HEALING EARTH

Jan25

Commitment to care for our sacred common home is one result of integrating recent scientific discoveries into our beliefs and lifestyles. One strives to become a benign presence on Earth, appreciating and protecting her gifts rather than exploiting them. Educators increasingly find ways to infuse these values. The International Jesuit Ecology Project (IJEP) is an excellent example of educators responding to global needs with a global resource.

My thanks to Nancy C. Tuchman, PhD, the Founding Director of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago and the Co-Director of IJEP, for the following guest blog:

Healing Earth, a free environmental science e-textbook

Today, worldwide, there are millions of climate refugees who have been displaced from their land and livelihoods because of rising sea levels (due to arctic ice melt), catastrophic storm events, extended droughts, and/or torrential flooding. All of Earth’s systems are in decline.

How did we get here? Our consumption of fossil fuels and natural resources, and our production of waste is at an all-time unsustainable high. If all seven billion people lived like those of us in the United States, we’d require six Earths-worth of land and water to keep up with our lifestyle demands. The good news? We humans control the planet’s destiny; we are the authors of the next chapter. We can change the world for the better for our children and grandchildren. We need to follow the Pope’s example and muster the will to do what is right and responsible. Scientists, economists, world leaders and educated citizens world-wide understand and embrace the urgency at hand. If we want to change the direction of our impending fate—we must act now.

This is why my work on the free environmental science e-textbook, Healing Earth has felt to me like an important contribution to Jesuit education and environmental science. Healing Earth is for all types of students interested in environmental science and specifically designed for first year university students, fourth-year secondary school students, adult learners and those most marginalized worldwide. The textbook is aimed at heightening awareness of our planet’s environmental issues through Ignatian Pedagogy—a method that challenges students to see scientifically, evaluate ethically, reflect spiritually and act effectively. Healing Earth was written collaboratively by 90 scholars from Jesuit institutions worldwide and takes a global approach to environmental issues.

For over 500 years, the Jesuits have affected social change through education. The International Jesuit Ecology Project (IJEP) is made up of international scholars with expertise in environmental science, environmental ethics, and environmental spirituality who have thought deeply about how to get environmental science education to our most marginalized populations. With Healing Earth, we’ve created a textbook that encourages students to be agents-of-change on our ever-changing planet whose 5-billion-year evolution (within the Universe’s 13.8 billion years) is now dependent on decisions made by humans.

Healing Earth begins each chapter with a regional case study that poses interrelated scientific, ethical, spiritual and action-oriented questions. For example, the case study in the Global Climate Change chapter focuses on Mongolian Herdsman who are losing their herds and their ancient nomadic way of life because of climate change.

The science of global climate change can help us all better understand what is happening to Mongolia’s pastureland.

The perspective of environmental ethics points out the complex matter of moral responsibility [of the human species that is dependent on our interconnected common home for basic components of life.] The herdsman aren’t the ones emitting the destructive gases into the atmosphere. So, who shares moral responsibility for global climate change and what responses are morally called for?

The perspective of spirituality asks us to consider what the Earth means to us. How deeply do we respect the natural world? [Do we realize that we are part of it, living within it (not on it), taking our place in its billions-of-years story? Do we realize it is a community of subjects with spiritual worth?] For the Mongolian herdsmen, the herds and pastures have a sacred value.

How, then, are we called to act? How can we support the herdsmen in their efforts to survive against the increasingly terrible odds of global climate change?

Through case studies like that of the Mongolian herdsmen, Healing Earth (link: http://healingearth.ijep.net/) helps students see the relationship between science, ethics, spirituality and action.

Interested in becoming an early adopter of Healing Earth and sharing it with your students? Email cwolff@luc.edu

JANUARY 2016: SPECIAL CONCERNS

Jan1

Best wishes for a richly blessed New Year to you, your loved ones and to every creature with whom we share our precious planet — especially those fleeing war, climate disruption, and poverty and those caught in human slavery.

Special Remembrances

This new year (in the Gregorian calendar) begins with the World Day of Peace within the Catholic Jubilee Year of Mercy. Catholics of the Latin Rite celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, to commemorate the part played by Mary in this mystery of salvation and exalt the singular dignity which this mystery brings to the “holy Mother.” Lutherans and others (and Catholics until 1960, when it became the day for Mary) celebrate the Circumcision — itself reminding us Christians of our Jewish roots. January is dedicated to poverty awareness and National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention. Jan. 11th is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day; Jan. 6 – 12 marks National Migration Week; and on Jan. 22 the Catholic Church prays for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children.

Whew! That seems a lot. But reflection shows that many items on that list are closely interconnected. How many connections can you find?

For your daily or at least occasional use during this month, I add a short Prayer for Migrants and a longer Trafficking Reflection. My sincere thanks to Jane Deren, Education for Justice Project at the Center of Concern, Washington DC for the Prayer for Migrants, and to Rose Mary Meyer, BVM, Project IRENE, for the slightly-altered longer reflection on Trafficking.

Prayer for Migrants

For all those who see “home” and all it means,
Disappear behind them;
For all those who cannot see a home
In the days ahead of them;
For all those who dwell in
Daily insecurity;
For all those who are weary and
Without a safe place to rest their heads;
For all families in migration we pray.
May the image of the Holy Family
Fleeing oppression stay with us as we enter a New Year,
And stay with us each night as we are blessed
With returning to a home.
May we also be blessed
With compassion for those
Still weary, still seeking,
Still with so far to go.

Trafficking Reflection

Opening Prayer

Creator of All, we gather together to remember that every child, every woman, every man is a unique image of you. We are grateful for your creative diversity manifested among us.

Compassionate Creator, we gather also to grieve the enslavement of children and adults who are victimized by traffickers. We mourn the loss of their dignity and for some the loss of their lives.

Loving Creator, we gather also to pledge to act according to our circumstances to stop human trafficking in the geographic area in which we live and in our global home. May we be constant in our prayer and action so that, with our global sisters and brothers who are also opposed to trafficking, we might end this horrific tragedy. This we proclaim with persistence and compassion, with faith and hope, with conviction and love. Amen.

Reality Reading, Vatican Radio

The physical, economic, sexual and psychological exploitation of men and women, boys and girls, currently holds tens of millions in inhumane and humiliating bondage. … All are encouraged, therefore, to work to help men and women, and children who are enslaved, exploited, abused as instruments of work or pleasure, who are often tortured and sadly mutilated.

Reading from the writings of Pope Francis

It must never be forgotten that political and economic activity is only effective when it is understood as a prudential activity, guided by a perennial concept of justice and constantly conscious of the fact that, above and beyond our plans and programs, we are dealing with real men and women who live, struggle and suffer, and are often forced to live in great poverty, deprived of all rights.

Silent Reflection

Reader

Choose one real life story from the situations described below. Ponder the questions in silence. After a few minutes, if doing this in a group, you will be invited to share.

Recently a woman was convicted of trafficking and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. She reportedly controlled a business that exploited multitudes of women. To hide her trafficking activity, she became an officer in an organization dedicated to anti-trafficking activities. She was publicly acknowledged for her anti-trafficking activities by a group who had no idea that she was a trafficker. How could this happen? What is happening in the area where I live that allows trafficking to occur?

A high school student who attended school during the day and lived at home at night was being trafficked. Her mother noticed nothing. A neighbor woman “tuned in” to what was happening and reported the situation. The young woman is no longer being trafficked. How could this happen? What is happening in the area where I live that allows trafficking to occur?

Ellie was a young teenager when she met her trafficker who convinced her that he was her boyfriend. He provided gifts and attention that her parents could not provide. Her “Prince Charming” was her trafficker who got her hooked on cocaine. He sold her to get money to feed his addition. Some years later he went to prison. She now realizes that she was a very vulnerable teenager and misunderstood his “care” for her. Her story is the story of multitudes of trafficked persons. How could this happen? What is happening in the area where I live that allows trafficking to occur?

Victims of human trafficking are often found in the restaurant industry where they are forced into labor trafficking as waiters, kitchen staff, cooks with little or no pay. They often experience long work hours with little time off. How could this happen? What is happening in the area where I live that allows trafficking to occur?

Victims of sex and labor trafficking have been discovered among beauty and health services. These places include beauty parlors, hair and nail salons, spas. Services include hairstyling, manicures, massages, pedicures, skin care. How could this happen? What is happening in the area where I live that allows trafficking to occur?

The Polaris Project, an education and advocacy group regarding human trafficking, estimates that 100,000 children are sold into “slavery” each year in the United States. Because of the hidden nature of trafficking, this number is clearly an estimate. How could this happen? What is happening in the area where I live that allows trafficking to occur?

Reader

If with a group, you are invited to share with the person(s) sitting next to you the situation that you chose to ponder. Why did you choose that particular situation? What insight came to you? Or?

Litany

Response (from the writings of Pope Francis)
“…no human individual or group can consider itself absolute, permitted to bypass the dignity and the rights of other individuals or their social groupings.’’

Left: Victims of labor trafficking have been found among this nation’s migrant and seasonal farmworkers, including children, women and men who harvest crops, care for domestic animals, work in orchards, nurseries and packing plants.
Response

Right: Victims of both sex and labor trafficking have been found in strip clubs. Victims include both adult women and minors.
Response

Left: Victims of both labor and sex trafficking have been found in the hospitality industry. Recently it was discovered that traffickers had rented an entire floor in a hotel for the purpose of sex trafficking. Labor trafficking includes work as room attendants, front desk, kitchen, restaurant workers.
Response

Right: Sex and labor exploitation are not inevitable. People worldwide need to engage in prayer, education, action, legislative initiatives on local, state, national and international levels.
Response

Action Possibilities

What can I/we do to combat human trafficking which is the second largest criminal activity in the world, nearly a $150 billion business?

With the limited funds I have, do I purchase only gifts that are designated as Fair Trade items? Check out tenthousandvillages.com, www.MayaWorks.org, UPAVIMcrafts.org, canaanusa.com and other websites as well as stores that sell Fair Trade products in your geographic area.

If I am a chocolate lover, do I eat only Fair Trade chocolate and/or give Fair Trade chocolate as gifts? Do I tell everyone I meet personally or contact via email, letters, phone, social media about Fair Trade chocolate, coffee, tea? Do I check out Fair Trade websites such as equalexchange.coop?

Do I call the National Human Trafficking Hotline — 1 888 373-7888 — when I feel that I might have witnessed a trafficking situation?

Do I carry this number with me at all times? If I have a cell, is this number listed as one of my contacts? Do I share this number with co-workers, friends, neighbors, relatives?

Do I check the Bakhita Initiative website (bakhitainitiative.com) which focuses on Catholic sisters against human trafficking? Do I share this website with others?

For more information on labor trafficking, do I check the website of the International Labor Organization? Their “Lured by a job, trapped in forced labor” is a powerful creative presentation.

Do I work in coalition with other groups whose focus is on anti-trafficking activity?

In the state in which I live, what anti-trafficking laws have been passed? How are these laws being monitored to assure that the justice required by these laws is becoming a reality?

Do I include survivors of human trafficking as well as those who are still victims of human trafficking in my prayers and petitions during liturgy?

Do I also include those who are responsible for human trafficking in my prayers as well as in petitions during liturgy?

Or???????

Ponder quietly for a few minutes and choose an action that is possible for you.

Closing

Compassionate and loving Creator of all, we thank you for the gift of time to ponder the horrific realities of human trafficking. We pledge to do what is possible to stop this local and global tragedy. May our efforts, combined with the efforts of our local and global sisters and brothers, transform local and global trafficking realities into dignity and justice for all. This we ask with great confidence in you, our compassionate and loving Creator of all. Amen.

Sources

International Symposium on the Pastoral Care of the Road/Street, Pontifical Council on Migrant and Itinerant People, Vatican Radio
Labor Trafficking Cases by Industry in the United States, National Human Trafficking Resource Center
Polaris Project, www.polarisproject.org
Prepared Text, Pope Francis’ Speech to the United Nations General Assembly
US Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking, www.sistersagainsthuman trafficking.org
Your Sister, Vancouver, BC

Christmas Star(s)

Dec23

Star Wars, the ever-popular film series, repeats this truth: ”Every saga has a beginning.”

We usually think of Jesus’ beginning as reaching back to David, perhaps back even earlier in human history. That’s all true, but his roots and his story, like ours, go back immensely farther. Since Scripture tells us that he was like us in all things but sin, we share the beginning.

No one knew it when Sacred Scripture was being written, but we now know that homo sapiens, though dating farther back than we’d care to count (c. 200,000 years), is but a blip in Earth’s story. Earth formed roughly 4 1/2-billion-years, though it is impossible to date precisely. During those billions of years, Earth developed the complexity and consciousness and dexterity required for the human species to evolve. Believers rejoice that Divine Mystery was living and acting within it the entire time. In the image here, humans are represented by the tiny red dot after the green tip — and the line would have begun at the shoulder! Wonder-full!

But wait! There’s more — as the ad says.

Earth itself formed after more than 9 billion years of cosmic transformations that began with what most scientists believe was the first Flaring Forth, however that happened. Stars formed, created new elements, and some ultimately died and exploded, spewing elements into the universe. Our Milky Way resulted from these explosions. After much time, Earth formed, followed by atmosphere, oceans, and continents. Way, way later came humans, music, dancing — Jesus, and each of us. Everything we now know started at the very beginning — a very good place to start, as Julie Andrews assured us in The Sound of Music.*

Stars in the nativity pictures can remind us that that’s where it all began — for the Holy Family and for each of us. Our lineage is indeed ancient! And the light within continues. Here’s how Thomas Merton described it (with no change to his non-inclusive language) :

“I have the immense joy of being a man, a member of a race in which God himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

How might remembering our common origin, the light within, and our interconnectedness with all that exists influence our feelings about, and responses to, some of Earth’s current and pressing “hopes and fears”? Do we appreciate that everything we know came from stardust and “shines like the sun”? Have we grown beyond judging in dualities and stereotypes (e.g., us/them; good/bad; friend/enemy) because we realize our interconnections? Thomas Berry would ask: Do we perceive a collection of objects or a communion of subjects?

While we delight in reflecting on the newborn Babe — and on the Holy Family — during this Christmas season (and throughout the year), let’s also be awed by the fact that we, too, come from stardust. Everyone’s saga begins with the stars.

* Hope you have time to watch this under-5 min. video: Life’s Beginnings Found in Stardust – YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rbSYwJJTTU.

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