SHARE
Love or fear – our choice
By Sr. Joan Brown, OSF, Executive Director, Interfaith Power and Light New Mexico & El Paso
Special to the Independent
These are rare days. We just finished celebrating Passover on Earth Day, April 22 and we continue the Easter season and also Ramadan. The confluence of these holy days happens only about every 30 years. To add to these holy days we have a convergence with Earth Day and this is Earth Sunday.
What an important time to renew loving commitments to one another for peace and to care for our Common Home. Somedays, however, I feel there is hardly enough energy just to get through the day.
Several weeks ago presented one of those days. Amidst a sick friend, too much work and many demands, we were surprised to get irrigation water. During our dire drought the water was so very precious for our fruit trees and gardens. I was excited and then very disheartened when a problem arose with an underground pipe leading to one area limiting water to a trickle. It became dark and I could not work any longer in the night to address the problem.
Almost in tears with weariness and yet another problem, I walked to the ditch to turn off the water. There, reflected in the water was a growing white moon and stars. I was stunned by the beauty. A sense of well-being flowed through me. It was a holy moment. I just let go of so many burdens.
The beauty of God awaits us in surprising ways in these dark night times. Hope surprises us with the unexpected if our hearts are open a crack. We did get our water problem fixed with some help. But there are always more challenges. The question we are posed in the Christian scripture this week after Easter is whether I am locked in a closed room or am I a channel of love and peace of God in our troubled world.
This Earth Sunday the book of John describes the disciples locked in their room out of fear. Jesus came anyway. How many times do we lock ourselves away from the troubles of neighbors and our world out of fear or weariness. Jesus words to Jairus, the synagogue official whose daughter was dying, address a choice we have, “Fear is useless, what is needed is trust.” Though the disciples witnessed these words earlier in their journey with Jesus, they still locked themselves away from the world out of fear.
The war in Ukraine, unrest in other countries, growing inflation affecting food, utilities, and rent are causes of fear for us today. We do not want to hear another problem and we want to escape. It is not a surprise that we do not want to hear more about even the most pressing moral challenge, climate change. The recent report form the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offers a very dire future requiring us to immediately make choices for action and life to avert even more suffering.
But, we need nourishment to walk these holy and fearful days. Earth Day, Easter, Spring, Ramadan and Passover invite us into beauty and unexpected grace and surprises. God’s beauty is all around. Flowers, birds, and fresh greens erupt in beauty and love. We feel it in our bodies and spirits. We also witness stories of beauty and hope from our communities and earth all around us. The Navajo community of Red Water Pond, other Navajos and friends of the Multicultural Alliance for Safe Environment were a sign of beauty this week. They met officials of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to speak for justice in uranium clean-up witnessing to life through a long dignified struggle.
The Interfaith Forest of Bliss Project of Interfaith Power and Light put beauty into the soil as they planted food bearing trees in gardens of Southwestern Organizing Project’s Feed the Hood gardens in Albuquerque.
The many people of faith signing up to speak for New Motor Vehicle Emissions Standards in New Mexico at the May 4-6 NM Environmental Improvement Board hearing will offer voices of beauty to care for God’s creation and community health. Find out how to offer your voice to care for creation a 505-660-4305 or visit the New Mexico Environment Department calendar at /www.env.nm.gov/ eventscalendar/.
There are other actions you can take to care for God’s creation at the New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light website, www.nm-ipl.org.
Fear feeds on fear. Love moves us to action and opens the doors of fear to the fresh air of God’s love and grace. While fear feels strong and immense. In reality love is greater. The message of our darkly times is love.
“Love is the most universal, the most tremendous and the most mysterious of the cosmic forces...the physical structure of the universe is love,” said Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Sr. Joan Brown, OSF, is executive director of Interfaith Power and Light New Mexico & El Paso which works with faith communities to address climate justice through installation of solar and energy efficiency in Houses of Worship and care for water, land and air through education and public policy advocacy.
Joan Brown
SHARE
