddened that everyone doesn’t live the values of Earth Day everyday, as a matter of course, to be a good human being, to be in relationship with the land and one’s Creator.

 

I feel the same about Easter. I find it hard to celebrate – not the part of celebrating resurrection and the abundance of hope and grace found therein – but daily I am saddened that everyone doesn’t live the values of resurrection everyday, as a matter of course, to be a responsible human being, to be in relationship with the land and one’s Creator; to focus on that which gives and grows life.

 

This is the Day After Earth Day and we hear God’s Word relating a story about Jesus’ followers the day after Jesus was put in the tomb. Two followers of Jesus are walking outside along a road, talking about the day’s events. Earlier the women found the tomb empty; one claimed she had seen the Lord; other disciples went to see the tomb – confirming it was empty! And as they walked along, a traveler fell in step with them to hear this news.

The day after, these disciples encounter the Resurrected One while walking the land, a land that held and nourished their ancestors for generations. From the very ground, from dust to dust and ashes to ashes, God resurrected from the land; birthed to new life from the depths of Mother Earth.

Pope Francis wrote: the universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. (LS 233)

The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely – this God is the traveler who appeared and fell in step with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. This is the God who was unfolded in the breaking of bread from the earth and fruit from the vine.

 

This is the Day After Earth Day and I can’t help but connect Mother Earth with God’s journey through Holy Week and Easter. Earth Day is like Palm Sunday -the Jesus’ parade; rah rah Mother Earth; but how quickly the scene turns. Everything that Jesus planted through words and deeds, started to come back to him; his revolutionary speak and radical kindom talk were stirring up the people, some to follow with hope and expectation and others with angst and a desire to get rid of him. The parade was the last showy event to put Jesus at the point of no return on his way to the cross.

 

There are moments when I am sad, when I am enjoying nature and walking the land, and I feel the earth moaning. I feel Mother Earth dying. And I wonder is this Earth Day THE parade, the last showy event, the point of no return on Mother Earth’s way to the cross.

 

The Day After Earth Day - Mother Earth is crucified – in genetically modified grain to make bread from the earth, by pesticides used on the fruit of the vine; open wounds of mineral extraction, gashes and burns of abused prairie and destroyed forests; cancerous water and caustic air --- all death by human hand. Crucified.

 

I have been reading Our Home and Treaty Land: Walking Our Creation Story, by Raymond Alfred and Matthew Anderson. Raymond is Nehiyawak (Cree), an Anglican priest, and professor at the Vancouver School of Theology. He writes:

Indigenous people have preferred to regard all things as sacred because at any point in time Creator could do something powerful within Creation, and that powerful working makes a place sacred. Indigenous peoples, then, in anticipation of Creator doing something powerful, maintain an attitude of awe and anticipation, trying to understand the movement of all that is around us and within which we live our lives. The journey upon the land, then, is put into stories, songs, and Ceremonies that remind us and help us to understand our journey upon the earth. …

Jesus has joined or was always part of the journey, which takes place on the land. Creation is always the context of Creator’s interaction with us. (pg 59-60)

 

In Raymond’s words, I picture the indigenous walkers on the road to Emmaus, not only are they walking the land, they are pondering ‘this something powerful’ that has occurred; the Creator’s interaction, trying to understand the movement of all that is around them.

 

The Day After Earth Day – as I ponder Mother Earth in the shadow of the cross, she gives life through the powerful transformation of Jesus –from dust to dust- to an open tomb and a risen Christ.

 

The land tells a powerful story, the good news. Those who walk the land maintaining an attitude of awe and anticipation, trying to understand the movement around us and within which we live, will recognize that Mother Earth again and again walks from life to death to resurrection. Holy Week through Easter is relived! Often!

 

In school I enjoyed geography class, particularly the units on rocks and tectonic plates. Rocks and tectonic plates are always moving, always in the process of transition and change. Shifting tectonic plates – push up mountains and open the earth’s crust to form new land. Earthquakes, volcanoes, glaciers carve out escarpments, press dead sea life into limestone, create pools for freshwater; tectonic plates move causing rock to take on different forms and the lay of the land to drastically change causing some ecosystems to die and others to emerge.

Mother Earth’s nature is to be in the constant state of living, dying, resurrecting.

Christ’s nature is the state of living, dying, resurrecting.

 

The Day After Earth Day – I ponder the good news; Easter. Jesus’ death and resurrection gives me hope that all is not lost, that in death (and only through death) is there the possibility of life and resurrection. Walking the land, Mother Earth whispers to us – acts it out for us- that we are to die to ourselves, die for the sake of the other, die to give our life for the life of the other, so that HOPE, RESURRECTION, PEACE blossom. And it is whispered across the land, proclaimed in earthquake and the bursting open of rocks and tombs, that the universe unfolds in God and that Creator is doing something powerful around us.

 

Let us anticipate the Creator at work. In this season when we celebrate the resurrection part of Mother Earth’s cycle, the season of Christ is risen Christ is risen indeed, may be take time to ponder with others the Mystery of faith, to go for walks with another human being and be attentive to them and to the world around you, and be in relation -physically touch Tree, Earth, Flower and give thanks for life.

 

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!