Breathe Into Us A Spirit

by Emilie Oyen

Many years ago in New York City, I attended

a peculiar Sunday service at The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, the Episcopal Diocese of New York. The "largest church in Christendom," St. John the Divine is breathtaking even among New York City's towering skyscrapers. Peacocks wander around the sculptures of its yard; deceased artists and writers are buried in its crypts; famous tightrope walkers pay for residency there by plying their trade to change the high-up lightbulbs. It is a gorgeous, strange, ethereal and spiritual place.

The morning I attended, thousands of people were crammed into the pews. Hundreds of dogs, cats, parrots, iguanas, fish, chickens, snakes, sheep and geese were also crammed into the pews. It was 1994, and the feast of St. Francis of Assisi (celebrated yesterday), a day when animals are blessed in the spirit of this patron saint of animals and ecology.

Incense burned in pagan-esque clouds at the altar as the procession entered; hymns were sung; the lessons were read. And here we were, with God's creations commingling among the ritual of worship. Carl Sagan spoke that day too, though I don't remember his message. Once suspicious of religion due to its historical role in war, Sagan eventually realized that religious communities were allies on the subject of ecology. He is now buried at St James.

Despite the controlled chaos, the smell of the animals and the enormity of the gathering, peace and harmony held the congregation together. And so when the priest asked for quiet and calm, the great cathedral went silent. I held my breath as an elephant was led into the cathedral and swayed down the central aisle for his blessing.

This blew off the boundaries of church as I had experienced it growing up in a small New England town. I could see, for the first time, the true connection between earth and worship and God, and how it is all One.

Years later, I returned to St. John the Divine for An Interfaith Evening for the Climate with Bill McKibben. The speakers made it again clear: When we worship God, we worship creation; and people of all faiths have an obligation to this earth to protect it. The earth is God's creation, and we are God's stewards.

McKibben was concrete in how to act: Legislation is the answer and a campaign of civil disobedience from our religious tranditions is required. High officials of various traditions can use the value of language to have an immediate impact. The can use their sermons as a tool; congregations as a receptive audience.

Religion can also be a source for faith during the darker hours of fear and anger when working to protect the environment----to breathe into us again a spirit. "God's design is being abused," McKibben began. "But we can turn to the deepest part of our traditions to sustain ourselves."

To read more on subjects of Faith and the environment:

Bill McKibben's 350.org, people of faith

GreenFaith

Greening Sacred Spaces

21 Ways Faith Groups are Combatting Global Warming

View from My Window

by Emilie Oyen

When you live in New York City, and you have two little children and a working husband, and there is no maid nor nanny but just you to wash and clean and wipe and soak and nurture and discard and scrape and return and store and recycle and bottle and burn and bemoan... well, there is a lot of thinking time, and often thoughts drift to terror and fear of the end of nature.

For example, I have been told that food discarded into the trash and sent to a landfill does not necessarily decompose. And I am aware that a massive, two-Texases-sized sludge-y plastic-y landfill exists out in the Pacific Ocean. These two facts haunt me as I clean up after dinner. On certain days, I feel that massive, Texas-sized landfill growing on my mind. Is it because---as the consumer and cleaner for one small family domain---I am aware of our significant consumer role that contributes to this destruction? Is it because, as a mother, I worry for the earth's health beyond my own lifetime? Who knows, but carrying this burden of guilt and fear---combined with my limited actions to address it (farmer's market, reusable grocery bags, recycling)---I've come to regard myself as a "Paralyzed Environmentalist." Full of concern: too scared to do much about it. I suspect there is an entire breed of us.

Alas, one day while I circled my apartment muttering to

myself about bananas that have the audacity to come wrapped in plastic, my brother arrived, smuggling a Bokashi kitchen composter into the pristine environs of Upper East Side. They let you in with that? I asked. He smiled, I leapt! Easy, simple, earthy, and even sort of fun. It takes up a tiny corner in my tiny kitchen, and earns the space it keeps. It lightens our trash; it lightens my burden. I have already become friends with a community gardener who did a backflip when I asked if she would take anaerobic dirt, and who awaits my first delivery. And honestly, carrying out the simple process of mixing food scraps with Bokashi and mushing it into the compost makes me feel connected to the earth----at least in my thoughts.---which is, hopefully, a first step out of paralysis.

Read more here (one of many online places to purchase). For more on the subject of indoor composting, click here.

(Above photo, member of the future generation; simple indoor compost; brother's beer bottles.)

On Earth as it is in Heaven

by Emilie Oyen

One morning several years ago I was walking through the woods in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Dew clung to the glowing early-summer leaves, the air was rich. It was silent. No interruptions. My mind drifted as I walked, I lost track of time, of myself --- the usual --- until that point, I looked up from my thoughts and found a shaft of light spilling through a break in the trees. And you know for a brief moment it felt like heaven. 


Have you ever survived a long brutal winter to find, one March morning, the stem of a crocus pushing its up through the cold dirt? Have you watched the light play against a choppy ocean? Have you marveled at the delicacy of a moth's wings? Nature is divine, and every day it offers another miracle.

Nature is divine and sacred and glorious, and it is thus no wonder that Christians --- specifically students at Christian colleges ---- are dedicated to caring for it. And they are caring for God’s creation through action, such as recycling projects, river clean-ups, ecosystem restoration, and promoting green building.

The Green Awakenings Campus Report is the first report to document a phenomenon that is growing and that is a hopeful, spiritual pursuit of sustainable practice. The report details how Christian students and campus are working together for the renewal of God’s creation, and inspires others to join.

“We were shown that God reveals Himself through two books, His Holy Word and the Book of Nature, and both are important,” said Brittany Bennett, a student at Eastern University.

The report is divided into five geographical regions (Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and West) with a number of campuses featured from each region, interspersed with student leadership profiles. It’s very accessible --- open to any page and begin reading, or find a region and compare projects. The short, engaging pieces offer ways to connect with any of the described projects: whether to join forces or to start something new.

When asked why a green revolution, one student replied, “A green revolution is only a byproduct of a lifestyle of stewardship in which God calls us to live. I find gardening spiritual because God is life, and God calls us to live. There is something so intimate about God taking time to create on Earth, because He loves us, because He wishes to enjoy a relationship with us.”

Above painting: Parkway Ridges by Jeff Pittman