Rev. David Carlson, Duluth

On August 16, in response to the IPCC report, I was among several speakers at a gathering outside Duluth's City Hall. Some speeches understandably had a tone of anger or dismay, pointing out the failures of decision makers for not acting sooner, and urging listeners to mobilize to avoid climate catastrophe. While I agree, as a religious leader I felt a need to frame my comments differently:

   I want to speak to you today about religious conversion - toward the earth. When was it for you? Backpacking in the mountains when a wildflower meadow opened for you beneath a clear blue sky? Paddling in the Boundary Waters when the loons and waves lulled you to sleep at night? A realization of awe and wonder, love for the earth, for creatures and waters and soils, places with meaning both personal and sacred? Where, in the words of Sigurd Olson, is your “listening point,” where you first heard the music of the universe and the “singing wilderness” and began to feel at one with it all? What did you feel as you bathed in the dappled forest light or smelled the sweetness of pines or swam in cool lakes – peace, connection, gratitude? A calling? A conversion? 

   One of our Lutheran hymns (ELW # ) reminds us that the God we worship is also God of the sparrow and the whale, God of the storm and the earthquake, and asks: “How does the creature cry woe? How does the creature cry save?” It points to the God of the rainbow and the God near at hand and asks: “How does the creature say care? How does the creature say life?” Fishes and songbirds, rocks and plants, rivers and watersheds – whose voices have you heard but are not acknowledged at decision-making tables? Whose well being is intertwined with yours, but is being undervalued and undersold? 

   In a world increasingly threatened by more severe weather, species extinction, and ecological collapse, not just our ways of life but religion itself is in need of conversion. It’s a hindrance when religion sees creation solely as a means to serve humanity, when it forgets its inherent goodness before we came on the scene, when it does not name as sinful our over-consumptive patterns of life and when it denies scientific consensus about what we’re doing to the planet. It is detrimental when religion sees salvation narrowly in terms of human souls or escaping the earth and it is more faithful to scripture when it sees all creation as a recipient of God’s covenant concern, God’s promised care and redemption. 

   An ecological conversion is called for, echoing Pope Francis, Desmond Tutu, and leaders of other faith traditions. It means that living our human calling to be stewards and protectors of God’s creation is not optional; it is not secondary but an essential aspect of practicing faith today. To paraphrase one of my seminary professors, it means religion that meets my needs must give way to religion that reveals needs I didn’t know I had, and at the same time points to a healing I may never have thought was possible. 

   No advocacy or gift of compassion is ever lost when focused on people who are poor or disenfranchised, the rest of creation, or future generations. Every act of love and repair for the earth, however small, matters. May the Spirit that breathed life into all creation convert us anew and use us all as instruments of God’s healing purpose for the hope of the world.