ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS
The Rev. Canon George M. Maxwell, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta , Georgia
1 October 2006
Feast of St. Francis
It was just one of those moments.
My wife, Sally, was visiting our grandson, Quinn. One afternoon, Quinn went to the living room window and pointed to something outside. “Hatch … hatch,” he said. Sally didn't understand, so she asked: “What is he saying?”
But, everybody else understood “Quinn-speak.” So, they assumed that he simply needed to speak louder. “Tell Grandmother what you see,” they encouraged him.
“Hatch … hatch,” he repeated, without any sense of annoyance.
Realizing that she was going to have to figure this one out herself, Sally scanned the yard until she saw a little brown bird in branch in the tree. It was a brown nut hatch. Quinn had seen the bird and wanted to point it out to his grandmother.
Quinn was two and a half years old at the time, and the brown nut hatch was only one of seven birds that he could recognize by sight and sound.
That’s how Quinn had been spending his afternoons. He was learning to recognize the birds in his yard. It was great fun for him, and he was learning something about the joy of being in the world that I sometimes forget.
I have been worrying recently about whether Quinn’s children will have the same opportunity to experience these sacred moments. Newspapers, magazines, movies and television shows have been full of stories about “global warming.” And, although no one seems to be exactly sure what is causing it or what we should do about it, there seems to be general agreement that it is happening.
We have been bombarded with images of glaciers melting into pools of water and ice shelves crumbling into the sea. We have seen simulated models of the Gulf Stream slowing down and rising water levels flooding our port cities. We have heard new warnings that climate changes may make hurricanes and fires more dangerous. And, we have heard speculation about the extinction of animal species that can't change fast enough to adapt to new environments.
All of this, it seems, is probably the result of human activity. The earth is getting warmer. We are releasing an increasing amount of “greenhouse gases” into the atmosphere. Most scientists think that these gases are trapping energy from that sun that would otherwise bounce off back into space, and that the trapped energy is warming the earth.
And, it may all get worse before it gets any better. Developing countries are burning more dirty fuel to power their growing economies, and some speculate that the warming may begin to spiral upward at a faster rate before we will have a chance to do anything about it.
Economists are busy building models to measure costs and benefits. But every time they get one done, the scientists come up with new consequences, which sends the economists back to their models -- and around and around we go. All of which leads to what seems like the biggest problem. Doing something now to stop the warming means spending money without knowing exactly what the benefits are going to be.
It seems to me that, even though the science remains uncertain, the risks of catastrophic consequences are high enough to justify our spending some money to do something about them.
But, that is not what has been worrying me.
I have been worried about the assumptions people are making. We seem to be assuming that we will need to continue producing more and more things. We seem to be assuming that we will survive only if we discover new sources of supply, alternate kinds of fuels or more efficient delivery and production technologies. We seem to be assuming, in other words, that the answers to our problems depend entirely on a quantitative analysis that can be made by the scientists and the economists.
I want to challenge those assumptions.
I don’t have anything against scientists and economists, but this problem is too important for them to solve by themselves. The crux of this problem is not one that can be solved by a quantitative analysis. It requires a qualitative analysis that we will have to make ourselves. Science and economics depend on a particular view of human nature – usually one that assumes that we will consume what we can afford rather than what we need, and that we will need to consume tomorrow at least as much as we are consuming today.
We need to decide if that's right. We need to decide, in other words, what kind of consumers we are going to be -- do we really need more or can we do with less? And that is a religious and spiritual question.
I can think of no better guide to answering this question than St. Francis of Assisi , the patron saint of animals and the environment.
Francis lived in the Italian region now known as Umbria during the end of the 12 th and the beginning of the 13 th centuries. He was a literalist that you just have to love. He modeled his life literally on the life of Christ. Francis read that Christ sent his disciples out into the world with no possessions of their own, forcing them to rely on the hospitality of others. So, Francis, who was born to wealth and privilege, gave away all that he had and lived his life barefoot and in absolute poverty. His dedication was so intense that he is reported to have received the imprint of Christ through the stigmata – divinely made wounds in his side and on his hands and feet that matched the five wounds of the crucified Christ.
Yet, although much of his life seems excessively austere to us, he was a joyful person. He sang as he traveled and drew people to him wherever he went.
There are, however, three aspects of Francis’ imitation of Christ that I think we should consider when thinking about our response to global warming: simplicity, responsibility and love of nature.
Simplicity.
Francis lived out the scriptural prescription to seek first the Kingdom of God , and trust that the needed things would come in time. By giving up his wealth, he avoided being possessed by it. He thought that he was freer to be himself when he was not defined by things. And by taking on his poverty, he learned what it meant to be dependent on others. He lived at the bottom because that’s where he thought the truth was.
Yet, he always seemed excited about what he was doing. He didn’t become a sour ascetic. And he didn’t try to compensate for things he didn’t have by spending his time shaming the wealthy or seeking praise for his poverty. He seemed to know where to find joy. He has even been proclaimed as an inspiration for a revival of the Italian poetry, song and drama.
Responsibility.
Francis realized that he could not go it alone. His dependence on others seemed to have been matched by his sense of responsibility to them. Love, he thought, was the truest of all truths. His mission was the redemption of others. So, he dedicated himself to preaching to them and rebuilding the houses of God, both by the physical construction of churches and the spiritual revitalization of their congregations. He was constantly laying the groundwork for things that were larger than him and that would outlive him. And he was able to get out of the way when he realized that moving forward required skills other than his own.
Love of nature.
Francis' sense of dependence and responsibility extended to nature and her creatures. Many of us are most aware of Francis because of the ubiquitous statues of him that we see in our gardens. Francis, in his habit, standing with hands outstretched. Birds eating out of his hand, singing with him or listening to him preach.
Francis is said to have taken great delight in the springs and wild flowers of he Umbrian countryside, and to have gotten up each morning in time to greet the sun.
But, again, this love of nature was not born of soft sentimentality. It reflected a deep and abiding sense of the presence of God in all things.
So, how would our solutions for global warming be different if we moved toward a Franciscan spirituality?
Would a commitment to simplicity (which stopped short of giving away all of our individual wealth) allow us to shift our focus from the production of things to the production of human happiness and well-being?
A focus on the additional production of things seems, at least to me, to carry the seeds of its own destruction. I fear that our investments are destined to yield only additional frustration, insecurity and alienation. The environment will not support unlimited production. The more we depend on others for our natural resources, the more control they ultimately exercise over us, and the greater potential there will be conflict. We already find ourselves in the perverse situation of having to buy oil from the very people who are financing terrorist attacks against us.
But, a focus on the production of additional human happiness and well-being would, I think, allow us to work more easily within the limitations of our environment. If we didn’t rely so much on things to define ourselves, then we might find that we need fewer of them. We might find it easier to share more, use things longer and buy only what we need rather than what we can afford. We might even find a way to work a little less and play a little more.
Would a commitment to responsibility give our political leaders the freedom to consider the impact of their decisions on subsequent generations? We really can’t blame them for not wanting to ask us to make any sacrifices when they know we are going to punish them for asking.
Would a commitment to loving nature inspire us to treat the environment as a living thing to be cared for and enjoyed? The prices of things would be much greater if we ascribed tangible value to the health, beauty and permanence of our environment.
It feels like one of those moments.
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I am, after all, just a preacher. But, I am convinced that the real answers to global warming lie not in the sophisticated quantitative analyses of the scientists and economists, but in a relatively simple qualitative analysis that we need to make about how we are going to live our lives. Before they can decide how to get there, we need to decide where we want to go.
I am convinced that the life of St. Francis – with his commitment to simplicity and responsibility, and his love of nature – shows us the way. He shows us how imitating Christ allows us to work with, rather than against, our environment. He shows us how to make things our second, rather than our first, priority. And, he shows us how to appreciate the organic, the gentle, the nonviolent and the beautiful.
I am convinced that this is what Quinn knows that I sometimes forget.
It is the joy that we find within ourselves when we live in harmony with the laws of the universe.
And this joy is sustainable!
AMEN
Comments? Contact George Maxwell at: GMaxwell@stphilipscathedral.org