Remembering Apollo 1

On January 27, 1967, Apollo 1's crew--Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee--was killed when a fire erupted in their capsule during testing. Apollo 1 was originally designated AS-204 but following the fire, the astronauts' widows requested that the mission be remembered as Apollo 1 and following missions would be numbered subsequent to the flight that never made it into space.






Image credit: NASA 

For those of us old enough to remember, this was a horrific moment. It reminded us how dangerous was the irresistible romance of exploration. And for a moment, our dreams were consumed on that launch pad. But the human spirit is remarkable and the endeavor went on. My the memories of the Apollo 1 crew encourage our dreams to soar - and may we make a world down here as awesome as the world in space that they dared to explore.

 

Maryland Legislative Summit

The annual Maryland Legislative Environmental Summit was held yesterday in Annapolis. Hundreds of people, really, a lot, (I'm waiting for the official count) packed into the Miller Senate Building to hear activists, elected officials, and me (!) make brief (5 minute) talks as this year's legislative session kicks off. It was an honor to be a voice from "the faith community" speaking to such an august and passionate crowd, a group of people who work so hard on behalf of all of us. There is much to do, what with issues such as wind energy, water quality, a bag bill, and more. To keep abreast of issues, you can always check the Maryland League of Conservation Voters site. Or better yet, become a member and get updates sent to you.

I attach my presentation below, fyi:

We live in the midst of a 4-billion year old mystery, an on-going miracle that we call Earth.  For all we know, no such miracle exists anywhere else.  Whatever we may be skilled enough to find out there, there is likely not to be another Planet Earth, or another you, or another me, or another Bay or the parade of moonrises and sunsets, or the cascade of creatures that have filled our air and seas and land and made our world what it is today.

We are the chosen ones, blessed with being alive at this awesomely rich and perilous time. We didn’t ask for this moment, we didn’t create it, we did not earn it, and we don’t even understand it.

What we do understand, however, is that something very dangerous – even wicked - is happening out there – and we are doing our share to cause it.

But the good news is, we can do our share to stop it.

We are Earth’s most aware beneficiaries and its most powerful stewards.

We are not its masters, we are not its owners. We are its tenders. We are called upon to use it, take care of it, and give it – healthy and robust - to our children, just as our ancestors gave it to us.

Thomas Berry, the Catholic theologian – taught that each generation has a Great Work. It is a work that we do not choose, but that we are dealt by the hand of history. It is a work that drives our ultimate purpose and inspires our days, a work that all future generations will judge us by, a work that is bound to “the larger destinies of the universe.”

Our generation’s Great Work is to learn to thrive within life’s sustaining cycles. Our Great Work is to build a world that is resilient, ever new and ever fresh to each generation, that matches our desires and consumption, our use and our waste, our progress and our joys, to the untransgressible bounds of nature. 

We must do this and we can do this, for we are not alone.

It is crowded in here.

It is crowded with your passion and persistence, your hard work and hopes, your wisdom and commitment.

And it is crowded with the concern and confusion, the hunger and the worry, the needs and prayers of hundreds more, thousands more, millions more who have never heard of you, but who depend upon you, and who need you to pursue this sacred work.

For all of us work on behalf of everyone who takes a breath of air, who wants a sip of clean water, who works to put food on their table, who takes refuge from the cold, seeks a good day’s work today and tomorrow, anyone who relies upon this awesome, giving world for their manifold, mundane needs.  And that is everyone.

The names we use to describe our work might be throwing people off. It seems to me that Senator Carter Conway’s and Delegate McIntosh’s committees might need to be renamed:

Perhaps something like the:  Education, Health and Environment, Economy, Jobs, Energy, Equity, Life’s Well-being, Earth Stewardship and Children of Tomorrow Committees.

The world of tomorrow will not be the world of yesterday. It will take more than science and knowledge, more than money and regulations to get us from here to there. It will take our trust, it will take our will, and it will take our faith.

We are not engaged in an us-vs-them agenda.  It is not about jobs vs the environment; enviros vs progress, government vs the people. 

Our task can be stated simply:

It is about us taking care of nature so nature can take care of us.

There is a great future waiting for us; we must find the way, and we must all get there together.

That is our Great Work.

That is our sacred work.

And that is why you are here.

Thank you for what you do.

Counting enough

There is something odd, and instructive, about manna.

It was, by all accounts, miraculous. Accompanying the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, it was not like other food. It did not grow from the earth and it did not fall from the sky (despite the poetic vision of Exodus 16:4) . It appeared after the dew of the morning had worn off on the ground and, if not harvested promptly, vanished into thin air.

It was to be collected and eaten everyday. Hoarding was not allowed. It rotted if left til the following morning, though it lasted two days, from Friday to Shabbat.  (Shabbat, after all, was the day of rest and no collecting could be done.)

When first introduced after the miraculous events at the Red Sea, and the sweetening of the bitters waters, Moses instructed the Israelites in what it was and how to collect it:

“It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. ¹⁶ This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’”

In teaching this recently, I saw that this law could be confusing. If I take as much as I need, I might require more, or less, than an omer for each person. So I might not be able to gather as much as I need if I gather it by the count. How is the commandment to be fulfilled? By need or by set measure?

Then we are told:

   ¹⁷ The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little.

This just extends the dilemma. Does that mean the Israelites gathered only an omer for each person? And those with large households gathered their large share of manna and those with small households gathered their small share?


^{Or does that mean that they gathered according to need and not according to measure? It seems like - through some alchemy - both were true: the gathering was by measure and need.}

¹⁸ And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much

did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.

Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.

One possible solution is that the omer was a fluid, flexible amount here and not yet standardized. It might have referred to the amount each person needed to become sated daily, before it got ossified into a straitjacketed measure.

Or perhaps it meant that while a household of nine, say, consumed the total of nine omers, each person in the household ate what they needed, some more and some less. And it all evened out to nine. 

Whatever the answer, the story of the manna is food for thought. It is an ethical tale of enoughness. It asks us to be grateful every day for the miracle of food; to guard against selfish hoarding, but know when to save; to count equitably for everyone's needs, but acknowledge our differences; to be mindful of earthly and divine gifts, and share them with each other.

^{So the question is: how many miracles do we count here? The manna itself? That the omer was a magical measure, bulking up like wheat in water, to fit the stomach it was destined for? That there was an omer for everyone? That there was always enough? That it defeated hoarding and required trust? Or that households, tribes, and the entire Jewish people were able to share, learning to gather just enough to satisfy their needs, and rejoice in this vision of enoughness?} 

Seeds

In Genesis 1, on the sixth day, God creates man and woman after having created all the rest of Planet Earth. In a gracious effort to provide some guidance, some instruction to these bewildered, befuddled neophytes on how this novelty of life could possibly work, God says, "Look around. All this grandeur is there for you."

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

"All this is at your disposal. But, and this is a huge But, you have to learn how to use it well so you don't mess things up. (I am paraphrasing from the midrash here.)

"Let's begin with the basics.

²⁹Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

"Though I said to you" (interpreting God here), "that the earth is yours, your food shall be its plants. Not the animals and not just any plants, but the stuff that comes with seed, zorea zera, those things that fertilize, renew and regenerate themselves. To the animals and all the other creatures I give green plants for food. To you I give grains and fruits and vegetables of all kinds that carry this harvestable gift of regeneration.

"Regeneration. That is the key. Without that, all this ends. Even you. You need to know that, for you are the one species whose imagination will lead you to assume great powers. You will learn how to tame fire and subdue infections, travel great distances and send messages across the galaxies. But you will also learn how to wrest millions of years of stored energy (stored sunshine!) from the earth and consume it in a flash, to cut down forests faster than they can grow, to drag the seas clean, scraping all its life into your nets.

"To you I say, consume only that which has 'seed' in it, that which can regenerate itself. Harvest the fruit, preserve the seed, plant it and let it grow. Do not consume it all so that it is unable to renew itself."

It seems a simple enough task. Use only what can be recycled and healthily reused. Consume only the stuff and the amounts that allow renewal. Yet we are failing at it.

There is one message we need to repeat over and over again til it sinks in and changes our thoughts, our values and our behavior:

We can't get there from here (to a renewable, resilient world).
We can eventually get there.
But we can't get there from here.

We need to step off this path and move to another. We can do it. We can survive it. We can thrive in it. Indeed, it is the only way we can. But we need to change paths, and it all begins with a change of spirit, of will, of desire.

And that is where we, the faith community, comes in. Spread the word.