I have been in New York City for the last 2 weeks. I expected spring weather in April but, except for one day, the days had been rainy and cold. As I practiced what I blogged to “embrace the darkness” and stay in “the empty tomb” during Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter day), I felt that “death,” like winter, had a grip on our world, so strong, that it was overwhelming my movement toward Easter.
Easter is just one day. The world is the same before Easter. The world is still the same after Easter. There is still no resolution in the unrest in Libya. We are still losing lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The crisis in Japan is still a crisis. We are not done with the aftermath of the oil spills in the Gulf, the earthquake in Haiti, the hurricane in New Orleans and all the other disasters around the globe. Healthcare cost is still going up. Gas price is staying at over $4 per gallon. The rich is still getting richer and the poor, well, stays poor. As I wrapped myself in a blanket on Holy Saturday watching the pouring rain outside my window, the nagging question echoes: Easter is here, almost, but has anything changed?
As I wallowed in the darkness, I remembered the book I bought (yes, I still buy books) from visiting the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) called WORLDCHANGING: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century. In the introduction, Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org (a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis) wrote:
“I can remember what it was like to give an Earth Day talk twenty years ago – you needed to keep your fingers firmly crossed, and hope. You could conjure up a rough image of, say, solar-powered world, but a rough image was all it was. . . Describing a bright green future took a strong imagination.”
He went on to describe how things have changed today, as many of the innovations we thought about 20 years ago are now reality. But there are still much to do especially when climate change showed little sign of course-changing. He proposed:
“ . . . our job is to speed the transition to the other world these innovations promise – to make them not wonderful exceptions, but the rule. And doing that will be difficult, because the old world doesn’t die away easily.”
Ah, “the old world doesn’t die easily;” that was what I was feeling all through Holy Week.
As I read this text, I recalled the signs of hope – things have indeed changed and are changing—especially in the area about which McKidden is passionate. For example, I picked up the book WORLDCHANGING from a whole island of books with similar topics—sustainable design, art and architecture—prominently displaced in the middle of the MOMA store. On a train coming back from Princeton, I saw solar-powered street lamps through a whole section of a town. Walking around Bowery, the neighborhood where I grew up, I discovered a Green Depot store that sells green products and building material. In the tourist-filled streets of SOHO, I found a store call Sprout that sells eco-friendly watches at very reasonable prices. The company says its watches are 80 percent eco-friendly, boasting materials like organic cotton, mineral crystal and mercury-free batteries.
I was visiting my nephew’s business Vision Essential, in Astoria, Queens. As I was helping my friend pick out a frame for his glasses, I was delighted to find a line of frames called Earth Conscious Optics (ECO), made from recycled stainless steel and acetate. For every frame bought, the company would plant a tree. And the prices were about ½ of what the other designer frames were going for. Of course, I recommended them to my friend and he bought one.
Okay, I am now convinced that things do change and that there is a movement and it is a movement forward in spite of setbacks, and we are calling it sustainism. Oh, don’t forget President Obama’s Easter/Passover message for the nation also focused on renewable energy.
So, what has changed now that Easter is here? The world might stay more or less the same before and after Easter. What has changed is the choice I made. What has been transformed through Easter is the mindset I use to engage the world. I can choose to wallow in the paralysis of a seemingly unsustainable personal life, community, nation, and the world, or I can choose to act in ways that join in the movement for a sustainable future. I can be overwhelmed by death or I can choose the path of life. A sustainist believes that sustainism is already here and he/she sees, acts, and makes decisions through this lens. Sometimes we might not readily see it, but if we pay attention to the signs that are all around us, we will notice that the path of life is like spring waiting behind the wintery rain, ready to spring forth.
As the story of Easter continued with the disciples’ struggles with their post-Easter belief, fear, and doubt but finally came to believe and live and act as a resurrected people, we too are invited to make the shift in our mindset and join in the path of life where our hope for a grace-filled sustainable future is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.
Invite people in your community to spend this week to notice the signs of hope and sustainability in your community/neighborhood. 1. Gather your community and invite them share what they had observed and make a list of the “signs.” 2. Invite them to consider these questions: What are the elements that made up these signs of sustainability? How can we connect these signs to build a stronger movement toward sustainability for our community? |
Reflection Questions for Second Sunday of Easter (Year A): Acts 2:22-32 1 Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31 |
Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org