Love in the Earth Community, and Theological Reflection for Black History Month
Happy Valentine’s Day! Here in our house, Ella made homemade cards for each of her classmates. All of the kids expect to get lots of candy and chocolate at school today! Hugh told us the legend of St. Valentine: He was a priest in 3rd century Rome who secretly married people after the emperor had outlawed marriage for young men, because he deemed them to be better soldiers if they did not have wives. Valentine was beheaded for his efforts, the story goes, and was sainted by the Church. Ah, love!
Of course, it has turned into a day that has become artificial and highly consumerist, demanding the purchase of cards, candy, flowers, and many other items in order to show our love for others, no matter the cost to the planet.
It is also a day when we see messages from environmental organizations that say things like, “Love the planet!” “Love the Earth!” The truth is, though, that we don’t love in general; we don’t love the whole Earth. We can care for the planet, care for the Earth, but love is specific. If we think about who or what we love in our lives, we love specific people; our partners, our kids, our parents, our friends. We don’t love people in general; we love those people we are in particular relationships with, relationships of mutuality and caring.
And the same is true within the Earth community. We love particular beings and aspects of the planet; we love a certain tree, or the birds in our own backyard. We love the creek that runs outside our house, or the river just across the way. We build relationships with specific beings and aspects of the Earth community, the tree or the birds, the creek or that river. As we get to know them, we come to love them. In the relationship, we love. As it with the beloved people in our lives, so it is with the Earth community.
Subscriber Contributions
Subscribers have sent me the following experiences and resources for our community reflection. Thank you for sending them in!
Example of discipleship in action:
One subscriber described the ongoing work that she and others within her community faith do as part of an Anti-Racist group throughout the year. This is work that isn't just for Black History Month, but part of an ongoing commitment of unlearning and learning. This supports and is supported by the personal relationships she has in her own life. She also described the concrete actions she takes every day for the planet, including only buying what she needs, and ensuring her clothes wear out before she replaces. She also expressed her concerns for the ecological ills that we are leaving for our grandchildren. Thank you for sharing your concerns, and the ways in which you are living out ecological and anti-racist discipleship!
A documentary short on the effects of climate change:
Subscribers Éric and Scott shared the following documentary short with me on Monday. I was invited to not research it in advance, or ask any details about what it is about, but to simply watch and let it in. That is what I did. It is called "Haulout" and was created by The New Yorker. It is about 20 minutes. I invite you to watch:
https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/the-new-yorker-documentary-haulout
Thank you for sending me this powerful film.
Theological Reflection
This week’s reflection is in honour of Black History Month. It is a theological reflection, rather than a reflection on a particular passage of Scripture. However, I invite you to read and meditate upon the following passages in relation to my thoughts, below.
‘But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being. (Job 12:7-10, NRSV)
“…Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40b, NRSV)
In my writing, preaching and teaching, one of the things that I emphasize is the reality that we are all, human and other-than-human, related to one another, and interconnected and interdependent upon all that exists. This is based on physical and cosmological sciences, and so is more than metaphor or poetry. It is science, and I encourage people to think about what this means for who we are as human beings, and as people of faith. What this means, among many things, is being reminded that we are mammals; we are animals who, while distinctive in certain ways as human beings, are part of the natural world in which we live.
And, as part of the natural world, part of the Earth community, we are called to love non-human nature as our neighbours. When we are called by Jesus to love our neighbours as ourselves, that is to include the other-than-human world around us. We learn from him that there are no boundaries between who is our neighbour and who is not. Thus, since we have learned that we are literally cousin to every living and non-living thing on the Earth (and in the universe), mammals in relationship with the living and non-living world around us, then we are all neighbours to one another in the Earth community, and the commandment to love one another has no limits.
These two ideas, that we are all related and interrelated within a single Earth community, and that we are to love all of nature as our neighbour, are essential to new ways of perceiving, living and acting within the world toward Earth healing. They are essential for recognizing and building community, both human and other-than-human, so that we and others are seen, supported, loved, and challenged to create new ways of living and loving that mitigate climate change, reduce species extinction, clean up pollution, and so much more.
Yet, in my readings this month for Black History Month, I have discovered a blind spot, as a white ecotheologian, in my theology. There is an exuberance to my proclamations about our interconnected reality with the Earth community that reflects my own social, economic and historical location. But it is not an exuberance that is necessarily shared by those for whom the reality that humans are animals within the natural world is fraught with trauma.
Christopher Carter teaches me about the fact that, while a white person like myself comes from a contextual history of seeing myself and others as separate from and superior to the rest of the natural world, for certain communities, such as Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour, they have long been associated with nature in a different way.
Carter, a Black liberation ethicist who teaches in religion and ecology (and whose book I listed last week, The Spirit of Soul Food) writes about expanding theology, particularly Black theology, to recognize the inclusion of the other-than-human world within our notions of community.[1] In doing so, he says, we have to reckon with the history that, within European colonialism, the categories of ‘human’ and ‘animals’ and “the modern delineation of human/humanity and animal/animality [were] constructed along racial lines.”[2] To put it bluntly, people of colour were seen as closer to being animals than white people were, and this justified the slavery, stealing of lands, erasing of identities, and other horrors of the colonizing project. As Carter points out, “The logic that informs this approach is that in order to prove our humanness, black people (and other people of color) needed to distance themselves from ‘the animal.’”[3]
We can see, then, one way in which the legacies of ecological destruction and racist oppression are linked; the logic of domination is similar in both structures. By arguing that nature is devoid of subjectivity and rationality and simply there for the taking, and by labelling Black people as less than human and closer to animals, both nature and people of colour have been brutalized and traumatized for generations.
Carter notes how it is the same ideology that has led to the ‘silenced presence’ of both animals and people of colour, in which their presence is tolerated only inasmuch as it is within terms set by the white dominant culture. Thus, he argues, for true community to be built, we need to recognize not only the full subjectivity and interiority of Black individuals and communities, but also the full subjectivity and interiority of animals. Carter suggests that giving voice to the other-than-human world around us can reshape our God-talk. This is in line with what I and other ecotheologians, such as Sallie McFague, suggest. What he adds, that McFague and myself have not talked about, is that fact that this work can also help to dismantle the logic of colonialist oppression that continues to cause harm and trauma to BIPOC individuals and communities.
And for me, it raises the need to be aware that talking about the idea, the scientific reality, that we are all a part of nature, needs to be done so in a sensitive way, with an anti-racist stance that recognizes the ways in which some people have already been seen as ‘part of nature’ in ways that have been genocidal and caused trauma for generations. The solution, according to Carter, is not to avoid the truth of the nature-animal connection, but to name the intersections between colonialist racist oppression and colonialist degradation of the Earth and to hold that intersectionality as we move forward to create a better understanding of community that includes all of the natural world, human and other-than-human.
I am grateful for the insights from Dr. Carter, and recognize the continuing work that I, and other white colleagues, need to do in order to create and support anti-racist ecotheologies.
[1] Christopher Carter, “Prophetic Labrador: Expanding (Black) Theology by Overcoming the Invisibility of Animal Life and Death,” in Feeling Animal Death: Being Host to Ghosts, ed. Brianne Donaldson and Ashley King (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019), 91-101.
[2] Ibid., 96.
[3] Ibid.
Discipleship in Action
The news about the ecological crisis, especially the climate crisis, can be overwhelming and discouraging; it is easy to feel that there is little we can do. This isn’t true! There is so much that we can do, concrete actions that we can take now, in response to God’s call upon us as people of faith. Here are two ideas.
Learn about Environmental Racism
I have two ideas for discipleship in action this week. The first is to educate ourselves on environmental racism and the way that it impacts people living within or near our own communities. Environmental racism is the manifestation of institutional racism through the dumping of toxic wastes, location of landfills, and lack of access to clean water, within Black and other communities of colour. Here is one link that can help you begin your learning:
https://ecojustice.ca/environmental-racism-in-canada/
However, don’t stop there. Do some googling, and find out about how environmental racism is manifesting in your town or city, and how you can respond. Learning, and then responding concretely (through volunteering, writing letters, donating money, etc), can be discipleship in action.
Fall in Love
The second idea that I have this week is this: Fall in love! Fall in love with a specific aspect or being of the Earth community. Is there a tree that you always enjoy touching or sitting under? Get to know it; develop a relationship with it; fall in love with it. A bird at your feeder? The creek nearby? The river? A plant in your garden? Here is how you fall in love: you spend time with that being; you notice its particular markings, ways of being. What is it like in the winter, in the other seasons? When does it show up? Slow down and listen. What is it telling you? Let yourself be quiet and patient; go back again and again, without expectation. Build that relationship, the way you have done with the people in your life. And let yourself fall in love with that other-than-human being. Loving leads to caring, leads to Earth healing. Falling in love can be discipleship in action.
I'd Love to Hear From You!
I would love to hear from you! As we continue to listen and learn during Black History Month, what connections have you made between the experiences of Black Americans and Canadians, and the ecological crisis? Are there resources that you have found helpful and would like to share? I can include them in a future newsletter.
What is on your heart and mind, lately, about faith and the climate crisis? What worries you, and what brings you joy?
And, I would especially love to hear about the ways in which you are living out your discipleship in response to God in a time of climate change. Please reach out: jessica@jessicahetherington.ca.
Announcements and Upcoming Events
Mailchimp, the server that I use to send you these newsletters, has made changes to their services, so that I would have to upgrade (pay more) to send them to you. So, I will be exploring another medium to send them to you (likely Substack or Patreon). It won't require anything from you, and I will announce it in advance. What it does mean is that the look of the newsletter may change. I'll keep you posted.
Upcoming Radio Interview:
Tuesday, Feb. 28, from 11 am – 12 noon
The Radical Reverend radio show on CIUT Radio 89.5 FM, which is run out of Toronto. An interview about my ministry and about the importance of faith for climate action and ecological change. Shortly after the program finishes live, they post it here to download and listen: https://ciut.fm/shows/the-radical-reverend/?fbclid=IwAR370TRrxRYw8DwSfAXayXfjiBcTRXbdTPhKCBXiBfe1RAp_lIT_oGADmP8. I hope you’ll tune in!
Preaching events coming up:
This Sunday, Feb 19, 2023 – Riverside United Church, 3191 Riverside Drive, Ottawa ON, 10:30 am in person or online at: https://www.youtube.com/@riversideunitedchurchottawa.
Sermon Theme: Hiking up the Mountain with Jesus (on the Transfiguration of Jesus)
Feb 26, 2023 – Wall Street United Church, 5 Wall St. Brockville ON, 10:00 am in person.