I am a cyclist, and have been riding regularly for ten years. Along with trains, my bike is my main means of transport for journeys longer than a few kilometres. Holidays usually involve cycling in one way or another. As well as cycling in pleasant conditions, I regularly expose my body to wind, rain, and sweltering heat. Neither am I a stranger to numb extremities or to the rasp of frozen air in my throat and lungs, having ridden through three English winters. But my identity as a cyclist is not just about these practices. Slowly but surely, cycling has changed me, in ways that I would never have thought when I first took it up. I am more attuned to the weather and to the changing seasons. My world has become smaller, distance-wise, but more filled in with detail and diversity. When I ride the ten kilometres home from church on a Sunday night, in the winter dark, I process the sermon, I repeat songs and prayers, and my body exhilarates as the cold air rushes past my warm body. I have some of my most mystical moments, a sense of being drawn out beyond myself and of connecting with God and with nature, when I am on a bike. Through the discipline of cycling, I have come, gradually, to re-imagine who I am.
If we are to look the ecological crisis in the face, and to repent of and change our ways, we need to see ourselves and our story differently. The old narratives of progress through technological advancement, of ever increasing well-being through wealth creation and rising consumption, have broken down. Those Christian narratives that have afforded little space for the worth and purpose of the Creation save humanity are increasingly questioned. There is a need for re-imagination, for a deep look backwards, forwards, and even sideways, to an earthier, more grounded Christianity than the Christianity with which many of us may have been more familiar.
Various psychological models of behaviour hold that cognitions such as worldviews, values, and attitudes precede behaviours. According to these models, we re-imagine first, and then we act. If we come to hold a more ecologically sensitive outlook, the way that we live would likewise become more ecologically sensitive, both as individuals and as societies.
There is much truth in this. Two examples strike me in particular. Last year I was involved in organising an Australian speaking tour of Rev. Richard Cizik, formerly of the US National Association of Evangelicals, on the topic of climate change. Several years ago, Rev. Cizik agreed to attend a climate change conference In Oxford, but with some scepticism about the value of doing so. Upon hearing climatologist and Christian Sir John Houghton speak on the reality of climate change and the Christian responsibility to act, he had, in his own words, a “second conversion” which continues to this day. This formerly arch-conservative supporter of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior is now at the cutting edge of North American evangelical initiatives on “Creation care”, religious freedom, and nuclear non-proliferation. In another example, the Sisters of Mercy in Bathurst, having gained an increased ecological awareness, an understanding of the place of humans in the “universe story”, and an appreciation of God’s love and compassion for the whole Earth community, have embarked upon an ecological education and permaculture project. Their “Rahamim Ecological Learning Community” is also integrated with the Sisters’ mental health work and ministries with refugees and people on parole.
But I want to suggest that the relationship between our views and our behaviours is as much back the other way. The truth of my experience is that a great deal of the work of re-imagination comes through practices themselves. Cycling is just one manifestation of this.
I have altered my diet, in order to eat meals together with my vegetarian sister with whom I live. My awareness of and views about meat production and consumption, including the ecological impacts of animal farming and animal welfare, have changed as a result.
While studying for a PhD, I started going to evening prayer once a week, with little idea as of what to expect. By the end of my studies, I had gained a new appreciation for this previously foreign form of prayer and liturgy.
That practice impacts on imagination rings true for others as well. An eco-theologian friend says that his theology is deeply shaped by his time growing food in the garden. An ecology project of an Islamic education centre in Sydney provides another example. The centre runs a riverbank restoration initiative together with local councils and the catchment management authority. Planting natives, weeding, and plunging hands into the soil has been a catalyst for participants to become increasingly interested in and open to discussing broader issues relating to sustainability and lifestyles. And I have no doubt that Rev. Cizik and the Sisters of Mercy could tell similar stories about how the shifts in their ministries have been shifting their thinking.
Our views of God, ourselves, the Earth, and how each one relates to the other, are played out in our everyday lives, communities and actions in a dynamic way. There are multiple ways that these views might change. For example, a journey of ecological re-imagination in the lives of our churches can come about by exposing ourselves to new perspectives – for example, through having a speaker from a community affected by climate change coming to talk with us about their experience, running Bible studies where we deliberately employ an ecologically aware interpretive method, or sensitising our worship to ecological considerations. Over time, we might find that this also results in our churches starting on some practical environmental initiatives.
At the same time, it is also important to acknowledge that we don’t necessarily need to wait until we have the “right” theology, the “right” understanding, or the “right” answers in order to change our day to day lives so that we tread more lightly on the Earth. This might be by making a change to what we eat, or to how we get from A to B, or by participating in the growing of food in some small way – as individuals and families, but also as churches. For example, we might start serving locally produced, organic and/or vegetarian food at communal meals (including the Eucharist), we might start cycling or car pooling to services, or we might regularly participate in a local community garden as a church. As much spiritual as they are practical, these everyday “disciplines” have the power to reshape and remake our understandings.
This article first appeared in Eremos Magazine, November 2009. Reproduced with the permission of Miriam Pepper and Eremos Magazine.
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