(from Caring for Creation, Reflections on the Biblical Basis of Earthcare, Quaker Earthcare Witness, 1999) 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” —Matthew 22:36–40
THE BIBLE TELLS US A GREAT DEAL about neighborliness. Six of the Ten Commandments deal with being a good neighbor: 12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 13 You shall not murder. 14 You shall not commit adultery. 15 You shall not steal. 16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 You shalt not covet your neighbor’s house, you shalt not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is your neighbor’s. —Exodus 20:12–17 Jesus puts it very simply: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you...” —Matthew 7:12
WHO IS OUR NEIGHBOR? Is it the family next door? The people across the street? The folks in our community? Our state? Our country? Over in China or Guam or Costa Rica? Once again, scripture makes clear that it takes the broad view:
1 Happy are those who consider the poor, the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble. 2 The Lord protects them and keeps them alive; they are called happy in the land. —Psalm 41:1–2 And Jeremiah warns: Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper room by injustice; who makes his neighbor work for nothing, and who does not give them their wages. —Jeremiah 22:13 QUAKERS HAVE HAD A PRETTY GOOD GRASP from the beginning of just who our human neighbors are. But now we are being asked: Are just people our neighbors? On a very basic physical level, each of us is a community of organisms, with a normal flora of bacteria, mites, roundworms, and other organisms. A few have been around so long they’re integral parts of our cells; the mitochondria, scientists believe, were originally symbiotic bacteria. Some members of our physical community are important in helping to keep out detrimental organisms, others are free-loaders, and a few become troublesome occasionally; there are also plenty of other organisms that would like to join the community—such as lice, ticks, fleas, fungi, viruses—and do so whenever the opportunity permits. This idea makes some people uncomfortable. —We like to think we are quite independent entities, with distinct boundaries; between Us and Them. And of course the community that is our body interacts physically with other communities, taking in food from plants and other animals, getting rid of wastes that are utilized by the detritus community, and finally, at death, our body community becoming a part of myriad other communities. If you think about it, there are no boundaries between one organism and another, between “life” and “non-life.” We are constantly flowing from one to another, one moment a portion of a human being, the next skin in a dust pile, transformed shortly into a house plant or a rhododendron bush...exhaled to be breathed in by a possum...from bacteria into an oak tree into a gypsy moth...all through the food web and the non-living world we travel, zillions of fragments forever being put together and taken apart to make yet more unique creations. Physically we possess no true boundaries; we are forever re-molded and recast into new forms. Francis Hole, a soil scientist and poet (and Friend), has said “Our bodies are disposable, biodegradable containers for spirit.” We are worms and granite, oak trees and robins, sea spume and mica, we are stardust...we are each as old as the universe. Listen to the words of poet William Carlos Williams: There is nothing to eat The Koran tells us: “Whithersoever ye turn, there is the face of God.” —II:115 HOW DO WE NURTURE an understanding of our connections with one another, with our human community and with our non-human neighbors? The first step in getting to know other people is to look them in the eye, to recognize them. An African greeting—used for both humans and non-humans—is, “I see you, O I see you!” Once we have seen, we learn a name, for if we don’t name, life quickly becomes very complicated (“Hello, I’d like to speak to that person in your department who is very tall, has gray hair, a funny chin, and laughs a lot” or “Doctor, I think you should use that plant that’s green, has fuzzy stems, purple flowers, and the bees like”). But of course, seeing and naming are only the beginning of the relationship. And naming can certainly be a two-edged sword, can’t it? Look at the wars that human beings have fought, essentially over the name of God. As if we had any clue at all what God’s true name is! As if we, with our imaginations limited by brain structure, language, and culture, could ever name or even begin to define that which is unnameable and unknowable, certainly far beyond pitiful human concepts of race and tribe and gender! If you are to truly know another being, you must be open to learning on many levels. Marge Piercy (1982) writes: I live among people who think that analyzing something is an action, who think that if they have dissected why they have done something that makes it permissible to do it again, who think that a label gives possession, that when they have identified a sharp-shinned hawk they know something of hawkness—wooing high in the air and sinking with talons locked, swooping on live prey and tasting the fresh blood spurt hot, feeling with each extended feather the warm and cold shift of the winds and the sculpture of the invisible masses of moving air. Dealing in words, I try to remember how far they go and where they leave off. Hungry for food for my brain, I try to remember all the other ways of knowing that coexist. We gain this kind of knowing through one of the greatest gifts the Creator has given humanity, our imaginations. Wendell Berry (1993) notes: “It is by imagination that we cross over the differences between ourselves and other beings and thus learn compassion, forbearance, mercy, forgiveness, sympathy, and love—the virtues without which neither we nor the world can live.” Another wonderful writer, Loren Eiseley (1946), writes of standing on the edge of a pond and seeing a frog: Whenever I catch a frog’s eye... I stand quite still and try hard not to move or lift a hand since it would only frighten him. And standing thus it finally comes to me that this is the most enormous extension of vision of which life is capable: the projection of itself into other lives. This is the magnificent power of humanity. It is, far more than any spatial adventure, the supreme epitome of the reaching out. Friend John Woolman wrote very movingly of an experience he had as a child, an experience which helped him make the imaginative leap to understanding: I may mention a remarkable circumstance that occurred in my childhood. On going to a neighbor’s house, I saw on the way a robin sitting on her nest, and as I came near she went off; but having young ones, she flew about, and with many cries expressed her concern for them. I stood and threw stones at her, and one striking her she fell down dead. At first I was pleased with the exploit, but after a few minutes I was seized with horror at having, in a sportive way, killed an innocent creature while she was careful for her young. I beheld her lying dead, and thought those young ones, for which she was so careful, must now perish for want of their dam to nourish them. After some painful considerations on the subject, I climbed up the tree, took all the young birds, and killed them, supposing that better than to leave them to pine away and die miserably. In this case I believe that Scripture proverb was fulfilled, ‘The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ I then went on my errand, and for some hours could think of little else but the cruelties I had committed, and was much troubled. Thus He whose tender mercies are over all his works hath placed a principle in the human mind, which incites to exercise goodness towards every living creature; and this being singly attended to, people become tender-hearted and sympathizing; but when frequently and totally rejected, the mind becomes shut up in a contrary disposition. —The Journal of John Woolman, pp. 2–3, Whittier edition I AM FORTUNATE that every few years I am able to accompany my husband Mark to Jamaica, where he teaches a course in Tropical Ecology. Each morning, weather permitting, we are out on the reefs snorkeling, gazing in wonder and delight at the amazing coral reef community. Because I swim without a wet suit—in only a bathing suit covered with T-shirt so I don’t burn in the sun—I am in direct contact with the water. It is a place “fearfully and wonderfully made,” a community of bright colors and quick fishy dartings, of waving anemones and fiery coral, of gentle sea slugs and gleaming barracuda, spiny sea urchins and pulsing jellyfish. And in rare moments, after I’ve been there a little while, I feel as if I belong. I forget I am a guest and become, however fleetingly, a member of that community. And it is always with a sense of shock—and loss—that I realize I must rise to the surface and become again an air-breathing creature. When we are in contact like this—when we truly connect—we know these moments as precious. Awe, gratitude, and joy all spring from within us when we are connected. Meeting for Worship can connect us, being in non-human communities can connect us, dance, music, sex, good food, prayer, a long conversation with a good friend, laughter, tears—all can connect us. And they are all “natural”—there are really no natural versus unnatural connections, just connections, an unlimited number of ways to be one with Creation and the Creator. Where we fail is in not allowing true “connections” to occur. We disconnect ourselves at every interval, by our fanatic adherence to rigid time frames, by choosing the making of money over connections with family and friends, by watching television (that great disconnector which turns us into observers of rather than participants in life): We disconnect in our culture’s emphasis on doing things faster rather than better, in our need to categorize people by their gender or race or religion or nationality, in the eating of packaged and processed food that often bears little resemblance to the plants and animals that yielded their substance for them—the disconnections seem endless. For me personally, one of the symbols of our culture’s disconnectedness comes through music. Several years ago I spent three weeks with a group of American teenagers in a village in Estonia. Our Estonian hosts gave us a wonderful Fourth of July party, and after we ate we sat around a bonfire and sang. The Estonian teenagers would sing a song, and then the Americans. The Estonians sang beautiful folk songs, in four-part harmony. The American teenagers, to my great surprise (for I grew up singing) knew very few songs that they were able to sing (though they knew the words to many popular songs, such as music of the Beatles, they were not able to sing them), and they would suggest things like “A hundred bottles of beer on the wall”! I have attended graduations where the students could barely sing the class song they had practiced. I’ve even heard singing recently, on television and in the movies, that barely passed for music, in sharp contrast to movies of just 40 or 50 years ago. In my heart, this musical disharmony is a clear symbol for the disconnectedness and disharmony of our modern life. Much of what’s called “New Age” spirituality seems to be about people’s deep desire to reconnect. I know that many people object to New Age philosophies, to the paraphernalia of crystals and herbs and incense, to what they fear is pagan worship, to the movement toward Native American, Buddhist, or other non-Judeo-Christian spiritualities. At the core of this movement, however, seems to be a desire to reconnect with the pattern of Creation. And with so many who are seeking in those directions, what does this say about traditional, mainstream churches, where many feel that they do not find those connections with Creation? While fussing about “New Agers,” have traditional churches forgotten to take a good look in the mirror? I wonder if Jesus might once again say: 23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! —Matthew 23:23–24 TO REALLY KNOW SOMETHING—and to truly love it—you must feel yourself connected to it, in a very personal way. The more abstract you make the connection, the less real care you will give it. It’s like the difference between writing a check to American Friends Service Committee, and visiting with a sick friend. Both may be helpful, but the abstract act of writing a check to help those you have never seen will never have the affection of personal contact. It is said that “familiarity breeds contempt,” and on a superficial level that is true: The better you know someone, the better you know their faults and limitations. But I think that more often than not, familiarity breeds affection, the sense that you know and are known, warts and all, and still cherish and are cherished. And familiarity enables you to recognize that each member of a community has a role and offers unique gifts. In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes: 4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us; prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. —Romans 12:4–21 WHAT HAPPENS when the community suffers the loss of a member? What happens when a neighbor dies? When biologists have bemoaned the great loss of species we are experiencing, some have accused them of simply mourning change itself. After all, the line goes, change is inevitable. That is true, of course, but we are speaking of a new kind of change, the like of which has never before occurred on this scale, in this timeframe. And when we mourn this change, we are not talking of grief over the loss of a beloved relative or friend, whose passing we mourn but whose presence among us we also celebrate—I speak of the loss of a kind that will never be resurrected, and whose passing will be noted consciously by few. I speak of deaths with no funerals, losses mostly without recognition: I speak of extinctions. Who speaks for these dead? Who sings a lament when the last of a species is gone? And who understands the few mourners at the wake? Aldo Leopold, writing of the passing of the Passenger Pigeon in his book A Sand County Almanac, wrote: “For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun. The Cro-Magnon who slew the last mammoth thought only of steaks. The sailor who clubbed the last auk thought of nothing at all. But we, who have lost our pigeons, mourn the loss.” Do you understand the pain of those in Bosnia, seeing their loved ones slaughtered and their villages destroyed? Have you heard the cries from Rwanda, as Hutu and Tutsi battle one another? Surely we have all grieved over the senseless deaths in these and so many places where human madness has won out over human kindness. Can you then not hear the sound of ecosystems dying, the cry of thousands of species looking for members of their communities, which are no longer? “In Ramah there was a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not.” —Matthew 2:18 That there are mourners there is no question. The grief comes tentatively, personally. “Where is the Indigo Bunting I used to see on the telephone wires every summer over by the Johnson farm?” “Did you hear a Whip-Poor-Will this summer?—we never heard one at our place”? “I haven’t seen a Luna moth in years.” And there are other questions, bravely framed as scientific inquiry, but secretly are laments: “Have you noticed there seem to be far fewer shells on the beaches?” “Is the number of snakes declining in the state?” “Doesn’t it seem to you that there are fewer insects?” I believe the need to mourn what’s being lost is crucial. The loss of a warbler song in May and the destruction of a favorite meadow are personal losses. The grief is essential, and to deny it is to keep a wound festering. But society at large does not recognize the dying, and therefore rejects the need to mourn, under the guise that the mourner is merely lamenting “progress.” And the grief is deepened, I think, knowing that we are both mourner and murderer, the bereaved as well as the executioner. “I am become Death,” were Oppenheimer’s words, I believe, when he witnessed the first atomic bomb explosion. Does it not feel at times that we “are become death,” we, our culture and our diseased ways? The Creator felt that way about people at one time, so disgusted with the whole lot of us that God decided to destroy Creation: 13 And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth.” [ —Genesis 6:13 But God realized that there were righteous people, and decided to save part of Creation, and start anew, reestablishing the covenant with the people and with all living things. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. 12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations. 13 I shall set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” —Genesis 9:11-13 GOD DECIDED THAT Creation was worth saving, and that human beings were—and are—part of that Creation. If the Creator can forgive us—and is that not the entire message of the New Testament—does that not give us great hope? The world will not be a better place without people—although in our collective guilt we sometimes feel that way—but the world will be a better place when people learn to live in right relationship to the rest of Creation. As Quakers, we are keenly aware that to be full human beings, we must recognize the full humanity of all other people. But I think that each of us will be fully human only when we recognize the full aliveness of all Creation, and act on that recognition, when we learn to “speak to that of God in everything.” Hear the words of Old Jack, an elderly farmer in one of Wendell Berry’s (1986) novels: The way we are we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain’t in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don’t. Lisa Gould is a member of Westerly (R.I.) Monthly Meeting and has published a number of booklets and leaflets for Quaker Earthcare Witness. She serves as the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Natural History Survey and also does quite a bit of informal writing, lecturing, and teaching about the natural world. Questions for Reflection
Illustrative activities Form a Meeting or congregational Earthcare Group.
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