At a recent gathering at the 1875 family homestead, I watched the little kids have fun running in the fields, driving a four-wheeler, seeing sky in all directions. The farm is prairie again. The children are my cousin’s kids’ kids. How do I answer to them about what we humans are doing to our common inheritance, Earth?
In my ecological promises for the year, I have used less air conditioning and wasted less food, but I have failed to drive less and ride the bus more. The bus stops beneath my window, but day after day I have a reason to drive the 2.5 miles. I share the road with inspiring people who have organized their lives around biking to work even through cold, snowy winter. Not me, yet. Maybe, maybe this year.
In the pope’s view Earth needs the same cleansing Jesus gives the temple in Sunday’s gospel. Jesus reclaims the temple for prayer, chasing out sellers and moneychangers who have turned it into a marketplace. “We have come to see ourselves as Earth’s lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will” (#3), the pope writes.
In his encyclical Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis enters into dialogue with all people about repairing our planet. His letter begins with lyrics from the Canticle of St. Francis of Assisi, “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs” (#1).
Pope Francis supports United Nations efforts to set limits on global warming. He teaches an integral ecology that urges personal conversion and international collaboration. “Our goal,” he writes, “is to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it” (#19).
When our government made the United States the only nation to refuse to keep the Paris agreement, individual states and businesses stepped into the gap. A windmill farm stands along the road to our homestead. A solar field stands at the north end of the town where I grew up. Such projects create jobs and reduce carbon dioxide and other polluting gases.
- What are you doing to clean and repair our planet home?