Essay: Tell Me About Despair
Friday Nudge: Have Climate Conversations this Earth Day
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Friday Nudge: Have Climate Conversations this Earth Day
Happy Friday, friends. This Sunday is Earth Sunday in many churches, in honour of Earth Day on April 22. I will be preaching at Trinity United Church, 360 Route 105 in Kazabazua, Quebec, at 11:00 am. Come and join us! In-person only.
Earth Day is one of those strange days; businesses, community organizations and churches alike mark it as one day to celebrate care for the Earth and the history of the environmental movement. I say that it is a strange day because, as the saying goes, “Shouldn’t every day be Earth Day?” Yes, it should. But I appreciate the ease with which Earth Day can invite conversations about the Earth, our place within it, the reality of the climate and ecological crisis, and how we need to act.
And in some Christian communities, simply having a conversation about the importance of taking the climate emergency seriously is difficult. So whether Earth Day is an easy day for climate conversations or it’s a difficult one, I invite you to engage in climate conversations within your communities of faith, and more broadly in your community. Take the conversations deeper than just “it’s important to care for the environment,” and talk about what you’re doing or want to do to take climate action. Talk about your fears and worries; open up about what scares you the most, and invite others to do the same. This Earth Day, let’s have some vulnerable conversations about what it means to live in this Earth community in our time of climate emergency. That is your Friday Nudge for this week, my friends. I am going to do the same where I live. And please, come back here or to Notes, and share those conversations with us.
(Need some help to start a climate conversation?
’s book Saving Us shows us how. Here’s my review of the book.)
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Essay: Tell Me About Despair
I teach, speak and write about hope in response to the climate and ecological crisis often, but I haven’t spent much time talking about despair. If I’m being honest, it’s partly because I don’t want to acknowledge despair; it scares me to consider what admitting to despair will bring up in me. It’s also because I’m pretty sure that others don’t ask me to speak or preach to hear about despair; they want to hear about hope. They want to know that there is hope for us and the Earth community in this time of ecological disaster. They want to hear about hope so that they don’t have to sit in despair.
In this season of Easter, though, I have been reflecting on hope and despair. If there’s something that we learn from the Easter story, it’s that we can’t get to the resurrection of Jesus without first dealing with his crucifixion. We have to sit at the foot of the cross and face the ugliness of torture and execution before we can sit before the spring lilies on the altar. We have to confront the feelings of betrayal and loss, we have to meet Mary Magdalene before she discovers that the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive in the garden before we can celebrate her as the first witness to the resurrection. We have to live with the despair that is Holy Saturday before we can sing Alleluia! on Easter Sunday.
“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.”
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