Some thoughts on Anglican Franciscanism - part six - Jeff Golliher and the Climate Emergency (part two)

As I have reflected on these sessions, I realise how much Jeff has affected me over these last few years. Certainly he has made the urgency crystal clear. Inspired by his contribution in 2018 I took a motion to our synod asking for the then leadership team to offer some leadership around this. And they did, and I got pulled into that, broken shoulder and all. And I made sure my parish observed the Season of Creation each year, and that we as a parish thought bout how to reduce our carbon footprint. But Jeff was talking about something more. Because all of that still treats creation as something other. Something that I can use to exploit for economic gain, or to care for to avoid the economic hardship that is coming. That is where most of the conversation sits. But he is inviting us to both critique the underlying assumptions around this and then to go deeper. 

In the question and answer time at the end of the first session we talked about the underlying assumption withing "western" and global economic systems of the need for growth. Nearly all our responses to climate change are built around new technologies – including carbon capture that will take carbon out of the atmosphere, while maintaining our current models of growth based on exploitation, of resources and people, and allowing us to keep emitting greenhouse gases. This is a form of continuing western colonization. The best indicator of reduced carbon emissions is reduced GDP. We need new economic models if we are to truly address the climate crisis confronting us. Again, this is one the things Cathy offered us in her sessions.

His title for the Province of the Americas is "Assistant Minister Provincial for Sacred Ecology and Colonization/Decolonization". This is his real contribution to this response. He finished his first session by saying that Sacred ecology is not seeing or treating the ‘environment’ as somewhere ‘out there’ to be exploited, used, turned into a profit as part of the green cycle; ‘out there’ is not part of our life. Instead we need conversion of life, to see that it is part of us, and we are part of it, intimately held together, and we need to listen again to Mother Earth.This is what Cathy was talking about when she offered us Robin Wall Kimmerer's fabulous book "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants". It is an amazing book. 

But importantly for us, he said that A Franciscan style ‘conversion of life’ is essential for continuing life today.

Jeff's second session explored what a Franciscan conversion of life around sacred ecology, taking into account everything he and Cathy had already talked about, looks like. How we as Franciscans can make a  contribution to the kind of solutions we need will deepen our understanding of who we are and strengthen our own order. Maybe more importantly, the world needs a conversion of life right now, and urgently. Mother Earth is exhausted – and we have made it so; we need to be agents of the cleansing.

To help with this he spent sometime talking about René Dubos, the author of "think globally, act locally," and how St Francis shaped his thinking. The solution is to weave together the web of life again, with us as part of it. he then returned to the 3 core questions asked the day before:

           Do we know where we live?

           What do we see? (cf prophet Amos)

           Who is my neighbour?  - Bonhoeffer ‘Our Life together’ – on a planetary basis.

Do we know where we live? - what is our address? An invitation  to grow in our awareness of its place on the earth, and that the environment is not separate from me, out there for me to exploit.

What do we see? - This is Amos' plumbline again – God showed me that the Lord was standing by the wall with a plumbline. The world at that time was becoming very unjust between rich and poor. So what do we see where we live? This is God’s creation. Do we see that our political and economic systems do not allow us to re-vision our life together as they are based on consumerism rather than relationship. 

A lot of churches are listening to Wall Street and following the plumbline that is very out of balance. He talked about how in many places democracy is out of plumbline 9I wonder what he would say now that the Orange One is back with his crazy cabinet). Examples of this are that some forms of non-violent protest are becoming illegal eg in US to protest against water rights or oil pipelines, [in UK re asylum seekers]. People voting for increased environmental damage even when that will harm their quality of life.

He reminded us that despite what politicians and others try to tell us (in this country the white supremacist David Seymour among them) Diversity is a strength. In this country (Aotearoa) we saw that in the amazing hikoi last week, with Maori, Pakeha, newer immigrants, Christians, people of other faiths and no recognized faiths, with so a number of languages spoken including Te Reo Maori and English, joining together to work for a diverse country which honours the place of indigenous tangata whenua.  What is our role in fostering community built on ffriendship and respect and being able to disagree. These are attractive to many people and threatening to others. He noted that our agency as Franciscans is probably being expressed more than we realise.

Who are our neighbours?
Using Catherine Preston he said that the most miraculous part of earth’s agency is not how she makes mountains rise…. It is how she invites people into relationship. Listening is part of relationship, not just speaking. Reciprocity of relationship is far more expressive of kinship than ‘rights’;  ‘rights’ tends to turn people into objects. Love is more powerful than laws.

In the discussion that followed Jeff was asked how can we make a difference and not lose heart? A really important question! He replied that for him, to pay most attention to how he lives every day, and to let his faith in God be lived out in that way. There will always be things that make him doubt that the love of God and of neighbour is true. But he will live his faith.

He offered this final thought, that the Franciscan charism is about penitence and conversion of life – changing our relationships with mother earth and with each other.

There is so much here that intersects with Cathy's input, and that invites some much more reading and finding out. But it also is small and simple, inviting me to simply live each day as part of God's gift of this world, part of the web of life, praying and living in ways that this web is healed and restored that we might all thrive. That is mine to do everyday.