LIVING IN A THROW-AWAY ECONOMY

 

Frequently, Pope Francis will bring up the topic of taking responsibility that we live in a ‘throw away world.’  When we are finished with something or someone, we cast them aside.

 

What does that mean to us as individuals and as human beings?

 

There are many people within our Christian churches whose faith is only about our relationship with Jesus and our salvation for heaven and to avoid hell. This constricted notion of the Christian life has no responsibility for the well-being of our fellow human beings nor for the sustenance of the earth.

 

If you wear socks that are much too tight on your feet, the blood circulation will be constricted and you will experience pain. If your religious horizon is too limited, you will be limiting how God’s grace is able to work in your life. Your too small spiritual socks could shrink your spiritual life.

 

A throw-away culture treats people and things only in so far as they are beneficial to me. I do not have to care about the consequences of the things I use. It is all very self-centered.

 

I will buy a vehicle, use it for so many years, and then trade it off on the purchase of a new one. What happens to all that mental, glass and plastic (plus all the energy it took to manufacture that vehicle)? Is it just cast in the garage dump?

 

Humans can do the same with people. There are groups of poor people who are so limited in their access to education, good jobs and health care. Every society has the people who are at the bottom of the social ladder. Who cares for them? Who sees to it that the poor people are given the same opportunities as the people in the upper layers of society?

 

Here is where the power of our Christian faith lies. It challenges us not to look away from our wasteful culture but to take a second look at what we are  doing with resources and examine how well the goods of the earth are shared with the people at the lower socio-economic levels.

 

Pope Francis is challenging all humans and all Christians to take a second look at what we are doing. And at the same time, to see how we could be making much better use of the resources of the earth and looking how we are treating all human groups within our society with equality.

 

As soon as we reflect on how we are a throw-away society we will ask how much of the earth’s resources we are using and how many of the earth’s resources we are over-using. How many people or social groups are we casting aside? As we begin to frame our questions in terms of a throw-away society, we are being challenged to do some heavy lifting with regard to our use of the earth’s resources. What if we are using the earth’s resources in a useless manner?

 

Will there be enough of the earth’s resources for future generations?

 

This is a very simple concept, but it packs a strong punch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

PRAYER ARISES FROM THE WILD FIRES

 

The past week has been a tense time for all Western Canadians. The evacuation of the people from Yellowknife and surrounding communities and the tension in Kelowna over the threatening fires have kept us on edge.

 

This is a time to hold before our God all the firefighters, the pilots and the unsung service people such as medics, people who prepared food and transportation for these fire fighters and the government officials who kept a close watch on the encroaching fires. We also include the four persons who were killed while fighting the fires.

 

Our prayer must include all the people who have lost their homes and/or their farms from the flam es. Some unfortunately did not have insurance to cover the loss of their houses.

 

There were so many volunteers who maned the centers that sought to direct the evacuees to hotels, lodging and community shelters. Who can measure the goodness of our fellow citizens who reached out t help those who were displaced? There is great strength in the generous willingness of people to help one another. It is at such moments of this that the strength of our country is manifested.

 

We must include all the parts of nature that suffer because of these fires. How many animals, birds and insects were destroyed or displaced by these fires.? We know how well the forest will regenerate but we must include all the animals in nature’s process of regeneration.

 

Now, we want to teach everyone that we pray out of the stuff of everyday life. Our prayer can never be a safe, sterile activity that we do only between ourselves and God. Prayer must be just the opposite. We feel that struggles of our lives (this week, the fires) and we ask what does God want to bring to us through these disasters? How is God present to us in the smoke, the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway and the volunteers who reach out to help their fellow citizens? Where is God in all this?

 

What are the spiritual movements within our own souls that move us toward preserving and caring for the earth? How is the Holy Spirit leading us to see all of creation as kin, as our sister and brother? How are being moved to see that we humans are only one part of the earth family. Where are we being moved to work and live more and more in harmony with the atmosphere, the soil, and all the living things of the earth?

 

Today, pray in the smoke from all the wild-fires; pray beside the burn out ashes of peoples homes and farms; pray beside the exhaustion of our fire fighters. Then pray beside your future great-grandchildren and picture the world that we can hand on to them; a world where humanity cares deeply for the earth and not only preserves its future but works towards making it our home for thousands of years to come.

 

How is God coming to us in the smoke of this past week?

YOUR FAITH CAN DIE

 

 

The drought that we have experienced this summer has strong lessons. We cannot live without water. No rain: no crops to harvest! The bean plants in my garden are surrounded by cracks in the dry, hard soil. You can barely see any bean pods on the stocks. If Mother Nature does not  water the earth, we have no beans to harvest!

 

If we do not care and nurture our friendships, they die. If we do not work hard at family life it will wilt and often, disintegrate.

 

The same is true of our spiritual lives. Faith is always a gift from the Holy Spirit but we must do our part to nurture  and care for the gift of faith. It is not an automatic thing: God may be most generous with us, but we must work at our faith and respond. The spiritual life stresses responsibility.

 

There is a pithy piece of wisdom that applies to our physical bodies (we need movement), our brains (they will seize up if they are not used) and our spiritual life: if you do not use it, you will lose it!

 

We cannot have a life of faith in the triune God all on our own. We are born into a faith community. We learn and develop through the practices and traditions of this community which is actively pursuing  life in and through the Holy Trinity. It will be with the help of the faith community that we grow and develop a spiritual life.

 

Throughout the world we have learnt that when a person stops participating in the life and spiritual practices of the faith community, they soon do very little of any spiritual practice. This just affirms that adage: if you don’t use it, you lose it.

 

All people who claim to believe in God (focus on our Christian faith) must be taught that you could be like the sorry looking bean plants out in the garden in this draught season: you will die if you are nourished and sustained by the good rains, sunshine and the friendly bumble bees. You need to take care of your spiritual life just as a gardener needs to take good care of the bean plants in her garden.

 

The care for our spiritual life comes from three sources.

 

First, we must have a daily prayer practice, a regular time to spend time with the divine. Prayer will always take many forms. For the busy parent, they may find that when they wait to pick up one of their kids, the silence in the vehicle is an opportunity to move into prayer.

 

Second, we need the weekly gathering and prayer of the faith community. Our Christian faith brings us together every seven days to share in the great event of our salvation, the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Sunday Eucharist is not only to nourish our faith life but also to empower us to go forth into the world to bring the love and mercy of God to others.

 

Thirdly, we need to share our stories and experiences with other faith people. Their stories can encourage and support us to grow in our faith life. We need that sharing (i.e., nourishment) from our fellow believers.

 

There is no built-in guarantee to our faith life. It could thrive or it could wilt and die. Choose life. Chose to use it!

 

 

 

AUGUST; PRAYING INTO NATURE

  

August is a wonderful gift to our spiritual lives.

 

Take time to sit in the presence of God and get in touch with the creative hand of God manifested in the leaves, the corn growing in our gardens and each insect that may be flying around.

 

The Christian religion has always taught that the first book of revelation was creation. The very first chapter in the Bible has the more recent story of creation: the seven days of creation. At the end of each day, God surveys his work and gives a sigh of pride, “and it was good.” The story of creation affirms the very goodness of all created things and the blessings they will bring.

 

But in the last thousand years Christians have not focused on creation as the work and the hand of God. All the focus was on the salvation of humankind.  All creation existed for the service and exploitation of human beings. The only part of creation that had value was what happened on the sixth day: woman and man were created!

 

Now, with climate warming and the threat that humanity could ruin the created world or at least make life on the earth very difficult with a warming climate, we need to give a second look at what revelation actually is. We do not know the survival rate of anything that is alive if the climate continues to warm.

 

Have we been missing an essential ingredient in divine revelation?

 

The crisis we are living in today has forced us to look what we have forgotten in our story of salvation. Thoughtful people are reclaiming the truths of revelation that we have not paid attention to for the past thousand years.

 

The first action of God is to create the world, in all its magnificent diversity. The first sharing of the life and energy of God is all of creation: the great cosmos to the smallest bacteria. All is a manifestation of the goodness and sharing that springs forth from within the very life of God.

 

Now in this August, take time to share and appreciate every blade of grass and every leaf. Hold a tree leaf in your hand. Be alert to the joy and the life-giving property that particular leaf has to God. What joy is there in the very heart of God to  see that leaf bud forth, grow green and absorb the energy from the sun. Be in touch with the life-processes that that one leaf brings to the tree.

 

Then move to your pet dog. All the breeds of dogs (there are many) have evolved from a now extinct wolf line. How could the genetic material of the originator wolf be manifested in so many varieties of dogs? And how can your dog bring you such joy? And give you so much fun when you take your dog out to the dog park for some vigorous exercise and fun?

 

Getting in touch with the creative hand of God in all of creation: all the Canada geese that are training their young to fly and gather food this August; all the vegetables growing in your garden ; will bring you to a deeper and joyful appreciation over God, the creator and maker of the world.

 

When you pray with creation and are alert to the creative hand of God, there will be  much joy in your life this August.

DISMANTLING REGINA’S TENT ENCAMPMENT

 

 

 

Last Friday, July 28, the order was given by the Fire Department in Regina to dismantle the encampment that had developed around the city hall. There had been three fires in the past week and the encampment was declared unsafe.

 

This one has no easy answers. Struggle with the incompleteness and the confusion of homelessness in our society. The honesty is in the struggle; not in the results. There are no easy solutions. But this situation puts our society to the test. How do we treat the  weakest and most vunerable in our society?

 

Everyone said, ‘where are these people to go?’ We order them to pack up their tents but they will just move somewhere else in the city. Some of these displaced people were placed in hotels but this was often away from the area in which they were able to function. We clean up one problem in front of city hall, only to dump it somewhere else? Does this make any sense?

 

How does one become homeless?

 

Each homeless person has a unique story. There is no one recipe to become a homeless person. There are many who suffer from mental illness and are not able to hold down a job. There are serious addiction problems. Drugs are used to numb the pain within their lives.

 

We must ask: where are their families? So often, their families are not able to cope with the terrible behavior of the individual who becomes  homeless. They are powerless to give any directions to the addictive behavior. The bridges between the family and the addicted person have collapsed. They cannot go home or even ask for any type of assistance.

 

We must recognize that homeless is also the direct result of prosperity. When the rents and housing prices increase at the top end, so does the cost of rents go up at the bottom end. People who could afford to pay the monthly rent in the past find themselves squeezed out of the market as the rent increases at the bottom end of the economic circle. Where do you go when you do not have enough money to pay your monthly rent?

 

When you get knocked down in life you can slid into depression that things will never get better and you give up trying to fight your way back up. One failure leads to another failure. You can only try to survive day by day. Each of these persons on the streets is a survivor.

 

The strength of our Canadian society is not in walking away from the reality of homelessness in our cities. Canadian social strength will be in our struggle to try to find solutions. It will be in admitting our limitations in trying to help the situations.  We will be humble and do what we can do to help individuals. We just will not push homelessness to the edge of our city and ignore it.

 

 

 

At the end of the day, we might only come up with very partial solutions but as a society we try to lift people up from the streets. We are not dumping these people into  society’s waste bin. We honestly struggle with them and with all sincere Canadians, even when the odds seem hopeless at the moment.