This poem appears in Geo-Justice.
With gratitude and grace, we celebrate the story of creation, liberation, and us.
In blessing and brokenness, we restore hunger for newness, boiling from the wellsprings of our souls. Here, within wonder and surprise, we rediscover hope and recognize once more the signature of God.
From our awareness of beauty and brokenness, rivers of grace flow into our hearts to heal, purify, and bring justice to the world. Through the emergence of harmony, we behold balance, peace, and beauty flow into our hearts and across the land.
We rejoice when all members of the Earth community have a place to raise their young, a shelter from the elements, and the opportunity for a meaningful life. As we venture forth today, the words of soon-to-be-canonized St. Oscar Romero dance across our awareness and pulsate in our hearts, with the promise of a meaningful future yet to be realized on this Easter journey.
He writes: “By overcoming self, one achieves the Easter resurrection. As we prepare once again to celebrate the resurrection, we reflect on our lives and ask guidance from the universe and cosmic Christ as we make our Easter journey this day."
[Mural depicting Archbishop Oscar Romero outside the San Salvador hospital where he was killed while celebrating Mass, March 24, 1980. CNS photo]
It was summer 1970. I was a student at the Canadian Urban Training Project for Christian Service in Toronto. The director, Dr. Ed File, minister of the United Church of Canada, had prepared us for what he called the “urban plunge.” We were to go into the ghettos with $5 in our pockets and interact with the displaced persons we found there. The goal was to see people as they really are within a corporate system that necessitates winners and losers, rather than projecting stereotypes on them.
One evening, after going into the chapel for a bible service, I received a ticket and was assigned a bunk bed. As I sat on my perch on the upper bunk, I looked around the room and composed this poem:
Monks of Skid Row
A strange breed of monks,
these 12,000 derelicts of life,
these lovable, genial, isolated human beings.
They live with a past not to be forgotten,
a present built out of isolation,
a future that promises and hopes
for nothing.
These monks of the inner city
are more alone than the strictest contemplative,
often more redeemed
as they traffic in their currency of cigarettes.
Where to get beer, a bed, a meal, a job
and sometimes money?
They are selfless and concerned,
these islands of humanity,
boasting of a day’s work
and regretting a wasted life.
They trust NO ONE as they walk
their silent world of pain and fear,
this order of the street,
people without futures, without rights.
Poor, pushed, passed by and possessed
by those who provide beds and food,
keeping them on one aimless
treadmill of life.
Whenever I enter a jewelry store, instinctively I migrate to the display case that contains watches. I gaze at the Bulova, Rolex, and others. In my mind’s eye, I imagine myself with one of these fine timepieces on my wrist.
When I emerge from this timepiece trance and wander down the street, I ask myself why I’m so fascinated with and attracted to a watch. In that instant, my mind goes back to one evening in a cosmology class when the question was posed: “What time is it in the universe?”
As we reflected on our different understandings of time, one person spoke up: “There is circular time. This notion of time marks the recurring seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. There are also the dawn and dusk of each day.” The rhythms of time are celebrated by monastic communities who chant Matins in the morning, Vespers in the evening, and Compline at night.”
We recalled the words of Albert Einstein: “Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it.”
There is also the notion of deep time, which can be understood as developmental time. From this perspective, we reflect on the transformational moment of each chapter in the great story about which Thomas Berry spoke, back to the origin of time—that moment of the great flaring forth when time began.
As I gaze at the decades-old wristwatch on my wrist to see what time it is today, I wonder what deep time story it has to tell. It is perhaps the story of the great live oak standing stately in the field, which I pass by every morning. It is also the story of the original supernova event, 14 billion years ago, when out of nothingness, the elements emerged. Hydrogen and helium were cooked in the intense heat of the great flaring forth. The solar system came into being. In the planetary geological event, Earth was ushered into existence. This first chapter of the great universe story has been told by physicists and astronomers.
As the waters bathed planet Earth, life appeared. Then after a long generative time, beings with self-reflective consciousness rose up in Africa and walked upon the land. With the rise of consciousness came culture, language, story, the practice of fire building, and the formation of habitat. These chapters are explained to us by biologists, anthropologists, and others.
Ilia Delio says, “The embodied person that you are at this very moment—all the constituents that would eventually come together into the person that is you—was present at the Big Bang.”
Reflecting on this progression of time, we remember that we are all members of and scribes for its great genealogical story. It is the story of our sacred origins, a narrative of our unfolding in time, and a revelatory tale that holds glimpses of the future.
This great deep time story provides a perspective and a context for the discovery of where we are now. It is a profound reminder that we belong here, and that we’ve always belonged here. The birds in the air, the fish in the sea, and all who walked upon the Earth remind us that we are all cousin and kin.
It is in and through the universe story that it is possible to transcend the consumer-driven society in which we live today, and to become poets of each evolutionary moment who engage wholeheartedly in a joyful journey of destiny and purpose.
It is a thrilling realization that we are alive today, at that precise moment of collective destiny. As we celebrate the consciousness of a time developmental universe, we let go of any notion of a mechanistic, clockwork God. We sink instead into an awareness of the vast enveloping presence who calls us forward, with a profound realization that we were born into a time developmental universe.
With this awareness, we honor those who have come before. We become more deeply immersed in the unfolding of history that Thomas Berry referred to as “those overarching movements that give shape and meaning to life by relating the human venture to the larger destinies of the universe.” We experience the magnetic intuition that calls us forward to experience the mysterious qualities of the universe. And we take to heart the words of Barack Obama, who said, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.”
As we look back in time, we seek explanations for the ecological devastation and cultural pathology we witness around us. One explanation is that we as a people have an inadequate understanding of time. Perhaps we have lost our organic sense of time.
Our world—and you and I within it—have abandoned the tradition notion of cyclical time and replaced it with mechanical time.
As a child, I recall how farmers’ lives were guided by the rhythms of nature. The farmers I visited as a child lived by the seasons. They knew when to plant, when to plow, and when to harvest. They would peer into the sky, feel the breeze on their face, and receive guidance for the next morning.
When I was a student working in a laboratory in Canada’s chemical valley, however, no longer did I see the rhythm of the seasons and of dawn and dusk guiding life. Our practices were guided by the clock; factories were operated by employees who worked on shifts: day (8–4), afternoons (4–12), and night (12–8). Such activity in industry and commerce has contributed immensely to the conditions that have diminished the quality of life.
One great lesson available to us today is to ask “What time is it in the universe?”
The response can be to contemplate the irreversible evolutionary developmental time whose path forward is at the threshold of each new emergent moment. That moment is not guided by the clock on the wall or watch on the wrist, but by our awareness of deep time. That time before time is simultaneously the instant when the galaxies were born, when life emerged on planet Earth, and when the universe gave birth to you and me. As we enter deep time, we become citizens of the universe and are called forth to leave our healing mark on the as-yet-to-be-realized future.
Resting in my apartment in Berkeley,
I scan the images and artifacts,
each a memory from the past.
Pictures of Richard and Elizabeth,
reminders of Ireland and New Zealand,
the Thomas Berry award,
photos of days in school:
grade school in Sombra,
classmates at St. Peter’s,
teammates in baseball
at Corunna, Wilkesport, Waubuno and Wallaceburg.
As I immerse my mind
in memories and portraits of the past,
My eye focuses
on the grandfather clock in the corner.
For a moment, I wonder about
the many 100-year stories it can tell:
stories of organic time when my ancestors lived,
their lives guided by the seasons, by dawn and dusk
by the creative wisdom of each emergent moment.
When we know our beginnings
and become aware of where we are now,
we are prompted by each new moment
calling us forward
into an as-yet-to-be-realized developmental future.
The indigenous mind sees the divine in many manifestations. Each unique expression—be it a rock, water, or tree—is beautiful in God’s sight.
Some years ago, I participated in a program whose focus was justice and the cosmos. There, I discovered another name for justice; that name is beauty. When I later reflected on the universe and the Earth, I realized that they flow out of the divine imagination and bathe us all in a shimmering cloak of beauty.
Beauty also flows into our lives through the song of a robin, the gurgle of a brook, and the gift of music. We receive beauty, for instance, through the melodious response of Paul Winters, who with his alto clarinet echoes the sounds of the forest. We likewise receive it through the songs of the wolf, the elephant. and the eagle.
Beauty reveals itself to us when we ponder deeply as the mystery of mathematics flows into our soul through the amazing harmony of numbers, symbols, and sound.
Beauty is available to us in each sacred moment when we gather as friends of God and prophets to create together the conditions in which beauty can shine forth.
Today it suddenly came to me that we have received the gift of beauty from our ancestors, the First Nation’s people, and all God’s creatures who preceded us on planet Earth. As they walked, flew, swam, built homes, cared for their young, each brought his or her gift of beauty to this land.
During these days at Springbank, we become more and more aware that we also are living on this land to bring forth beauty into the world.
Philosopher and poet John O’Donohue writes, “The beautiful stirs passion and urgency in us…. It unites us again with the neglected and forgotten grandeur of life.” As I contemplate his words, I arrive at the awareness that each expression is itself beautiful in its own way.
I am thrilled to announce once again to the world that “Black is beautiful.” And I also wish to add, “so are Red, Brown, Yellow, and White.”
As we gain an enhanced appreciation of beauty, it becomes clear that it is revealed to us in very different ways. When the celebrant at Bernstein’s Mass dropped the crystal chalice on the terrazzo floor, he gazed at the glistening crystals and at all who gathered in the cathedral that amazing day, and proclaimed, “I never thought that brokenness could be so beautiful.”
Beauty is indeed a mystery and a great gift; we can say with confidence that beauty happens when we discover that we are truly ourselves and allow our gifts to shine through. The same is true of the oak tree, the vegetables in Sr. Barbara’s garden, the luscious food prepared at Sr. Mary Dean’s table, the Taiji we practice in the morning with Sr. Trina, the healing oils of Sr. Theresa as they activate the vibrational energy, and the healing presence of Marcia on the land as she gives her gift to beautify this plantation place.
In and through the memories of each indigenous mind we reactivate the ancestral grace of those who have gone on before, and today activate our memories of a world of beauty, wonder, and belonging.
This morning as I gazed out the eastern window to welcome the morning sun, I experienced a felt sense of the divine as beauty adorning the forest and the fields below. I felt their beauty flow gently upon my heart and soul.
As I contemplate that moment, I ask, “Is not our gift to the world our capacity to create the conditions for beauty to shine forth?”
When at Springbank we create a piece of pottery, share the Elm Dance ritual, journey along the Cosmic Walk, or witness the presence and practice of the Medicine Wheel, we are immersed in the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. We become creators of beauty in the world and the bioregion and place where we are meant to be.
The following ritual can be practiced in a group or alone.
1. In a circle, take a step back and audibly announce the names of your mother and father.
2. Continue to take another step back and announce in turn your maternal grandparents and fraternal grandparents (by name if you know that). Continue to step backward into your great grandparents and others in your ancestral lineage (again, you don’t need to know their names to do this).
3. With each step, ponder what you know or imagine was your ancestors’ relationship to the land where they lived and to both the challenges and gifts of their era.
4. When you have moved backward as far as your memory can recall, begin to take steps forward to experience the memory of your ancestors and the gifts you inherited from them. Recall the beauty of their lives and give thanks to them for bringing beauty to the planet and to your life.
5. Celebrate, too, the beauty that is your gift to the planet and that you bring with you today and every day. That gift of beauty awaits those as yet unborn of every species.
We enter each day into what Thomas Berry prophesized in his later years would be “a new era of anxiety.” This anxiety has been heightened in ways even he may not have anticipated by the Trump effect.
We are seeing around us now a new order of chaos. Immigrants are faced with deportations that will tear their families apart. Religious organizations are threatened and cemeteries vandalized. The institutions of the government, press, and finance are being destabilized. Our foundational principles of democracy are being threatened.
In some cases, new leaders are going so far as to alter institutions so they oppose their original purpose. For example, Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an agency purposed with protecting against climate change, is himself a climate change denier. Rick Perry, the head of the Department of Energy, wanted to eliminate that department. Jeff Sessions, whose record of racism, sexism, and the denial of civil rights is notorious, is empowered to rule on questions of justice and rights.
At this critical moment, I ask, how can people who were raised as Christians and Catholics stand by and let such chaos occur? How can they allow freedom and democracy to be at risk?
As I see it, the problem is an old worldview that champions death rather than life.
With this worldview, we believe that God created a perfect world, a place of happiness and eternal reward. We see human death and cultural death as doorways to the rapture and eternal bliss. Theology, fairness, justice, and peace have no place in this worldview because they are seen as obstacles to eternal life.
This is not the worldview taught by Jesus. He questioned oppression and advocated for the poor. He invited us to become beatitude people. Perhaps he would caution us not to argue and shout, but rather to listen to and talk with those we oppose. He would ask us to reflect on the principle that the opposition often does the right thing for the wrong reason.
I believe Jesus would find comfort in the peaceful resistance rising up all over the country in response to the Trump effect. We see this in the town halls of elective representatives; in the new movements for justice; and in the actions of those supporting immigrants, Muslims, First Nation’s people, the environment, and more.
Each day, we have a choice. We can hold onto an old worldview or we can let the divine creative energy burst forth in our souls, dissolve all our rigid thoughts, and welcome a future that is filled with zest for life.
My publisher is preparing publication of a new edition of my 1990 title, Geo-Justice, which will come out in May. Together with my editor, I have been busy updating the manuscript. What is so exciting about this project is that Pope Francis has embraced the driving insight of the book--that we cannot have social justice without environmental justice. Neither can be separated from the other. The two form a seamless garment of love and compassion. Watch this space for more information on the book.
I sit here in my apartment in Berkeley, California. It is a rain-soaked day, and a day of sharp contrasts.
President Barack Obama has just given his farewell address. With his orator’s gifts in great display, he urges us not to let fear crush the democratic process, but rather to increase our involvement as citizens so we can make this world a better place. I hear again the cry I heard more than eight ago, when I gathered with thousands on the campus of UC Berkeley to hear his prophetic words. Tonight he repeated his encouraging mantra, “Yes we can! Yes we can!” Only now it’s a different day, and the start of a very different era.
Earlier today, the incoming president held what was called a press conference. It was almost an hour of adversarial back and forth, filled with denials, contradictions, and half-truths. It was a virulent attack on the free press, whose democratic responsibility is to speak truth to power. The most important questions were left either avoided or unanswered.
Yes, we live in anxious and uncertain times. America’s 240-year-old record of democracy has reached a dangerously precarious moment.
Today I also watched the hearings for the candidates the president elect has put forth for his cabinet. If approved, these individuals will be called upon to deal with far-ranging questions regarding social justice, civil rights, immigration, and racial equality. My heart sank at the introduction of each new candidate because, in almost every case, his record stands in staunch opposition to the Constitution he must promise to uphold. For example, the candidate who would be tasked with protecting the environment is a man who publicly denies scientifically proven climate change. The candidate for attorney general has a long history of racism and bigotry. I feel moral outrage as I see how their words and deeds stand in opposition to the gospel view that is revealed in scripture.
Sitting here now, I pick up my copy of the latest issue of the National Catholic Reporter, the most progressive periodical of the American Catholic church. Throughout its pages are articles about gun laws, the death penalty, ecology, and the future of the church. One article that catches my eye is about the grassroots leaders who will be gathering in Modesto, California in February.
This will be a regional meeting to support popular movements from around the world, and it is being cosponsored by the PICO National Network of faith-based organizers and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which is an anti-poverty initiative. John Baumann, SJ, first told me about this gathering when we spoke in late August, and he invited me to participate with the PICO group. I would have welcomed this opportunity if my schedule had allowed. I know this meeting will inspire the creativity of participants, and guide them to respond to the issues of senseless war, violence, hunger, and homelessness, both here in California and around the world.
Tonight I am stunned by the contrast between Obama’s farewell address and Trump’s press conference and confirmation hearings. There was a time in our country when the combined work of faith and justice was viewed as the call for only a small minority. Now, however, this call must be heard by every Christian if faith and justice are to survive. To fulfill this call requires a deep, mature spirituality that refuses to let the gospel be reconciled with the unjust tendencies in the dominant culture. We must heed the voice of Pope Francis, who summons us to a life of faith and justice: “The future of humanity does not lie solely in the hands of great leaders, the great powers and the elites. It is fundamentally in the hands of peoples and their ability to organize. It is in their hands, which can guide with humility and conviction this process of change.”
Imagine a world where,
as Thomas Merton says,
every non-two-legged creature
is a saint.
Imagine a world where,
as Meister Eckhart says,
the soul is not in the body,
but the body is in the soul.
Imagine a world where,
as Teilhard says,
the flesh is made word,
not the word made flesh,
and all matter is soaked in God.
Imagine a world where,
as Thomas Berry says,
the universe is a communion of subjects,
not a collection of objects.
Imagine a world where,
as St. Francis says,
brother sun,
sister moon.
Imagine a world where,
as Pope Francis says,
caring for the Earth and all creatures,
we have only one heart.
Imagine a world where,
as Jesus says,
rejoice and be glad;
blessed be the poor, meek, and merciful,
for theirs is the kingdom of God.
Welcome to a world of wisdom and thanks,
a world where we are all blessed.
Throughout my life, I have been confronted with issues and disappointments that crushed my spirit and dashed my hopes.
As I reflect now on the last year in the life of Thomas Merton, I recall the events that occurred then. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was felled by an assassin’s bullet in April 1968 as he stood on the porch of a Memphis hotel. That evening, Robert Kennedy gave the most moving eulogy I’ve ever heard as he announced to the people the news of Martin’s death.
As Kennedy spoke, an unforeseen tragic irony was about to take place. He himself was killed two months later, in a hotel in Los Angeles, as he campaigned for the nomination of the Democratic Party.
Now we reflect on the challenges of our day, as we move forward from election day November 8, 2016. At this defining moment for the world, we ponder the results of the vote. We watch as the echoes reverberate around the country, and indeed around the world. It seems that the mood of the people has changed—in one way or the other.
As I and many others feel betrayed by the very systems we counted on to protect and uphold our values, I ponder the words of Saul David Alinsky, who stated in his book Rules for Radicals, “Irrationality clings to man like his shadow so that the right things are done for the wrong reasons.” He called on us to “begin to shed fallacy after fallacy” so that we could abandon “the conventional view in which things are seen separate from their inevitable counterparts” and instead see everything “as the indivisible partner of its converse, light and darkness, good and evil, life and death.”
I ponder, too, the words of medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, who proclaims, “If the only prayer you ever say is ‘thank you,’ that will suffice.” And I remember the work of Br. David Steindl-Rast, OSB, whose book is entitled Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer. Steindl-Rast challenges us to live with a grateful heart, whether we are confronted by good news or the opposite.
Drawing on the wisdom of Eckhart, Steindl-Rast, Merton, Kennedy, Alinsky, and other men, I renew my sense of hope for the days ahead. I believe our future can avoid the kind of disappointment of 1968, which set the tone for a generation at that time. Through gestures of gratitude we can lift ourselves out of the turbulence of this moment and create instead a new, transformational time not yet anticipated or understood.
We pray that our country rise to a better day, infused with the hope and trust of those who join us on the way. Each time a person stands up for an ideal or seeks to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And that ripple, combined with a myriad others, can sweep down even the mightiest walls of oppression and injustice.
(originally published November 17, 2016)
Shelley the dog greets me this morning,
unaware of what just happened.
What happened?
Was that a ballot box surprise?
Did democracy fail us?
Anger and rebellion rule the day.
We gather now, disappointed pilgrims,
plunged into this unexpected hour,
our nation’s gethsemane moment.
In the face of this loss,
this time of disappointment,
this moment of darkness,
we hear a mysterious call for hope,
we search for the light,
we remember friends.
In the midst of goodness and apparent evil,
we find our loving God,
here with us on this Wednesday morning.
I learned a lesson from Alinsky long ago:
there is a positive in every negative.
Out of inevitable darkness, a future dawn is born.
We search for wisdom on this day
as we ponder Sr. Barbara’s words:
“The source of everything,
which becomes fully visible
in the human presence of Jesus,
is visible to us through the empowering spirit.”
(originally published November 9, 2016)
Several years ago, when I was program director of the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality (ICCS) at Holy Names University, we were privileged to welcome a number of women religious as students in the program.
Among our students was Sr. Karla Barker OSF, a Franciscan sister from Oldenburg Indiana. Following her graduation, she joined the staff of Springbank Retreat, Center of EcoSpirituality and the Arts in Kingstree, South Carolina. From her new home, our conversations continued.
Over the years, I was occasionally invited to Springbank to conduct a weekend workshop on my most recent book. And I often came to participate in Holy Week ceremonies (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter vigil). Last year, I was present when the Springbank director, Trina McCormick OP, celebrated thirty years of leadership in this sacred place.
Today I write to you from Springbank. Since my retirement from Holy Names, I have been in search of a context for a meaningful ministry. By that, I mean a place where it is possible for me to write, teach, celebrate the Eucharist, and join a living community of faith with wonderful people who share my Catholic tradition. In other words, a place where I can exercise the ministry for which I was ordained more than half a century ago.
Here in this monastery of live oaks, I remember the energy that flowed through my activities in the years following Vatican II. I am also here to accomplish things that remain unfinished in my life.
As I reread the works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ and Thomas Berry CP, I realize that we have great work yet to accomplish. It is the work needed at a great cosmological Exodus moment. In this historic moment, we move from the static world of Newton, Descartes, and Bacon into the sacred time Thomas termed the Ecozoic era. In this grand new era, we—and more importantly, our children—will be participants in a community that will be understood through its mutually enhancing relationship with the Earth.
(originally published October 30, 2016)
At many points over the years, I have felt unsettled or ambivalent about aspects of my life.
During my childhood, my mother was not well. As a result, I was cared for by her sisters. They were very good to me. They said, “You have a second home here with us.” Yet this early experience of multiple homes left me with ambivalence about the choices I would make. No matter what life presented, if I chose one option, I always reserved the right to entertain another option.
Often I have felt like an animal torn between two bales of hay—not able to choose one bale out of concern that losing the other would result in being deprived of the nourishment necessary for a vigorous and decisive life.
Over the years, I came to believe that life was less about making choices and more about remaining open and observing how circumstances can make a decision for me.
Nevertheless, when I told myself that life was about allowing options to unfold, I was actually depriving myself of a fully engaged life.
For example, not long after ordination, I told myself, “I’m still young enough to get married.” This attitude diminished my investment in the vocation I had chosen. The ambiguity that had indelibly penetrated my soul deprived me of clear choices and commitment.
The real challenge is to be able to decide. As Harvey Cox wisely wrote, “Not to decide is to decide.”
Recently I have been taken with the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, and his ability to reconcile evolutionary science with the Christian faith. An important element of this evolutionary faith is healing any separation between the world of God and the world where humans dwell. Without this healing vision, we are inclined to experience our life of faith and our life in the world of everyday existence as somehow unrelated.
Previously, my faith experience seemed destined to remain divided. I was stuck in a life of ambiguity and uncertainty because whatever path I choose to take, I was simultaneously open to an alternative option. As I review my journey now, I am grateful for the factors that brought me to this point and I pray that any future ambiguity will cease and that I will have the strength to embrace the future with enhanced enthusiasm and resolve.
I remain grateful to Teilhard, whose reconciling of science and faith contributed to healing the ambivalence that grew out of my two homes in early childhood, and that now allows me to more fully appreciate that God is present all things.
Thus, with fresh energy, we know the consolation of a life infused with divine presence and the joyful exaltation of a life no longer immersed in the ambiguity of a previously unlived life. May our future be clearer and more decisive than all our pasts.
I saw Christ today.
Eighteen women and men
filling out applications
to discover a place to call home.
A place of privacy,
of protection from the weather
and of violence in the street.
As I gazed at these seekers,
I thought of Thomas Merton,
who one day in Louisville,
at the corner of Fourth and Walnut,
looked around at those on the street
and was moved to say,
“I loved all those people.”
In a similar way
today at St. Mary’s Center in Oakland,
I looked around the room
at the urban refugees
working on their applications
and felt like Merton many year ago.
I loved everybody.
(originally published September 29, 2016)
I have often been troubled by the way some Christians seem compelled to live in two different worlds. One is a world in which God resides; the other is a world in which humanity dwells and God is absent. Theologians call this latter view of the world theism.
A friend expressed this kind of split awareness by saying, “We pray to God on Sunday, and we prey on our neighbor on Monday.”
Such an approach removes the sensitivity we would need to care for our common home, the Earth. Pope Francis wrote in his encyclical that such an attitude can lead to “a throw-away culture.” And he wrote on Twitter that “The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”
With the Pope—as well as Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, and others—as our guides, we see that another way is possible.
When we embrace evolution, something amazing happens. We are infused with God’s creative energy as we become aware that the divine has been present since the beginning of the universe. Suddenly, every person, plant, and tree is seen to be infused with God’s energy. Every child, elder, puppy, and kitten is understood to be sacred and soaked in God.
The lyrics of “Holy Now” take on new meaning. The birds’ songs become a verse from scripture, while rivers and streams become holy. All of creation is now the locus of divine presence.
When we awaken to the realization that God is present in all things, we are energized to take up our privileged task of resacralizing the Earth.
(originally published September 12, 2016)
Stories are familiar. They tell us who we are and where we’ve been. My sister Mary loved stories, especially our family’s story. Often she would fly to Salt Lake City and pour through the historical records to connect the dots between us and our origins in County Armagh in Ireland.
A few years ago, when her interest was at its peak, she and I visited the farms and graveyards of our ancestors in Central and Southwestern Ontario in Canada. As we toured the home place of our ancestors, she recorded the data from their gravestones and baptismal records, and other information, and composed our family story.
The story of our Irish family began during the potato famine. Half of the family stayed in Ireland, while the other half sailed to Canada to escape the possibility of starvation.
When Mary and I traveled to Ireland, we saw the homes where our ancestors lived. And when we explored where the Conlons settled in Ontario, we saw that the landscape there was remarkably similar to the land they had left.
We noticed that some of the gravestones of first cousins were next to each other in Ontario, yet their names were spelled differently. This suggested to me that those who immigrated were not highly literate.
My fondest memory of my sister’s passion to tell our family story happened in 2003, on the occasion of our Conlon family reunion. It took place on a Saturday evening, at the Community Center in our hometown of Sombra. During that weekend, I was privileged to celebrate the liturgy at Sacred Heart Church in Port Lambton, Ontario, the town where I was born.
During the homily, I talked about my father, who in his later years would sit on the front step of our family home and invite people to join him and tell him a story.
I recalled how my mother, Elizabeth, would join other women in our town at the quilting bee. I suggested that each of us who gathered for the Conlon family reunion were like patches in the Conlon quilt. We were patches from Alberta, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Delaware, California, Ontario, and beyond.
I also said that our family were like Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. We had been driven into exile because of the potato famine, and had come to Canada. I explained that our story can be told by the names and dates of our ancestors inscribed on the tombstones in the nearby cemetery. It is, you could say, a story told by the St. Clair River and by the first fall of snow that carpeted our town each winter.
At this reunion, we had come to our hometown—which was home to each of us and to our story. It was there that we first learned our Christian story and became people of faith.
During that weekend, my sister Mary shared her genesis story of the Conlon family. She told us how our ancestors came to Canada in 1840, how they found an area that reminded them of Ireland, and how they became lumber merchants so they could make a living and raise families in their newfound land.
As she recited the family genealogy that evening—our ancestral Book of Genesis—Mary joyfully recalled how, after writing to many people in Ireland she thought might be descendants of our ancestors, she had finally received a response. The letter confirmed her research and indelibly forged the connection to our Irish family roots. Following this discovery, she and I visited Ireland, met our relatives, and celebrated our family story.
Our Conlon family reunion in Port Lambton was a great weekend, and it closed with a talent show, in which the children presented a play of the migration to Canada. When I left the hall that evening, I knew that something important and sacred had happened. I had learned again my family’s story.
Recently I listened again to my cassette recording of Mary’s presentation. I remembered how the room had been decorated with family photos that evoked images from her story. It is a story of the unstoppable spirit alive in the hearts of those adventurous souls who came to a new country with hope for a land of opportunity. It is a story recorded in my Celtic genetic coding and inscribed in the St. Bridget’s cross that hangs on the wall of my Berkeley home. It is a story of struggle and sacrifice, a story of adventures and new life.
It is a story that each of us can share in our own form—regardless of the particular origins that have shaped our lives and that have given us a sense of the sacred that feeds us hope.
(originally published September 1, 2017)