Re-considering sustainability

This is the opening of the first post of a three-part series by Jeremy Benstein found on The Sova Project blog that BJEN co-sponsors. It powerfully sums up the limitations of the current understanding sustainability and the direction we need to go in. 

Here’s the rub: our lives and the society we live in are unsustainable. There is ample proof of this. And so we, the activists – top-downer policy wonks, and bottom-upper grassrooters – shout from the rooftops that we need to be sustainable. Yet even as we mount campaign after campaign, we know in our heart of hearts that this is not the ultimate ideal we should be striving for. We feel that we must promote sustainability as a necessary minimum. At the very least, we must be sustainable – for how can it be otherwise?

“Mere continuing” however (for isn’t that what ‘sustaining ourselves’ means?) can’t be all there is to work for, or to look forward to, and given the lack of enthusiasm and deep widespread support, the public at large seem to be aware of that.

The fact is, though, that properly understood, sustainability contains within it some breathtakingly inspiring ideas, if only they are unpacked and framed correctly. True sustainability ultimately means replacing linear growth with a more cyclical conception of regeneration, thus creating a world that holds within it the possibility for ecological, personal and societal renewal that is the key to long-term flourishing.

In order to understand the force of the idea of renewal, let’s take a deeper look at some of the limitations of the current perceptions of the idea of sustainability.

Sustainability: Too Much – Yet Not Enough

Even though sustainability is a broadly inclusive socially progressive “big-tent” vision for a better world, as it’s currently used and understood it has two critical problems, conceptual and rhetorical-strategic. Let’s look at each in turn.

One problems is that while “radical” sustainability can be a completely new way of looking at things, a different paradigm, it is more often seen as very mainstream and reformist, coming from the accepted economic discourse of “more,” or at least “as much as possible.” For example, a sustainable yield of some resource (trees for logging, fish in a fishery) is defined by the maximum harvest possible that will not lead to depletion of the resource: enjoying the fruit without harming the fruitfulness, as it were. This is of course a crucial limit, not least because we surpass it so egregiously in so many fields.

But this understanding is very different from the theme of this blog- sova - the idea of “enoughness,” a deeply satisfying sufficiency: not the maximum possible consumption for an ongoing high standard of living, but the minimum required for a life of dignity, security and joy, available to all. The universe of discourse of sova is not efficiency, quantitative indicators, and damage-minimization, but rather, humility, gratitude and compassionate justice.

(continue reading on the Sova website)

Fracking Us

The Baltimore Sun ran an op-ed this morning about the very real dangers of fracking.

The many downsides of fracking - which include not only a mammoth diversion of our increasingly limited clean water supply but almost certain permanent degradation of it as well - certainly outweigh the short-term (and short-sighted) economic and practical benefits.

This is not just a theoretical argument for Marylanders anymore. An effort to turn Cove Point into a natural gas exporting facility is threatening to make MD a hot spot for fracked gas and increase the infrastructure for this faulty energy plan.

CCAN (the Chesapeake Climate action network) is holding a state-wide tour, with a stop in Baltimore next Tuesday, 11/12, here at MICA at 7:00 pm, to teach about the Cove Point initiative and why it does not bring good news to MD.

I am honored to be recognized as one of CCAN's Climate Heroes at this event.

Please join us if you can to learn more about what Cove Point would mean to MD.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Eden Redux

(This is a piece I wrote that appeared in the Bay Journal News Service.)

Despite the apparent unparalleled nature of today’s struggle with climate change, one could reasonably argue that this is not the first, but the second time that humanity has suffered radical, global environmental destabilization by its own hand.

Think expulsion from the Garden of Eden. There we were, just the two of us (instead of the cozy 7 billion we have grown to be today), happily tilling and tending the garden, basking in the gentle climate and eating to our heart’s content.

Then, whether seduced by greed, appetite, curiosity, the nudge of boredom, the itch of discontent or the promise of progress, we bit off more of the world’s resources than we could chew.

And all hell broke loose. Recognized animals started displaying grotesque deformities. The vision of the ever-renewable, self-sustaining creation was broken. In place of abundance, the land would yield tasteless food and that only after hard labor.

So the question is: what can we learn from this story and our ancestors’ supposed response?

Adam and Eve were much like us, it seems. Adventurous, curious, a good balance of industrious and lazy, a bit bored with the same-old/same-old, having enough yet wanting more. Eating the apple seemed like a risky but worthwhile thing to do. Yet when their eyes were opened, they saw the naked truth of the world. They realized the vision of paradise they had was just an illusion. They saw that in fact the world was not an invulnerable, never-ending goodies machine, there for the taking and taking and taking. They realized that progress had its price; that expansion and desire and appetite took its toll; that they would be responsible for the choices they made; and that their choices would affect the well-being of the whole world no less than their own.

What, then, did they do? What was the first response of these first humans to the awesome awareness of their power and its consequences?

They hid.

They covered up what they didn’t want to see. They denied the truth of their newfound knowledge; pretended that all was as it was before. Unable to face the consequences of their choices, unable to accept the need to change in light of their newfound knowledge, Adam and Eve hid. They tried to live just as they had, hoping no one would notice. But of course, as the story goes, Someone did.

“They heard the sound of God walking in the Garden. And they hid. But God called to them, saying: ‘Where are you?’”

That, it seems, is the question we are being asked today.

Our generation is indeed a chosen generation. We have lived more like Adam and Eve in a bountiful Garden of Eden than any generation before us. Yet we now know the truth about this garden. We know, and are tracking, the real and potential earthly degradation that is the price of our appetite and consumption. And like Adam and Eve, we have hidden our eyes and ignored the truth about the consequences of our actions.

Only this time it is not God who will be throwing us out of the garden. We are doing it to ourselves. We are doing it by failing to change the ways we plant and harvest, mine and manufacture, travel, design and engineer our world. We are doing it by failing to see that more is often less; that just right is all we can really use, all we really need, all that really matters; that happiness is found in the time and tenderness we give each other and not in one more pair of shoes.

But all is not lost. We still have one foot in the garden. We know how to live so that we may thrive and not deprive our — we hope — endless stream of children from thriving themselves. We know how to avoid being the generation that unfairly benefits from the blessings of modernity yet dodges and displaces the price of progress. We know how to avoid placing any more of the costs of our enjoyment on those who come after us.

We know, and are learning more all the time, about how to be part of nature’s rhythm of renewal and not act apart from and against it.

We know and can do so much. For good or bad. Our future lies in how we answer The Question: “Where are you?”

If we hold that simple question before us as we go through our days deciding and designing our policies, practices, systems, dreams, consumption, and all our personal and communal behavior, then we will finally have come out of hiding, reclaimed the garden, and be learning again how to live rightly in the world’s fullness.

(A musing on cutting up an apple today - hol ha'moed Sukkot, Hoshana Rabba - the seventh day of Sukkot)

In my "day job," I deal with people who know a lot about fruit trees.

In particular, they tell me that apple trees cannot be grown from seed. It is not that the seeds won't germinate. They may. It is rather that apple seeds are so complex, they won't grow "true to type". That is, they will not create a tree with the kind of apples the seeds came from. They will create something unpredictable. And, if not  exactly inedible, something that is likely undesirable.

Instead, all the apple trees you buy from stores and growers are created by grafting. That is, growers take a graft, a "scion", from a tree whose fruit they desire and graft it onto the sturdy "root stock" of another tree. That way, they know exactly what kind of tree they are getting and what kind of fruit those trees will produce.

That is no doubt good when you have to run a business, and have to reliably feed the world.

Still, I can't help but feel that we are missing something here. While 99 apple trees planted from seed may prove disappointing, that next tree may be a true winner.

Which teaches me several things.

What, we may ask, makes a tree desirable? Perhaps the trees that are "undesirable" to us for eating are the perfect food and shelter for local wildlife. Or perhaps they are the trees that will give rise to the next generation of trees that will give rise to the next generation of trees that will create the next irresistible apple, or produce the essence of the next breakthrough medicine. What is it, therefore, that we lose when we insist on loading the world's dice with past successes only? And successes defined in limited ways? What do we lose when we don't gamble on the extraordinary, if serendipitous, gifts that nature alone can produce?

While people who earn their living from orchards that feed the world cannot make this gamble, we can. In our front yards and back yards and school yards. In those otherwise wasted in-between spaces or sterile landscapes that may look nice (or not) but do not add to the health of our land. So along with the fruit trees we buy from the growers (I am not suggesting we turn away from these), perhaps we can add a few we grow from the seeds and pits we ordinarily throw away.

But this makes me wonder too about the effect this tradition of grafting has on our spirit, and our daring, and the ways of tomorrow. What happens when we choose only to invest in the best of yesterday?

This is a question funders and businessfolk and teachers and we continually need to ask, especially when we have a responsibility to maximize the beneficial outcomes of our time and investments.

But how does this play out, for example, when we think about teaching our children today? True, there are some things that are non-negotiable: civility, respect, manners, gratitude. But what is the price we pay if we preferentially teach to tests focusing on the knowledge, methods and expectations of the past? What gems might we be destroying, and missing?

Even more, I fear we sometimes overlook, throw away or otherwise undervalue the kids who are more like seeds than scions.

We need the tried-and-true to get us through today. But we need the daring and unknown to get us through tomorrow. While balancing the two is one of life's greatest challenges, it can also be one of life's greatest joys, and rewards.

Chag sameah - may you have a wonderful end of Sukkot.

And one last wish for a shana tova - and a good new year.
 

Why there are grandmothers

Grandmothers are an evolutionary puzzle. After all, if life is maximally designed to reproduce itself, then why would grandmothers, the poster child for barrenness and post-procreativity, be allowed to exist? In such a scenario, all they would seem to do is gobble up valuable space and resources that the vigorous, vibrant, growing folks desperately need, making it harder on everyone. Having grandmothers hang around after their productive years would appear inefficient at best, wasteful and destructive at worst.

our newest grandson

But here we are, a society of children, mothers and grandmothers (and fathers and grandfathers, of course, but no one seems to question their legitimacy and usefulness!) and most everyone seems to be thriving.

In the mid-1950's, GC Williams wrote an article that argued that grandmothers are in fact an adaptive evolutionary selection. Women cease their reproductive years and still stick around so that they might both better assure the health and survival of their existing offspring as well as be freed up to assist in the health and survival of their offspring's offspring. After all, someone needs to pick the beans, wash the clothes and stir the soup while another one nurses the babies, instructs the little ones and somehow manages the rare moment to grab a nap and take care of herself!

I was thinking about all this as Avram and I were rummaging through a closet looking for the baby tub, the bouncy chair, the infant seat et al, readying them to be used by our newest grandson. Grandparents, and in many special ways, grandmothers, provide invaluable services and resources. We are the redundant hands, eyes, voices, laps that are there to protect, wipe tears, encourage, laugh, read, tell stories, anticipate needs. We are repositories of extra space, extra food (cookies, fruits and family recipes seem to be our specialty), and extra time. We know the heritage (aka, the guild of old wives') solutions to a cough, a burn, a nightmare. And even if we can't fix them, we know that we can survive them.

We serve to ease the demanding parenting task our children now face as well as widen the circle of safety and love for our grandchildren. We provide a softer version of authority, of "grown-up", with deeper wisdom culled from the passing years and an ability for indulgence that full-time parents cannot muster, or afford.

And what do we get out of all this? We get to see the vast sweep and cycles of time. We remember back to the childhood of our children (which seems but an enchanted doorway away, if we could only find it), are grateful for what our own parents endured with us, and imagine years in the future of each tiny newborn. We see ourselves standing in the midst of time, gazing into both the past and the future, as if poised between mirrors which endlessly, infinitely reflect back on themselves. We see ourselves no longer in the middle of life's drama, as we did when we were young(er), but as part of this long miraculous arc of creation. It is grand, and humbling, and the very source of awe.

It is now that we can be the most selfless at the same time as being the most wise. Why would nature want to throw us away?

Beyond fossil fuels

Joseph Romm writes compellingly about our need to move off of fossil fuels - including saying no to fracking. It is not as hard as it sounds and if we don't, our children will look back in 30 years at a degraded world that we created in their presence, with tainted water, insecure food sources, sky-high energy prices and they will wonder why we didn't do something about it when we could. The sad part is that this is neither new nor news, yet it still needs to be treated as if it is, until we really do it.

See what Joe says:


"If you liked the Oscar-nominated fracking exposé “Gasland” by Josh Fox, you’ll love the sequel Gasland, Part II, which is being broadcast on HBO Monday night.
I think it’s a better movie, more entertaining and even more compelling in making a case that we are headed on a bridge to nowhere — a metaphorical gangplank — with our hydraulic fracturing feeding frenzy.
Future generations living in a climate-ruined world will be stunned that we drilled hundreds of thousands of fracking and reinjection wells:

• Even though we knew that fossil fuels destroy the climate and accelerate drought and water shortages;
• Even though we knew that leaks of heat-trapping methane from fracking may well be vitiating much of the climate benefits of replacing coal with gas; and

Even though each fracked well consumes staggering amounts of water, much of which is rendered permanently unfit for human use and reinjected into the ground where it can taint even more ground water in the coming decades."

And more.

The good news is that a whole new world of renewables for vibrant economies, livable communities and higher quality of life is within reach. Now. 

Support these initiatives. Reduce your consumption. Build the future.

What we can learn from figs

Kenaf Renanim is one of several commentaries of Perek Shira, the enigmatic, 1,000 year old book that seeks to teach the wisdom of life through the voices of nature. It does this by selecting an element of nature, be it the heavens, water, an animal or a plant, and having it recite a verse from the Torah. 

Except for a brief introduction and closing, this entire short book is made up of simple formulaic statements all like this:  "X says: 'line quoted from Torah'." That's it. Probably because of its curtness, this unadorned text has proved irresistible to some scholars and has spawned a dozen or more commentaries, none of which - to my knowledge - has been translated into English.  

I had the pleasure of teaching a bit of Kenaf Renanim, one of Perek Shira's  most famous commentaries, to the farmer-interns at Pearlstone earlier this week. 

Below is the bit that I translated for them. 

wikimedia

"The Fig says: If you guard the fig, you will eat of its fruit." (Proverbs 29:18)

Time is the tool and the object, the manner and the medium, for all endeavors of man and all human exertions that God desires. Man should apply himself, therefore, intentionally, at every moment of his life, and not waste a moment, especially his precious moments of youth, so that he should be able to merit and absorb all life’s goodness. His youth offers this gift more than any other time of life that God may grant, and the wise man discovers this all by examining the fig…

“Whatever you discover you are able to do, do it with all your might." (Ecclesiastes 9:10). That means: whatever you discover you are good at, whatever you can do to fulfill your calling, do, all the time you are in your might, that is, in the days of your youth. As it says in the Zohar:  “Lifnei seiva takum” [Don’t read this as saying: 'rise up before the elderly'. But rather, 'before you are old, rise up'.]

And we learn from the nature of the fig that they [figs] do not all ripen at the same time like other trees, but rather first this one then that one….  Each one in his time. And if the ripe one isn’t harvested in its time, it rots and is lost.  The owner of the fig tree must know the timing of his figs and be diligent every moment, for if he is distracted or delayed, the fruit will be lost.   

Thus, "guard" means to not turn aside from it for a moment; then you will eat it, and if not, not.

So too with the Torah [Judaism's sacred texts, traditions and knowledge]. If you don’t always attend to it in your heart, every moment… you won’t benefit from its fruits."

Time, that mysterious dimension through which all life flows, is indeed the precious medium of our lives. We dare not squander it, or our gifts and talents and passion. We needn't do everything at once. Indeed, our gifts don't ripen all at the same time. Thankfully! 

Each gift, each opportunity, tends to ripen in its own time. It is our job to nurture each and tend to each in its time so that we notice when it is ripening and capture it at its fullness and use it well.

The fig, so seems to teach Perek Shira, bids us to pay attention, be diligent, be patient, be measured, be grateful for the fruits of today and expectant for the fruits of tomorrow.

The Cost of Energy Consumption

For those motivated by money (which is most of us), knowing how much money the impact of our unsustainable behavior today is going to cost us tomorrow might boot us over into changing some of our behavior and what we expect and even demand from government and business.

(We still have the deferred action dilemma, that is, the fact that we humans respond more to the immediate than the deferred, especially an immediate gain vs a deferred loss. But we will tackle that later.)

David Roberts, a blogger for Grist, writes that the White House Office of Management and Budget just put out a stunning report that boosts the "social cost" of carbon by 60%. (That is, the amount of damage, in dollar-terms, that a ton of carbon emissions does.)

That is a huge deal. Here's why (in Roberts' words):

[I]f this number stays on the books — and if the government continues to update it based on the latest science — it will eventually worm its way deep into the regulatory apparatus and do something that no amount of argument and advocacy have been able to do: force the federal government to properly value the climate.

 One of the strongest arguments against more energetically promoting renewable energy and containing fracking etc is the economic argument. But if we can begin to understand, in real terms, that in fact it is uneconomical to persist in such destructive habits, and that by continuing business as usual we are ruining the business climate, perhaps, just perhaps, we will have the monetary and economic arguments we need to bolster our ethical and social justice arguments.

Not Buying from China

It is almost impossible not to buy things from China. From products to packaging to the component parts in the stuff of our lives, Chinese products are everywhere. Even when I purposely seek to avoid it, I can't. I recently bought a tea mug and intentionally looked all over the packaging for signs of where it was made. The only indication was the American company. But when I got home and opened the package, the bottom of the mug was stamped in those words that made my heart faint: Made in China.

We are all implicated in the tragic losses we are reading about all too often in Chinese factories.

The Chinese manufacturers we read about adulterate their products, be it food or material; pollute the environment; underpay and mistreat their workers (see yet the latest story below from The Sun), and we are the reason, the enablers and the beneficiaries of their unacceptable, unexcusable, and - if it were in this country - unlawful behavior. But they get to do it because we want cheaper merchandise.

How many Chinese manufacturers do this - we don't know. But clearly enough to have us read about them when grand things go terribly wrong (we don't hear about the wrongs that don't rise to this level of international reporting).

I for one will amp up my diligent avoidance of Chinese products. That is one way we can get the Chinese government to clean up its act toward its commerce, people and the environment.

Two other ways are legislation that requires incoming merchandise to abide by the same ethical standards in manufacturing as ours (that might make ours more competitive price-wise) and banding together with socially responsible shareholder or consumer groups that can magnify our voices and our clout.

If you know of such legislative efforts or organizations (ICCR - Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility), please let me know. I would love to publish such a list here.

Fire at locked poultry plant kills 119 in China

By Barbara Demick Tribune Newspapers

   BEIJING — There was a loud bang, survivors said. Then the lights went out, and fire quickly engulfed a poultry plant in northeastern China, killing at least119 workers who were trapped behind locked doors.

   The fire Monday, perhaps the deadliest in China’s poultry industry, erupted just past 6 a.m. in Dehui in Jilin province. Authorities said the explosion was caused by leakage in tanks of ammonia used in the poultry industry as a coolant.

   At least 54 people were injured in the explosion and blaze.

   As flames spread through the factory, panicked workers were unable to escape, survivors told state media, because most of the exits were locked or blocked, forcing them to stampede toward a narrow side door.

   “I knew the fire door was blocked, so I went back toward another part of the factory. Everybody was flooding in the same direction in a stampede. I was lucky to crawl out alive,’’ said Guo Yan, a 39-year-old woman who was interviewed by state media in a hospital in Changchun, the nearby provincial capital.

   Why there were not more exits is unclear.

   Whether processing food or making smart-phones, Chinese workers often endure conditions more akin to military barracks than factories, with restrictions on their freedom of movement.

   Guo told the Chinese news service that workers, who made about $325 per month, were “strictly controlled.”

   The fire was one in a string of international disasters that have spotlighted poor industrial safety, including the collapse of a garment factory building in Bangladesh in April, an accident that killed 1,127. Employees there had expressed fear that the building was unsafe but were ordered inside to work.

   Deadly industrial accidents have accompanied China’s rapid industrial growth in recent decades, despite government efforts to improve safety.

   Monday’s factory fire was one of the worst of its kind in China, eclipsing the toll from a 1993 blaze at a toy factory in the southern city of Shenzhen that killed 87 workers.

Stormwater credits for Baltimore City

Friends, as you probably know, Baltimore City is one of ten Maryland jurisdictions that is required to create stormwater utility fees to help it manage and clean its water runoff. 

The Baltimore City Council will be voting on the City's new stormwater utility fee and credit structure  June 11. 

Advocates working for the improvement of our water system are turning to the faith community to help.

In one of their outreach pamphlets, they write:

People look to their house of worship for guidance in matters of ethics, conscience and service. Caring for the environment is a matter of faith. Religious institutions can take the lead by showing their support for this fair fee and also by working together to reduce polluted runoff from their properties through such actions as planting rain gardens, installing rain barrels and using pervious paving surfaces. Even in urban areas like Baltimore there are many opportunities for clean water projects.

If you support improving the health of our streams and making our communities safer and healthier, please contact your Baltimore City Council member before their June 11th meeting and tell them:

1) It’s time for Baltimore to take major steps to fix its inadequate stormwater system.

2) I support the utility fee on polluted stormwater runoff to pay for these urgently needed repairs.

3) The fee should be applied fairly across the board to all property owners.

4) The fee should have a credit that encourages property owners to take steps to reduce runoff from their properties; in doing so, they will improve the quality of our waterways and reduce the fee they pay.

To find your City Council representative, visit: http://cityservices.baltimorecity.gov/citycouncil/

I also have a flyer about credits that can be used to reduce your fees while improving the health of our waters, and our community. 

Email me at ncardin@comcast.net if you would like me to send that to you.

BJEN sees this as a wonderful opportunity to work with congregations who are ripe for improving their water management. Many of our congregations have land that could be enhanced, made more beautiful and ecologically productive, and  integrated into the congregation's purpose and programming. Outdoor chapels, meditative spaces, natural playgrounds, orchards and shaded areas can all enhance both the physical and programmatic elements of congregational life, and improve our community's water quality!  

Now, through credits and incentives, such transformations that were out of reach are suddenly more affordable.  In addition, more and more governmental and non-profit organizations are eager to partner with congregations to plant trees, put in raingardens and assist with other water retention initiatives. And they come with grant funding to help pay for the planning and the work.

This is a win/win. Our communities will be healthier, more efficient and productive in their use of natural resources and more beautiful. What could be better?

America on fracking

A new study just came out from the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University on Americans' attitudes toward fracking. Here is what they say:

In our September 2012 Climate Change in the American Mind survey, we asked respondents to answer a series of questions about hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" as the process is commonly known. This issue has proven to be very controversial in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Proponents and opponents debate potential impacts on the economy, energy supply, public health, the environment, and communities. Today we are releasing an extensive analysis of the findings from those survey questions. In "Fracking" in the American Mind: Americans' Views on Hydraulic Fracturing in September, 2012, we find that, surprisingly, Americans have limited familiarity with this issue, and fewer than half of American adults have developed an opinion in support or in opposition to it. The minority who has formed an opinion are more or less evenly split between supporters and opponents. Other key findings: Support/opposition to hydraulic fracturing varies by gender, age, political party, geographic region, and familiarity with the issue. In general, respondents who are female, younger, and liberal are more opposed. Those who are male, older, and conservative are more supportive. Americans who support hydraulic fracturing associate it with economic and energy supply impacts. Opponents, however, associate it with environmental impacts. Important food for thought as Maryland tip toes into the fracking debate and as parts of America are knee-deep in it.

It is a beautiful morning on Mother's Day, and I have two conflicting thoughts.

1) So many peoples and cultures around the world depict the world as Mother Earth. How, we might wonder, would our behavior to the earth and all earth's creatures change if we took this image seriously? What stories could we tell that would evoke in us visceral - and not just economic or political - responses to the earth, the gifts we get from her and the damage we do to her?

(The 1970's commercial which says "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature" has become a classic. What if we mined that sentiment?)

This is a bit tricky for western religions, not least of all Judaism, for we shiver at the least sniff of paganism. But we can readily do this within the comfortable bounds of our beliefs, understanding the image as a metaphor. We speak every day in our morning and evening prayers of God's role in creation, bringing on the morning light, guiding the renewing and repeating patterns of day and night. Our theology would be secure.

But I would argue against that, even on this hallowed Mother's Day, not on theological grounds, but because I think it would not be effective. As books like The Giving Tree show us (I will write more about this is a future blog, at my peril, I know), we can easily abuse the loving mother, take all her resources and assets and not ever notice the degradation and pain we cause her.

Rather, I am thinking we need to go another route (and one that might more easily settle into the Jewish soul).

2) What if we began to see Earth as a child in need of our care. For that is now what it seems to be.

A quick step back: If any familial image emerges from Genesis One, it is earth as parent - the full, powerful one that can give to us what we need to flourish and emerge in charge and unscathed. Chapter Two, however, leans in the other direction.  Earth is needy of us and we are put here to nourish it with our labors and bring it, and us, to our fullest blessings and potential.

Today, we have excelled at the story Genesis One, to the earth's detriment, taking resources from and subduing the earth in all sorts of ways. Just this weekend we learned that for the first time in 3 million years, the earth's daily average CO2 reached 400 parts per million (way beyond the 350 ppm scientists tell us are the safe zone for global human habitation).

As the story in the National Geographic tells it, the last time this happened, horses and camels lived in the Arctic. We are in an upward trend that we seem to refuse to abate. Truly we have become a geophysical force, somehow stronger than age-old cycles and influences that determine the very nature of the earth.

We have, in a way therefore, reversed roles, left the world of Genesis One and entered the earth of Genesis Two. We have become parent and the earth a child. While that is frightening, the good news is that maternal love is stronger and broader than filial piety. Perhaps this is just what we need to get the job of saving the earth, and ourselves, done.

(A few clarifications: I wanted to say "maternal or paternal love", to be fair to both parents, but the word "paternal" has been co-opted and possesses a - well - paternalistic, somewhat heavy-handed, "I-know-better-than-you-and-can-make-you-see-that" sense to it.

I could have said "parental" but that sounds too clinical.

So read the phrase "maternal love"as including the essence of both mother and father and all parenting caretakers.  Regarding maternal love vs filial piety - while both are profound, run deep and create high levels of motivation, maternal love is of a different nature, and different quality than filial piety. For one, to honor our parents, especially as they age, means focusing mostly - though not exclusively - on them. Do they have the housing, health care, the daily attention, the honor, the comfort, the quality of life they need now? To tend to our parents, we focus on the way things are now. To tend to the quality of life of our children, however, requires us not only focus on them now and their immediate needs but on what the world will be like for them tomorrow and the day after for decades to come.

Which gets us back to the metaphor.)

Earth as mother calls upon us to thank her for what she did for us in the past. We are grateful for all that was done for us. We put ourselves in the center and our attention in the past. The image of Mother Earth does not readily encourage us to cast our vision into the future. Or look beyond ourselves.

Earth as child, however, calls upon us to imagine tomorrow.  It puts the child, the next generation (of both earth and flesh), not us, in the center. Focussing on earth as child allows us to be both grateful for the gifts our parents bequeathed to us, and mindful of the earth we pass on to our children.

In other words, Mother Earth allows us to be grateful takers. Earth as child calls us to be loving, and worrying, givers. We cannot think of earth of child without thinking about the future of  both the natural world and our own flesh-and-blood, for their futures are inexorably linked.

The problem is, what should we call this image? "Earth Child" doesn't work. Neither does "Child Earth".  I welcome your ideas!

Happy Mother's Day!

Temporary job opening at an interfaith environmental organization

Friends,

An interfaith environmental organization that I work with (okay, chair) is looking for a part-time, temporary program coordinator to start as soon as possible.

The organization is the Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake (formerly known as the Chesapeake Covenant Community).

You can find the job description here.

Our wonderful Executive Director is being "commissioned" in the Methodist church and will be going to her first congregation.

As we collect ourselves to prepare for our next Executive Director, we are seeking a program coordinator who can carry on the day-to-day work of the organization.

Please check out and share the link with anyone you think may be interested.

Many thanks!

The Genesis of Enviromentalism

Friends, the piece below was written by me, distributed by the Bay Journal News Service and published today by the Baltimore Sun. I thought you might find it interesting too.

In 1967, historian Lynn White, Jr. ignited a firestorm that burns still today. In a widely talked-about article entitled, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” he lay a charge at the doorstep of the Judeo-Christian community: the Bible is responsible for the world’s environmental degradation.

The Bible and its story of creation sowed the seeds of the destructive mandate that animates western civilization: humans were given the right, the calling, by God, to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and master it.”

Charged by this narrative, White argues, the western world has taken dominion of the world as fulfilling the highest order of human purpose and existence. The world, the earth and all its vast resources, are mere fuel and fodder for our consumption, whether fruitful or frivolous.

The faith community has spilt much ink debunking White, arguing that “mastery” and “dominion” here do not mean crass exploitation of the world’s goodness but rather benevolent caretaking, stewardship.

I think that is a truer and richer reading of the text, but I also believe there is a stronger way to respond to White.

I accept the basic critique of White’s charge that the man and woman in Genesis One were given the task to master the natural world around them. Isn’t that what any of us would have wanted if we were thrown naked and naïve into a great wilderness? Imagine the raw vulnerability of early humanity: no civilization; no one to receive or protect them; no ancestors to learn from; no cultural, historical, scientific or technological traditions or resources to draw upon; no place of refuge to huddle in while they figured things out. From the very first moment of existence, they were vulnerable, dinner for any passing large carnivore, munchies for viruses and bacteria. They were cold when the sun went down; hot when it came up. Hungry all the time not knowing what to eat and what to avoid.

That is the picture of earliest humanity that the Bible presents, and that is not unlike the first thousands of years of human existence. The world was so big, then, and we were so small. The world was so powerful and we were so weak. Our task was to survive, and if possible, thrive. We did what needed to be done – we were so insignificant against the vastness of the earth that the world readily absorbed our various missteps and mistreatments.

No longer. Today, almost unimaginably, we have completed the call of Genesis One. We have been fruitful and multiplied, filled the earth and mastered much of it. We have become a geophysical force. While once we worried about how the earth could hurt us, now we must worry about how we are hurting the earth.

The question is: What do we do now? What do we do when the call of Genesis One has been fulfilled? The answer, quite simply, is to turn the page and read Genesis Two.

Here is the story of the Garden of Eden. Here, humanity is presented not as vulnerable creature struggling against a vast expanse of all-consuming wildness but as partner with God called into being so that we may tend to the care and improvement of a needy world: “When the Lord God made the earth and heaven, no shrub was yet in the field…for God had not yet sent rain, and there was no human to work the soil. So God took the human he had formed and placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to protect it.”

Here the roles are reversed: it is the land that is vulnerable, bereft of the gift of the renewing resources of nature and man, in need of a wise and caring humanity.

If Genesis One speaks of a world with directions that seemed to read: “Take, use, discard. Repeat,” Genesis Two speaks of a world with directions that read: “Use with care. Leave the earth in a better state than the one in which you found it.” That challenge creates a new narrative and demands a new role for humanity to play in the destiny of the earth.

Those who are fearful of being consumed by the elements do not have the luxury of worrying about tomorrow. But those who have turned the tables on nature, who excel in its mastery and consume it in excess, have slipped out of the story of Genesis One and passed into the pages of Genesis Two.

For the developed world, humanity’s early privileges of Genesis One have yielded to today’s obligations of Genesis Two. That is the sacred text, the calling, of our time.

Launching "Enough"

Dear Friends, 

(This is a public service announcement about a new blog/website I am helping to build. Hope you enjoy. And write for it. And comment on it. And even critique it when you feel so moved!)

The Sova (Enoughness) Project is a blog-spot, sponsored by:

•  the Center for Global Judaism at Hebrew College 
• the Baltimore Jewish Environmental Network
• the Heschel Sustainability Center

BJEN (the host for my blog!)  is honored to be in such company.

Inspired by the upcoming shmita (sabbatical) year which commences in September 2014, the goal of The Sova Project is to raise awareness across the global Jewish community about issues of environmental, social and economic sustainability through a multi-disciplinary conversation including activists, economists, Jewish studies scholars, communal leaders and plain old people like you and me who make the world go round. 

We will seek to take the ancient, timeless values underlying the laws and practices of shmita and  apply them to the hurly-burly world today.

To learn more and to join in this critical conversation, please visit us at www.sovaproject.org.

This Sunday - a great green program from a great organization

Got Trees?

Does your congregation want more trees on your property? 

The Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake is looking for congregations to partner with the Maryland Stream Restoration Challenge - a challenge by the state to establish 1,000 acres of stream-side forests by 2015.

Congregations that are selected as planting sites will benefit from:

•             teachings on the spiritual foundation of earth stewardship

•             workshops on trees, planting, and maintenance

•             trees for planting and follow up maintenance for 1-3 years

You can find more information here.

Or  contact dottie@chesapeakecovenant.org 

The peepers are here... those adorable little frogs that inhabit the wooded area around my neighbor's pond. They announce themselves with their nocturnal chorus (which often spills into the daytime but is dimmed or hushed by the busy rush of life).  They came out around Passover but what with the snowstorm and my (joyous!) demands of kitchen and guests, I think I missed their debut chorus. Still, they have serenaded us in our comings and going for over a week now.

The daffodils are coming out in earnest, too. Uncertain at first, with their heads bowed like shy children, they are now upright and sturdy, certain of their place in spring's parade.

The house is full of lovely smells from all the flowers adorning various surfaces.

And today I turn 60.

One of these things will never happen again. Life is funny that way.

Sixty is such a big number. (I hope to see many bigger numbers in my life, but for now, this seems Very Big.) While other round numbers bring us their own share of growth, sixty reminds me that death is no longer a rumor; not something that just happens to other people. It is the visitor that is biding its time, waiting for the right time to knock.

But this realization is more jubilant than depressing. It is like the boost one feels after recovering from an illness, the joyous celebration of energy and renewal. There is an increased clarification of what is important and what is not; what to fight for and what to let go; and how to spend the precious time that remains and what truly makes life worthwhile.

I was hoisted over this birthday threshold by a bundle of friends and family, some older, many younger, who offered me gifts of wisdom and camaraderie. At this moment in time, I leaned on them.

For after all, in Hebrew, the number 60 is represented by the letter samech, which looks very much like an O with a short ponytail on the upper left. It is a circle with a flourish; something complete on its own that yet reaches beyond itself.

Even more, the root of the word samech means to rely on, lean on, support. (A rabbi is called musmach, one who both relies on the divine and Jewish tradition for their wisdom and authority, and whom others rely on for learning and spiritual guidance.)

Who better to rely and lean on at times of transition than our friends and loved ones? And with their support, I will be someone, a friend and musmach, whom others can continue to lean and rely on.

And lest we forget, the classic Jewish blessing we give at someone's birthday is "Til 120!" (the age of Moses when he died). On that scale, I am but half-way through.

Which is good, because there is still so much to do to help heal this needy world, create my legacy and live fully into my eccentricities!

May this be a great day for all.

Stuff and Hametz

There is something primal about celebrating Passover.

The prohibition of eating anything that has leavened (yeasted, soaked in liquids, bulked up or otherwise fermented through time and kitchen alchemy) leads us away from the luxurious refinements of everyday culture and back to the place where nature and civilization meet. At its simplest, Passover removes from our kitchens most processed and prepared foods. No eating out; no bringing in; no quick thawing of frozen delights in the microwave. For many of us, and certainly for me, Passover is when I encounter most of my daily rations at their rawest state. My food’s journey from field to fork is shorter on Passover than at any other time of the year.

Over this past week, between the seder, family and guests, I prepared roughly 140 meals. By hand, largely from scratch. My main ingredients were fresh vegetables, eggs (15 dozen), nuts, quinoa, tomato sauce, and, of course, matza in its various guises and stages of refinement. (No meat. And fish - gefilte - only at the seder. The house - and I - are vegetarian.)   

My compost pile is bursting with peelings, parings, and post-prandial scrapings.

So what does it all teach us?

The rabbis like to riff on hametz, leaven, as the “puffed up” part of our selves; the prideful part that thinks too much of itself, chases away humility and gets in the way of a caring, improving, reflective self.

But I am beginning to think that just as much as hametz can reflect a bloated self, it also reflects a  bloated civilization. Perhaps we need to speak of this recurring ritualized ridding of home and hearth of hametz as an antidote to the excesses of the artifices of culture. This annual cleansing allows us to temporarily deflate and scrape away the endless accretions of culture that we seek to pad and cushion the bumps of our days, and our over-blown attitude toward materialism and endless growth.

Life's many material accretions, while no doubt sometimes necessary and helpful, also often mute, hide or diminish our encounters with life's startling stuff, like the different textures of cauliflower and broccoli; the shredding qualities of different potatoes; the family of carrots; the intimate foldings of pomegranates. And when we miss these little things, we tend to miss the big ones too: like the long set of combinations of nature, people and steps it takes to get this food in this condition from seed to stove to mouth.

However, when we are re-awakened to these daily marvels of rain and soil, networks and markets, fuel and cooks, we become alert and attentive witnesses to the parts of life that civilization hides and covers over. We are re-awakened to the flow of water, the gift of the commons (and its gradual loss), the  blessings of a friend's kind words, the pain of a colleague's quiet heartache, the gift of time that one stranger gives another, and that everywhere in life, more than enough is often too much. 

When we are reawakened to life's daily marvels, we see what we usually overlook: how wrong it is for the highways to be rushing full-speed at 5:30 am every morning when people should be at home, in bed, sleeping, dreaming, snuggling with loved ones, or quietly, thoughtfully preparing for the day. How wrong it is for more and more people to work harder and longer to buy more and more things that use up more and more resources and take up more and more space only to find themselves less and less happy. That at some point, the excess of life's hametz diminishes earth and us instead of improving earth and us.

It seems to be time to speak of the removal of hametz, then, as not just about de-puffing of self, but de-puffing the excesses of civilization.  Our bodies, our spirit, our neighbors and our Home will all be better off for it.

 

Burning Hametz, Valley2city

Every year, on the eve of Passover, the holiday of freedom, I slavishly plunge deep into the creases and crevices behind the sofa cushions, wrestling with their folds and wresting from them the crumbs, coins and other miniature lost contraband that got stashed away over the year in the couch-demon's hidden treasure troves.

Then I incessantly, obsessively break toothpick after toothpick trying to get the gunk out of some God-forsaken crevice on some device, appliance or piece of furniture that clearly is some engineer's craven design flaw that anyone who ever actually had to clean the d*#m thing would have realized. Then, just when I am ready to throw in the very well-used, thread-bare towel, certain there are more forbidden morsels lurking right beneath me, I am calmed by the ancient wisdom of our tradition.

There are three steps to ridding our homes of all the loose hametz we are forbidden to own, eat or see during the holiday of Passover. The first is bedikah, the search part of the mission. We are to pursue the promethean chore of spring-cleaning, turning the house inside-out, clearing out the winter blahs and encrusted dirt that built up over time, uprooting it so it can be discarded, tossed out, gone forever. The second is biur, the destroy part of the  mission. This found and collected hametz is then burned, literally incinerated. Its vaporous farewell ensures us we have done well. We relieved, re-invigorated and renewed.

But the third way is my favorite, the bittul, nullification. For all those overlooked and hard-to-reach pretzel pieces and potato chip crumbs,  for all those ossified and calcified bits of dough ground into the kitchen floor, for all those cocky bits of renegade hametz that try to undo our herculean efforts, we have a secret: we wave you out of existence. With but words, you are no more.

As the last wafts of smoke rise to the heavens, we conclude the cleansing of our homes with these words: "All the hametz still in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have removed it or not, is now nullified and ownerless. It is like the dust of the earth."

Judaism assures us that the perfection we pursue but almost never achieve is not there to taunt us but to inspire us. Not reaching it should not deter us or beat us down.

If we dive deep, wrestle hard, try and fail, try and advance, almost get there but not quite; after we have exhausted our methods, our imagination, ourselves, when we are all spent, it is then we can say,  this is the best I can do. And most often, it is good enough.

Have a wonderful Pesah.

The People of the Land

Orchard in Winter

 

(This article of mine was published recently in the spring 2013 issue of Jewish Woman, the magazine of Jewish Women's International. It seems to belong here as well.)

 

The Jewish people is known as the People of the Book. But the Book that defines us, that is our heritage and our destiny, tells us that we are also the people of the land. From Eden to Israel, from our love poetry to our agricultural laws, from the prayers we recite to the Revelation at Sinai – our spirits have been fashioned by the landscapes of our lives.

This bond begins in the first name we are called: adam.  Genesis 2 says that “the Lord God formed the human, adam, from the earth, adamah.”  Adam is not a proper name here, but a noun signifying all humanity. We are all adam, for we all come from adamah. Hebrew has two words for land: eretz, (as in eretz Israel) and adamah.  Eretz is land that defines a country and a people. It has borders and politics, those who belong and those who don’t. Adamah is soil, dirt, earth, the stuff you plow or pick up in your hands. Its borders are Earth itself and there is no one who does not belong.

In the Bible, the land, adamah, in all its majestic wonder, with its peaks and valleys, oceans and deserts, thistles and roses, is not just the stage on which human history is played out. It is a character in the Bible’s unfolding sacred narrative.

Consider these three essential roles that this adamah and the natural world of ours play in the stories of the Bible.

First, the world, created by God, was given to us to cherish and tend. We did not make it or earn it or set sail to discover it like explorers of old. We were gifted it. We were created and placed here to enjoy it and take care of it. That is our task. That is, the Bible tells us, God’s plan. The rabbis embellish the story this way: “When God finished creating the first adam,” they say, “God took him and led him around all the garden, showing him all the trees and said to him: See how lovely and awesome is the world I have made. Know that everything I created is here for you. Be mindful not to ruin and destroy my world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you.” (Kohelet Rabbah 7:13) We were created to be partners with God, endowed with sentience to admire all that God wrought, awed by the unfathomable majesty of the Earth, and tasked with the responsibility of taking care of it.

Second, the Bible portrays the natural world as the medium, the currency, the vocabulary with which God speaks to us and we, in turn, speak to God. When God wished to bestow gifts on us, God did so through the bounty of nature. The land of Israel, Deuteronomy tells the Jews as they stand on the banks of the Jordan, is not like the land of Egypt. The land of Israel flows with milk and honey. It is made of hills and valleys and drinks from the water of the rain of heaven.

We recite words from Deuteronomy daily in the second paragraph of the Shema, showing God’s blessings in the currency of nature: If the people Israel heed God’s commandments, and love God, then “I will favor the land with rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and you will gather in ample harvest of grain and wine and oil. And I will give grass in the fields for your cattle, enough for them to eat and be satisfied.”

And we the people responded with our sacrifices, gifts from our harvest and the first born of our herds. We were asked in kind to be godly and repay God for God’s goodness through the goodness of nature, by giving to the poor, the needy, and the stranger from the corners of our fields and offering a tenth of our harvest to those without. Even today, we are not permitted to eat until we thank God for the different kinds of food we are given: those that grow from the land, and those that grow from the tree; those that grow on the vine and those cooked up by us from a variety of sources. We thank God every morning for bodies that work, eyes that can see, backs that stand straight. We thank God, too, for the universe that stays its course, allowing us to gather from it all that we need.

Third, the natural world is God’s revelation, proof of God’s caring presence. The Bible continually reminds us that though we can never see God, we know God through God’s handiwork. The rabbis celebrate this, asking us to recite blessings upon witnessing these shadows of God’s presence. Upon seeing the ocean, we praise God for fashioning the great seas. Upon seeing some majesty of nature, the mountains, a shooting star or a jaw-dropping sunset, we praise God for renewing the work of creation.  Upon seeing trees in spring bring forth buds of renewal, we praise God saying, “Blessed are you whose world lacks nothing, and who created magnificent creatures and gracious trees that we humans may benefit from them.”

It is through these witnesses in nature that we can more deeply feel the presence of a Power beyond us. When Job seeks an answer to his unbearable suffering, and calls upon God to answer, God responds with witnesses to the depths of nature’s mysteries: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations… and set its cornerstone? Who closed the sea behind its doors when it gushed forth … when I clothed it in clouds and swaddled it in midst? Have you ever commanded the day to break, assigned the dawn to its place… penetrated the vaults of the snow, seen the storehouses of hail?”

This questioning goes on for sixty verses, at the end of which Job is humbled. Though he doesn’t understand, he is oddly comforted by being part of a universe that is so much bigger than he, so much larger than he can comprehend.

We are the People of the Book. But also the people of the land. We are the people of Israel and the denizens of the earth. No matter where we are, we are adam of the adamah. It is our calling to take care of the land so that the land can always take care of us. And it is in these quotidian tasks that we can ultimately find our most sacred calling.