Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on the Importance of Community

 

Climate Scientist 
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

(Image by Gilberto Tadday / TED )

Climate Scientist and Marine Biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (editor of the excellent collection of essays "All We Can Save") is publishing a new work, What if We Get it Right?  In a NY Times podcast, dated May 18, 2024, she discussed her concerns as well as her optimism.  What are motivations for us with regard to addressing climate change, and what are the obstacles to motivation?  She believes it boils down to community and a sense of responsibility that arises from that. I was struck by the following quote  (bold is my emphasis, of course):  

We all want to hold onto our comforts. I think the answer is community.  We have to be responsible to more than ourselves.  We have to feel an obligation to more than just our children. It can’t just be a selfish desire to hold on to what we currently have, which is - even that is illogical because the world is going to change around us and, the things we have, we won’t be able to hold onto - because we can’t actually control all of society and live in a bubble. And so, you can maybe hold really tightly onto your comforts in the short term, but the more we resist being part of a collective solution, the less likely that collective solution is to happen. 

I mean, in a sense, we’re echoing a bit of this bunker mentality where we have these wealthy people buying up land in New Zealand and wherever else, trying to just save themselves.  And to me that seems like such a sad way to see the world., right?  Like, do you want to live in a bunker for a year eating canned rations?  Like, is that the life we want to build, or do we just all try to make sure we have a world where there’s enough for everybody and no one takes too much, and we share what we have?  I’d rather share.

Obviously, if I blogged about it, I think it's worth a listen.  I've linked using my "gift" of 8 articles per month, so hopefully it's not behind a paywall. 

Marchese, D. (2024, May 18). This Scientist Has an Antidote to Our Climate Delusions. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/18/magazine/ayana-elizabeth-johnson-interview.html

What Is Justice?

 “The clear meaning of “justice” is “what is right” or “what is normal” — the way things are supposed to be. The fairness of laws coupled with fair and equal treatment under the law are common biblical concerns. Throughout scripture, God is the defender and protector of the poor, the alien, the debtor, the widow, and the orphan. Justice can also mean “deliverance,” “victory,” “vindication,” or “prosperity” — but for all, not just a few. Justice is part of God’s purpose in redemption.

One of the clearest and most holistic words for justice is the Hebrew shalom, which means both “justice” and “peace.” Shalom includes “wholeness,” or everything that makes for people’s well being, security, and, in particular, the restoration of relationships that have been broken. Justice, therefore, is about repairing broken relationships both with other people and to structures — of courts and punishments, money and economics, land and resources, and kings and rulers.” 

Quote from Wallis,  How the Bible Understands Justice ( https://www.onfaith.co/onfaith/2014/06/06/how-the-bible-understands-justice/32339 )

Take Up Your Cross, and Follow Me!

Today's musing brings together two different photographs which may shed light on what it means to "Take up your cross and follow me." This first photo is of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., removing a cross from in front of his home, in the presence of his small son.  This photo gives a different slant on the meanng of that directive, as he literally "takes it up" out of the soil in front of his home.  

How Should I Live?

"So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan, which moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. "

William Cullen Bryant

American Society Encourages Slaughter of Innocents

There. I thought that headline might get your attention. Unfortunately, it is true, and I'm not talking about abortion.  I'm talking about how many innocents each year are slaughtered by gun violence.

Beggars in Modern Times

Acts Chapter 3

So one day, Peter and John were walking to the Temple to pray. As they were walking into the Temple gate, they were passing by this man who had been crippled from birth. Every day, someone carried that man to the gate so that he could beg from those who were going inside to the Temple courts.

Nicholas Poussin, Peter and John Heal the Blind Man at the Gate
Metropolitan Museum of Art 

BEGGARS

I don't know about you, but I've passed by this scene often, sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively. In the first part of this blog post, I'll talk literal. In the second part, I want to challenge each of us to think figuratively, in the sense of the bigger picture.

The Value of Inner Peace

THIS BLOG IS ABOUT PEACE.  
WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?! 

Blog Series: Musings on Isaiah Chapter 58

During Lent of 2012, I wrote a series of blog posts on Isaiah Chapter 58.  Here are links to each article in the five part series:

Noblesse Oblige, Boxing, and the Limits of Charity

A post challenging us on the link between charity, other-ness, and equality.  For more click here ...

Detail from tapestery, "Adoration of the Magi "by Edward Burne Jones

Is He Really the Prince of Peace, or Just a Figurehead?

As I write this post today, it is the fourth Sunday in Advent. We celebrate today, in the birth of an innocent child, the arrival of Emmanuel, which means "God is With Us." In Isaiah Chapter 9 it is written 

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

How ironic that just as we celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace, in my own culture just so recently there has been yet another mass killing by a deranged man who had access to firearms. How ironic that some of the same people who claim to believe in the teachings of the Prince of Peace will still resist efforts to disarm killers and reduce their opportunity to harm others by regulating access to handguns, automatic weapons and high capacity ammunition. How ironic that some people who claim to believe in peace, advocate violence themselves? 

The evil caused by handguns and high capacity firearms is so obvious it cannot be ignored.  

This Is My Commandment

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”John 15:12
If you are facing conflict in your personal life, your professional life, or in your church congregation, you are not alone! There is division and dissension among Christians and in churches across the United States. The key issue in every dispute is not whether conflict will happen, but how we will respond to it when it does happen.

The Politicization of Environmental Concerns

⁷ “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; ⁸ or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. ⁹ Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this?  ¹⁰ In his hand is the life of every creature  and the breath of all mankind.  ¹¹ Does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food? ¹² Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?

Job Ch. 12

The Conditions of Forgiveness

A few days ago, I wrote [here] about the requirement of Matthew 6:12 that we forgive, as we have been forgiven.  And then, a few days after that I wrote [here] about the requirement in Matthew 5:23-24, that we affirmatively seek out those whom we have wronged and ask for their forgiveness.   When read together, the effect of these two passages is even more striking than either one read alone. 

The Sin of Self Sufficiency?

What do you put your faith in?  I think all of us, to one degree or another, tend to put our faith in idols.  Is my idol money (based on the myth that having enough money can save me from not having enough)?  Or, perhaps I might idolize physical beauty or fitness (based on the myth that keeping fit can save me from infirmity)?  Both of these ideations, and many more, are based on the notion that we can save ourselves in some way, shape, or form.  And they are all wrong.  I was reading Isaiah Chapter 57 today.

To those who put their faith in things besides God, the prophet exclaims (specifically, in verses 12 and 13):

I will expose your righteousness and your works,

and they will not benefit you. 

When you cry out for help,

let your collection of idols save you!

The wind will carry all of them off,

a mere breath will blow them away.

But whoever takes refuge in me

will inherit the land

and possess my holy mountain.

Anything we put our faith in, besides God, is an idol.  On the other hand, how could any rational person say that a bit of idolization was a bad thing?  For example, who could possibly clam that it wouldn't benefit us to have some savings for a rainy day, or to keep physically fit?  To some, faith in God might seem idiotic.  Or, perhaps more charitably put, a bit naive.  Of course we should do what we can to protect ourselves from financial calamity or from an early death from heart disease, right?

I propose that the problem for modern day, First World inhabitants, is not that we may have financial savings or fitness goals, but rather what we put our faith in.  Do we think these things can save us?  Do we think that financial security or physical fitness are the primary factors which will determine our success in life?  If we do, we need to think harder and better about what it is that is important in life, really and overall.

I suggest that instead of focusing on what we give up when we lack savings or health, or any other thing we are tempted to idolize, instead we need to be more aware of the valuable things we give up when we substitute the temporary and visible for the permanent and intangible.  When we seek to depend on ourselves and on our temporally based idols, we give up immense possibilities for inner depth, compassion, and community that comes from reliance on things outside our own control, reliance on Others to do God's will.

Father Richard Rohr, speaking about modern day idols, has written,

"I would say that our real failure is not so much greed (although it is that, too) as self sufficiency, arrogance, and superficiality. Inner depth, compassion, and community died in many of us. We might call the thing that died a capacity for simple presence--presence to ourselves, to others, to the moment, and to inherent joy. That is the death of the soul for sure, and eventually of society."




Gain perspective.  Trust God.  Rely more on community, on generosity.  Develop deeper understandings.  Be present, simply present.  Pray about this!



Excerpt from the article, A Crisis of Prosperity: Could Small Again Be Beautiful? by Father Richard Rohr (accessed March 20, 2012).  AP Photo of a penitent man bearing a cross made of a cactus, by Gregory Boyle, accessed HERE

Technorati Tags: prayer,Lent

Choose Life! (Reflections on Deuteronomy 30:19)

Somehow the term “pro life” has been co-opted to mean a code word for anti-abortion. According to that view, this eight-celled embryo is entitled to all rights of personhood under the U.S. Constitution: 

Choosing life is much broader, however, than such a narrow construction of the word “life” might imply.  Consider, as just one example of “choosing life,” the words of Deuteronomy Chapter 30:

Our Perpetual Duty

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.  Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.”

Leviticus 25:23-24


Vincent Van Gogh, Die Ernte (in Provence), 1888,  National Museum of Amsterdam

A few weeks ago, guest blogger Kienan Mick made a few observations regarding the relation between capitalism and sustainability  (HERE).  Among other things, he pointed out that the economic  cost of anything needs to include its cost over the long haul, for future generations.  A calculation of value that fails to include this cost does not reflect the true cost of a practice.   Writer Haruki Murakami (HERE) similarly pointed out that it is a moral error for a society to pursue “efficiency” without regard to more fundamental values that guide our choices about how we want to live and what we want to stand for.   He points out that what is “right” is not always what is expedient or efficient.  In fact, to do the right thing may sometimes be downright unattractive.

The Feast of Justice (The Fast of Isaiah 58, Part V)

So far, my personal musings in this series on the Fast of Isaiah 58 have dwelt on the aspect of what we are to do by way of fasting and our proper attitude for purposes of the fast.   But there is another, and I think very comforting, aspect of Isaiah 58.  That is, although we have clear obligations, God also makes promises back to us.   In fact, what God promises to give me, should I keep his word in Isaiah 58, seems bigger than anything I might give up.

The Bounty of Forgiveness (The Fast of Isaiah 58, Part IV)

To illustrate the difference between the acceptable fast and the fast that is abhorrent in Isaiah 58, my blog post yesterday  contrasted the pious, righteous elder son and the broken, penitent younger son in the story of the Prodigal Son.  The relation of the parable of the Prodigal to the Fast of Isaiah 58 is that, in both, the attitude of the penitent is the proper attitude.  When we acknowledge that all we have is not the result of our own works but rather flows from the grace of a loving and just God, our attitude toward all the rest of the world is transformed.  No longer do we self-righteously assert our entitlements.   Rather, we see the bounty of God’s love to us for what it is:  a gift; and it is a gift we want to share.  This attitude results in peace in ourselves, peace in our relationships with others, and peace within our society. 

Today, I’d like to point to a real-life story of how this has worked in the lives of two specific, modern people, Peter Woolf and Will Riley. 

(photo from Daily Mail article, infra.)

The Fast of the Righteous (The Fast of Isaiah 58, Part III)

The focus of my Lenten blog post today is on the elder brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.*  In contrast to the younger brother, the elder brother has been the poster child.  He is the reliable, trustworthy son who gave up any ambition of wild city life, if he ever had any, to tend the flocks, take care of things on the family farm, and do exactly as Dad needed
him to do (okay, injecting some imagination here,  but bear with me).   I

Acceptance of Grace (The Fast of Isaiah 58, Part II)

A few days ago, I quoted Isaiah Chapter 58 as suggesting the proper attitude for our fasting during Lent.*  That chapter contrasts fasting with an improper attitude, which God hates, with the proper attitude that one should have for a fast.  Strikingly, the activities mentioned as illustrating proper attitude toward the fast (share food with the hungry, provide shelter for the homeless, clothe the naked) have nothing to do with our own consumption of food.