11 15 11 Moving From Home Action to Community Action

Because a house that mimics a living creature requires a give-and-take sort of relationship, living in a bioshelter is necessarily an ongoing lesson in relationships. We give care to the house, its plants and animals (worms, bugs and certain bacteria count as animals!), and the house gives care to us, providing heat, water, shelter and a pleasant ambiance for us to live in.

Living well in relationships leads to a widening awareness of the relatedness and interdependence of all things. It is this kind of growing awareness that leads to a care for others, and this care for other has always drawn me into some sort of socially aware work. In Wrangell, AK I was very involved in addiction-and-recovery issues. In North Pole, AK I was very involved in raising awareness about the cycles of violence inherent in domestic abuse. Now I am living in a time where the whole world, including me, has to get seriously involved in earth care, and especially climate change. The evidence implicating modern human activity in climate change is overwhelming, and refusing either to admit it or to make responsible changes is dangerous and immoral.

The One People One Earth workshop I was a part of last week was designed to make that very point. Leading scientists from the University of Alaska, recognized elders from three Native American communities and religious leaders from Roman Catholic, Protestant and Islam came together to insist that climate change is an issue that absolutely requires us to come together and address, despite our differences.

My part, of course, was to be one of the voices speaking for the Christian perspective. Although I now intend to keep this blog on a weekly basis, I will make an exception over the next few days. I want to share a good chunk of what the Christian speakers talked about during the conference. I am sure that some of those who were there with other credentials than “religion” were also Christian. For instanc

e, I know that Elaine Abraham, a very insightful and articulate elder from the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska, is also a Presbyterian. I also know that Dr. Doug Causey, a climatologist from the University of Alaska in Anchorage, is also a member of the Friends Church (Quaker) of Anchorage. The others never spoke of being Christian, though there may be others.

However, most of what I will be sharing over the next day or two will be from Father Thomas Weise and from myself, since we were the ones tasked to speak specifically from our Christian faith and life. It is a pleasure to serve with Father Weise. His pastoral heart and practical application of the faith are an inspiration. Since I also began my service as an ordained pastor in Wrangell, Alaska, it also warms my heart to know that he serves in Wrangell, as well as in the neighboring community of Petersburg.

For my part, Cindee and I do not live in a bioshelter for nothing. Deciding to live in this experimental bioshelter-home was a financial stretch that we would not have undertaken without a purpose. Cindee, in particular, has helped us to find and network with others who are concerned about a confluence issues that require faith-in-life responses if human life is to flourish. We use the bioshelter as a place for stimulating other ideas on how to live better in this world. It is our joint ministry, though I/we do not use theological language with everyone. When we are with other Chrisitans, however, we do tell them that we must respond to the real world in a way that reflects both the reality of the brokenness of the world, and the ministry response that God sets before them. Anything else is neither faithful, nor moral.

In the next few days, I will share some of the thoughts on climate change that came out through the One People One Earth conference. Of course, I can’t share everything. Libby Riddles, our moderator, was a master at alternating between panel discussion-style presentations, and comments from the audience. This interactive approach made for a much deeper conversation. However, it also makes it more difficult for me to remember all the turns in the conversation and to report them all back in this blog. Still, I will share several key points.

Also, for those who have been following this blog, you will notice that I am repeating several points that I have made in the past. I hope this repetition will not prove too tedious to you as you read it. I simply shared from what I knew, both at this conference and in earlier entries to this blog.

Finally, since the area that Father Weise and I were sharing about had to do with a Christian perspective on earth care, it does not say anything in particular about climate change. We are not scientists, though we are aware that a worldwide supermajority of leading scientists have been crying out for a response to the human-caused components of climate change. With that scientific outcry in mind, I do my own theologizing as a Christian, as a life-long Alaskan, and a fellow resident of planet earth.