Looking Into the Belly of the Beast
On the discipleship call to confront the ecological crisis and climate emergency (with a shoutout to Jonah!)
Hello friends. Happy New Year, and especially, Epiphany blessings to each one of you! Despite all of the chaos and pain in the world today, I hope that you can witness to the light of God that has come into the world through the birth of Jesus.
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Looking Into the Belly of the Beast
I was reflecting the other day on the kind of person I am when it comes to crises and other times when bad things happen. While some tend to turn away from the bad things and crises or wish that they could, I have always tended to turn toward that which is happening. It is what made me effective in my work in women’s homeless shelters for 6 years; doing the crisis work that is a big part of that job suited me well.
I asked my spouse the other day, “Honey, would you say that I am a person who is willing to look into the belly of the beast?”
He paused for a moment to reflect, then answered, “Yes; yes, I believe you are.”
As an activist, a minister and an ecotheologian, a key part of what I do is confront the crises that surround us and seek to learn about them so that I can better respond, and guide others in responding. I have discovered that, while I do need to regularly practice rest and respite so that I don’t burn out, I must look head-on at what is happening, seek to interpret what I am seeing and experiencing as accurately as possible, and then move to respond in effective ways. If I don’t, then I shrivel up and become less of who I am called to be.
Did you know?
The phrase “belly of the beast” comes from the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale (Jonah 1:1-17). Jonah had been told by God to go to Nineveh to prophesy on behalf of God. However, he sought to run and away and avoid what God was asking him to do. In so doing, God had Jonah be swallowed up by a whale – literally in the belly of the beast, in the middle of trouble and suffering.
I think that in our time of ecological crisis and climate emergency, we are all called to look into the belly of the beast, confront the truth of what we are seeing and experiencing, and then respond. To look away, perhaps by reassuring ourselves that others are doing that work for us, seeking to restore a sense of peace or equilibrium by ignoring what is happening, or by reaching for denial, cynicism, or resignation as a response, is to give up on the call that God makes on our lives to follow the path of Jesus through our discipleship. To look away as a default response to the bad things happening in the world is to deny the discipleship command that is placed on all of us as people of faith.
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Don’t get me wrong: we can be easily overwhelmed if we seek to be fully informed and engaged on every single issue that is facing humanity and the Earth. I am not suggesting that we take on every cause, every issue. However, if we are honest with ourselves, and if we enter into prayer and discernment, we can often figure out what it is that we are avoiding, and what it is that God wants us to face, learn about, and respond to in the world.
My Friday Nudge for you today is this: Where do you need to look and see what is happening? What aspect of the ecological crisis and climate emergency do you need to confront and take action on? Where do you need to look into the belly of the beast and take discipleship action? Pray about it, continue to discern, and then step out in discipleship. As you do, consider praying what Jonah prayed while in the whale, after which he was released onto dry land:
Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying,
‘I called to the Lord out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
3 You cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
4 Then I said, “I am driven away
from your sight;
how shall I look again
upon your holy temple?”
5 The waters closed in over me;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head
6 at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me for ever;
yet you brought up my life from the Pit,
O Lord my God.
7 As my life was ebbing away,
I remembered the Lord;
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.
8 Those who worship vain idols
forsake their true loyalty.
9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Deliverance belongs to the Lord!’ (Jonah 2:1-9, NRSV)
Friends, you, too, can look into the belly of the beast that is the climate emergency and respond. God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.
Yours in Earth community,
Jessica