Raining ashes on a bejeweled planet and how to save it
A year ago I visited Waterton Lakes National
Park on the southern border of Alberta.
Spectacular. Today when I go online to view
images of the park, the ones that dominate are
also spectacular, but in a different way from
what we prefer. They show mountainsides
blackened by forest fires and the burned out
ruins of tourist welcome buildings.
According to a Globe and Mail article there were 150 forest fires burning in British Columbia at this time last year. As I write the number is 566. One resident faced with possible evacuation said, “Ash has been falling like snow. Yesterday in the afternoon, it was pitch black, like nighttime.”
Many are drawing a connection between these fires and climate change. The Globe quotes Lori Daniels, a forest ecology professor at the University of British Columbia. “It’s a pattern that’s consistent with climate change.” The article describes that in the future we must become better at fighting forest fires. So, it appears that we have accepted climate change – a better expression is climate destruction – as normal and that our main challenge is to deal with it.
Some years ago a friend, Brian Walsh, chaplain at the University of Toronto, wrote these words about what has become “normal”.
“A proliferation of cheap and useless consumer goods is normal. Dedicating one’s life to economic growth is normal. Living for the weekend is normal. A throwaway society is normal. Deficit financing is normal. Rapid and greedy resource depletion is normal. Environmental collapse is normal.”
However, all is not lost. Far from it. The most important sentence that has ever been written is the opening line of the book of Genesis. It was written three or four thousand years ago in the language of the Hebrew (or Jewish) people of the time. Fortunately, it has been translated into thousands of languages and can be read by just about anyone today. The sentence: In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.
With this stunning announcement, everything changes. First, our world has a beginning; therefore we are living in the midst of a vast and rich story.
Second, the world is not dead, waiting for us to give it meaning (I owe this way of putting it to University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson in a TEDx video you can easily find.).
The universe is saturated in meanings not of our own making because it is a creation of God.
Third, Heaven and Earth are two “regions” created to co-exist in relationship with each other, a relationship that allows both to flourish.
I am not sure about all the features of human life that are meant to emerge within this creation, nor do I know all the details about what life should be like in the context of Heaven and Earth thriving together.
However, I am very certain that a meaningless consumer society that condemns to death the breathing air, the orcas, the bees, the forests of our only home and the marginalized people of this world, who will not survive the ruin of the biosphere of our bejeweled planet, is not among those features and details. I believe that there remains for each of us a summons from God to live in a way that does not condemn our world and its people to a tragic end, but opens up the way to hope. (To be continued.)
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Michael Veenema has been a chaplain at Fanshawe College. Currently he lives in Nova Scotia where he is a chaplain to youth in custody, serves several churches, and continues to write.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
According to a Globe and Mail article there were 150 forest fires burning in British Columbia at this time last year. As I write the number is 566. One resident faced with possible evacuation said, “Ash has been falling like snow. Yesterday in the afternoon, it was pitch black, like nighttime.”
Many are drawing a connection between these fires and climate change. The Globe quotes Lori Daniels, a forest ecology professor at the University of British Columbia. “It’s a pattern that’s consistent with climate change.” The article describes that in the future we must become better at fighting forest fires. So, it appears that we have accepted climate change – a better expression is climate destruction – as normal and that our main challenge is to deal with it.
Some years ago a friend, Brian Walsh, chaplain at the University of Toronto, wrote these words about what has become “normal”.
“A proliferation of cheap and useless consumer goods is normal. Dedicating one’s life to economic growth is normal. Living for the weekend is normal. A throwaway society is normal. Deficit financing is normal. Rapid and greedy resource depletion is normal. Environmental collapse is normal.”
However, all is not lost. Far from it. The most important sentence that has ever been written is the opening line of the book of Genesis. It was written three or four thousand years ago in the language of the Hebrew (or Jewish) people of the time. Fortunately, it has been translated into thousands of languages and can be read by just about anyone today. The sentence: In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.
With this stunning announcement, everything changes. First, our world has a beginning; therefore we are living in the midst of a vast and rich story.
Second, the world is not dead, waiting for us to give it meaning (I owe this way of putting it to University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson in a TEDx video you can easily find.).
The universe is saturated in meanings not of our own making because it is a creation of God.
Third, Heaven and Earth are two “regions” created to co-exist in relationship with each other, a relationship that allows both to flourish.
I am not sure about all the features of human life that are meant to emerge within this creation, nor do I know all the details about what life should be like in the context of Heaven and Earth thriving together.
However, I am very certain that a meaningless consumer society that condemns to death the breathing air, the orcas, the bees, the forests of our only home and the marginalized people of this world, who will not survive the ruin of the biosphere of our bejeweled planet, is not among those features and details. I believe that there remains for each of us a summons from God to live in a way that does not condemn our world and its people to a tragic end, but opens up the way to hope. (To be continued.)
--------------------------------
Michael Veenema has been a chaplain at Fanshawe College. Currently he lives in Nova Scotia where he is a chaplain to youth in custody, serves several churches, and continues to write.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
