spirituality and survival: love of theotokos and mother earth...

This week was an emotional roller coaster: in addition to the news of Wiki-Leaks founder, Julian Assange, being arrested; Steve Bannon's mentoring the neo-fascists of Europe; the never-ending saga of Brexit; the emerging Constitutional crisis between the Democratic House of Representatives and the Trump regime over undisclosed tax returns; the re-election of Bibi Netanyahu in Israel; and the smear campaign being waged against Ilhan Omar; I spent time with my friends in L'Arche Ottawa, did yard work, discussed ways to deepen connections with the area's creative poetry experiments, and began writing a new song about the Blessed Virgin Mary and Mother Earth. 

What intensified my reactions to all of this came from an interview I heard on CBC Radio at the start of my six hour trek home from Canada. RANT ALERT: Without any reservation, Canadian talk-radio surpasses everything we attempt in the USA. Our pale excuse for serious radio reporting, NPR, is only somewhat better than the rest of the noise pollution on American air waves. Instead of rigorous analysis and a commitment to insightful conversation that is both eclectic and meaningful, public radio in our realm has become a chatty, anemic, dumbed-down exercise in news-lite. QUALIFICATION: there are a few US alternatives like WBAI in NYC or KXCI in Tucson. Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" is always informative if sometimes heavy-handed. And the Pacifica Network (https://www.pacifica.org) has a long history of cutting through the fluff to report the truth. RANT CONCLUDES. The program that grabbed my attention, Tapestry (https://www.cbc.ca/
radio/tapestry/spirituality-and-survival-1.5086414) devoted a full hour to "Spirituality and Survival." 

In addition to a moving, in-depth conversation with a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, there was another interview with Philip Clayton of Claremont School of Theology. Clayton is passionately committed to linking spirituality and religion to our quest for sustainability. The show began like this:

It was while taking in a university lecture, that Philip Clayton was suddenly struck with a need to overhaul his priorities and to devote himself to fighting climate change. "I was sitting in a classroom with this famous professor named John Cobb and we were doing a session on faith and the future of the planet," said Clayton, a philosopher at the Claremont School of Theology, a graduate school in southern California.

"He was probably 85 at the time and this brilliant professor said, 'Well the following kinds of systems will collapse' and I said, 'So how many people do you think will die?' Cobb, a prominent theologian at the Claremont School who focuses on environmental activism, told him that the number could be in the hundreds of millions, if not more.

"I remember walking out into the night and thinking that changes my world," said Clayton. In 2015, Clayton helped lead a group that became the Institute for an Ecological Civilization, which tries to use theology to fight against an environmental crisis. 

I am not one who usually responds to hyperbole. My BS detector is well-honed. Neither am I persuaded by doomsday prophets. Like Clayton, I not only trust that the rhythm of God's creation includes darkness and light, but that new life was built into the reality of death.  The Paschal Mystery informs and guides my ethics. But I had never before heard anyone quantify the magnitude of death and loss that is likely to become ours given climate change. "(Most of our) systems will collapse' ... how many people do you think will die?' The number could be in the hundreds of millions, if not more." (Listen to the whole show @ https:// www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/spirituality-and-survival-1.5086414/climate-change-is-a-test-for-humanity-that-we-may-not-pass-says-philosopher-1.5087025)

Towards the close of Tapestry, Clayton framed the current challenge of climate change in a way that touched my heart - and appealed to my gifts:

"Science says that (our current actions are) too little too late. We actually need to sequester huge amounts of carbon back in the earth by 2028 and be zero emissions by 2042... And we don't have that technology yet. If we're unable to address climate change either individually or collectively, Clayton said that this crisis will reveal a lot about human nature: "We're in a battle to see whether we're fundamentally an altruistic species who will act for the good of the species or fundamentally a selfish species that will that is so irrational that we'll be driving a car toward a wall... I'm optimistic about human nature. That's the fundamental philosophical or spiritual commitment that I think we have to make."

I began to sense a new song/poem simmering within me that links the devotion many people of faith have towards the Blessed Virgin Mary with a comparable love of Mother Earth. It is Clayton's conviction that when loving the earth is embraced as part of our spirituality, then sustainability will become an act of trust. An embodied prayer. A way of being in the world much like St. Francis and St. Clare incarnated. Further, given the well-developed commitment to Mary as Theotokos - Mother of God - Dei Genetrix - that has matured in Eastern Orthodox prayer, I am listening for a simple musical expression that can celebrate the transformative feminine spirituality of Mary by embracing a bold caring for Mother Earth. Perhaps because some of us are about to enter Holy Week, I hear a connection between the words of Jesus on the Cross in St. John's gospel and a new charism for the 21st century: 

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

To follow Jesus, to love creation as he showed, is to take Mary into our homes and hearts and care for her as she cared for Christ. It is to cultivate a new respect and even adoration of the sacred feminine that moves beyond any sanitized and sentimental Marian piety. It is to reclaim for the Reformed world a living relationship with the Blessed Virgin whose trust and commitment brings Christ to birth within and among us. It is to join with the broken of the world who cherish the Black Madonna, who find solace and strength in Guadalupe, and who embody Mary's life-giving compassion in our ordinary lives. 

Do you know of any poems, prayers, chants or songs that make this type of linkage intentional? Any clues in scripture (beyond the Magnificat) that might help? I am not rushing to force this song - or this connection - but rather, like Mary, I want to behold these things and ponder them in my heart as I slowly collect hints of lyrics, insights and melodies. Fr. Richard Rohr's column from earlier this week was encouraging when he wrote::

The human need for physical, embodied practices seems universal. Across Christian history, the “Sacraments,” as Orthodox and Catholics call them, have always been with us. Before the age of literacy started to spread in Europe in the sixteenth century, things like pilgrimage, prayer beads, body prostrations, bows and genuflections, “blessing oneself” with the sign of the cross, statues, sprinkling things with holy water, theatrical plays and liturgies, incense and candles all allowed the soul to know itself through the outer world—which we are daring to call “Christ.” These outer images serve as mirrors of the Absolute, which can often bypass the mind. Anything is a sacrament if it serves as a Shortcut to the Infinite, hidden in something that is very finite.

(https://cac.org/the-sacrament-of-anointing-2019-04-09/?utm_medium= email&utm_campaign=2019-04-13%20DM%20Weekly&utm_content=20190413%20DM%20Weekly+CID_893c6981eea4a211f27d6260a5a6034d&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor%20Google%20Analytics&utm_term=Tuesday)

As this week of Christ's passion unfolds, one of my prayers will be to sit with the beauty and power of Rachmaninoff's "Rejoice, O Virgin, Theotokos"  for it is sublime.