Mallory McDuff is the author of five books, including Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice and Our Last Best Act: Planning for the End of Our Lives to Protect the People and Places We Love. She teaches environmental education at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.
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A Little Climate Change Pleasure Reading
Man reading in the park, dragon_fang / Shutterstock.com
This winter, fiction revealed truth about climate change.
As a teacher, I relish the escape provided by pleasure reading before I return to the classroom for the next semester at Warren Wilson College, where I teach environmental education.
In December, without reading reviews or making a list, I visited my independent bookstore, Malaprop’s and purchased two books: Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior (2012) and Lauren Groff’s Arcadia (2012). I’m a long-time Kingsolver fan and bought her book as a gift, with the goal of reading it before wrapping it. And the cover of Arcadia, with its teal VW bus and field of sunflowers, drew me into purchasing what I thought was my second random choice for recreational reading.
Both books, it turns out, integrated climate change into the plotline, weaving scientific truths about global warming into the lives of fictional characters. And just as compelling, both works of fiction featured spiritual community at the center of critical decisions about the future of the land and its inhabitants.
Of note, critics have bemoaned the lack of fiction centered on climate change, a paucity that seemed to mirror our public denial of this scientific reality. In a 2010 blog on openDemocracy, professor and author Andrew Dobson even outlined the components of a “climate-change novel” that include a grim future, characters who explore ethical choices around global warming, and (no surprise here) extreme weather events. He ended his piece with this challenge: “So there’s the recipe. Who’s going to write the book?”
A Christian With Conjunctions
Reflection of mount Assiniboine on Magog lake at sunrise, Alberta, Canada.
For most of my life, I have been a “Christian with conjunctions.”
So I’m a Christian BUT… I’m not like that street preacher who yells about hell and damnation on the downtown corner.
I’m a Christian BUT I’m different from the televangelist who raises his fist in the air and screams about salvation.
My own priest, the Rev. Thomas Murphy, first described himself as a Christian with conjunctions in a sermon the morning before our Episcopal congregation took to the streets during a festival in downtown Asheville, N.C. Across the street from a karaoke booth, we handed out cold water to festivalgoers and offered a simple ministry with no judgment or obligation.
For most of us, it was the first time we had prayed the Eucharist in public, with our colleagues, students, and neighbors walking past. The white banner above us proclaimed: “God loves you. No exceptions.”
I have realized that the ubiquitous street preacher has something to teach me: there is virtue in being bold about my faith. Through my research on congregations and climate change, this public witness to God’s love has become easier for me as my church life now reflects my deep value of God’s good earth.
The stakes of silence are high. If we don’t speak out and act on our moral mandate to reconcile with creation, we risk destroying God’s very creation.
A Catholic Nun, A Teenage Girl, and Climate Justice
Climate change illustration, red-feniks / Shutterstock.com
Sister Kathy Long turned toward my 13-year-old daughter and asked one question: “What will you tell your friends about spending this month in Mexico?”
In a public park in Cuernavaca, Mexico, we sat on a concrete bench next to six women who chatted and stitched embroidery patterns with brightly colored thread.
I glanced toward the sewing group, realizing that Maya would have rolled her eyes if I had asked her that same question. An intrusive query from a mother seemed compelling coming from a Catholic nun who worked in Mexico, promoted justice amid poverty, and even spent three months in jail for protesting the military training of Latin American leaders in the U.S.
“I will tell them that rich people and poor people are all people in the end,” Maya responded. “If you have three cars and two houses, you are a person just like someone whose house is made of cardboard or metal.”
Summer Lovin’ and Creation at Church Camp
Teens at camp photo, Yuri Arcurs / Shutterstock.com
Church camp was in my blood, with an Episcopalian lineage that began when my grandfather helped to build and then direct Camp Bratton-Green in Mississippi. Every summer of her childhood, my mother was a camp brat, the outdoorsy, lanyard-loving equivalent of an army brat.
As a 16-year old, she met my father when he drove his family’s car from Hattiesburg, Miss., to pick up his sister Marcia from camp in Canton, Miss. And decades later, two of my siblings met their spouses at camp.
But let’s be clear: church camp in my family was more than an easy way to find a summer fling from the same denomination. While none of my crushes lasted beyond the summer, I gained a more enduring life-long commitment to God’s earth. Summer camp integrated me into a Christian community that sought to reconcile humans with creation.