Earth and Spirit

Land, Identity, and Imagination:
Creating an Alternative Future
by Rev. Katherine Jesch

The Pacific Northwest has been my spiritual home since childhood, when my family would travel from California to the Olympic Peninsula to visit relatives for summer vacation. I have precious memories of roaming the trails in the woods behind my Grandmother’s house, a troop of cousins and a younger sibling or two in tow . . . I felt strong and sure of myself, and part of a large and wondrous world.

As an adult, I love hiking in the forests around here, immersing myself in the Cascades bioregion and observing the reality of the interdependent web in these unique ecosystems. I am soothed by this landscape: the shape of the mountains, the texture of the forest, the smell of the air. It’s different for some unexplained reason than anywhere else on earth. This land feeds my soul. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we all need to connect with the land in some way.

Biblical scholar and theologian Walter Bruggeman suggests that land is the central theme running through the Hebrew Scriptures. The importance of land for the Israelites reflects their deep connection with it. Their sense of place is the focus of their identity. When they were enslaved in Egypt, away from their land, they were lost. After they escape Egypt, God returns them to the land where after 40 years of wandering, they can finally know who they are.

Sadly, we are the ones whose identity is at risk now. We can’t avoid the reality these days that our world is changing because of the way we use the land and other natural resources. The life our children or grandchildren will experience will be quite different from the life we know. And some of those changes will challenge us to the very edges of our capacity to respond.

Our scientific understanding of the complexities of Earth’s systems, and how our human behavior affects those systems, has become quite sophisticated in the last couple of decades. The evidence is clear, but many continue to ignore or deny that we must change. Others seem somehow unable to muster more than token responses. Those of us who want to change find roadblocks and detours at every turn. We feel helpless, overwhelmed, paralyzed – symptoms of a deep and pervasive despair. Joanna Macy, tells us the problem is that we separate ourselves from each other and from nature, and then we use others – other people, other species, other resources – we use others for our own gain.

Contemporary society makes it particularly hard to find a sense of meaning. The endless stream of commodities we have to have has actually become a substitute for love, for community connection, and for really feeling at home in the world. Thus, to ask us to buy and own less to protect the Earth feels like asking us to be less. And that, my friends, is at root a profoundly spiritual crisis.

In the face of our present crisis, our faith grounds us in the present moment and reminds us of what matters most. It can keep us connected to the presence of the sacred or that which has great meaning in our lives. And through our connection with the land, with Earth, we cultivate a sense of peace and compassion that pervades the rest of our relationships and activities. And it can give us the courage, the motivation, and even the imagination, to follow through with our moral values.

In his wise book called The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann describes prophets as “those crazy angry, grieving people who stand on the corner and pronounce words of judgment and condemnation” for all the evils going on in the world. Prophets describe all of the terrible problems – like we all do often enough when we talk about climate change and the fate of the Earth. But prophets also do something else. They make real the possibility that things can be different. It is not necessary, Brueggemann says, for the prophet to spell out a detailed plan for the alternative society. Rather, the prophet simply has to help people imagine that a different way of living is even possible.

We must reclaim the power to think and alternative thought. We must become the prophet proclaiming the possibility of a different future. The image of the interconnected web reminds us that we are all connected to each other and to the Earth and to all beings who share this planetary home with us. Let us reclaim our identity. Let us imagine our congregations and communities as the gardens where the seeds of a just and sustainable future are planted and nurtured, where the invasive species of self- and planet-destroying consumerism, oppression, and violence are rooted out and recycled into nutrients for a life-sustaining “Earth Community” which we will create together.

QUESTIONS FOR SPIRITUAL REFLECTION
• What landscape feeds your soul? What is the story that connects you to that landscape?

• How does your own life today separate you from others and the land? How does this separation affect you?

• What is your vision of a just and sustainable future? How would you want to help create that life-sustaining “Earth Community” for all beings?

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Photo: Aschweigert