The COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (31 October – 12 November) is widely regarded as humanity’s last chance to prevent catastrophic global warming. Australia has been described as the ‘canary in the coal mine’. In 2020, devastating bushfires swept through many parts of the country, including along the Eastern seaboard of New South Wales and Victoria, where Anglican priest Linda Chapman* lives. Here she reflects on her experience of the mega-fire that was powerfully symbolised by the image of an iron cross burnt into the ground, the only remains of a wooden church in Cadgee in New South Wales (see picture). The earth is undergoing a crucifixion, she says, and humanity needs to undergo a transfiguration through a contemplative consciousness that leads to a courageous love for the common good.
When the fires hit the forest around Mallacoota the birds were driven out to sea.
They returned, washed up on the beaches.
I always thought that birds, at least, unlike their ground-dweller cousins, could escape bushfire. But not this one. This land of ‘drought’ and ‘flooding rains’ is now a land of mega-fire.
The sacrifice of native life because of our failure to act is heartbreaking. Those birds that flew out to sea knew how big this fire was and had nowhere else to go. Certainly, the koalas had nowhere to go other than screaming up to the crown of trees on fire and to their painful death.
The cataclysm of these fires in Australia is a stark confrontation with the reality of the climate crisis confronting us. We also have nowhere to go. We can only stay and undergo the work of transfiguration; the spiritual metanoia or radical turn-around that changes the way we see, the way we ‘figure things out’.
We have so much to learn from First Nations peoples. Bill Neidje, a Gagadju man, speaks the clear and simple language of one whose connection to country, to home, is grounded in his very bones and blood and heart.
He writes:
This earth, I never damage. I look after ...
... This ground and this earth
Like brother and mother.
Trees and eagle.
You know eagle?
He can listen.
Eagle our brother
Like dingo our brother.
We like this earth to stay,
Because he was staying for ever and ever.[1]
White European ways have eschewed the wisdom of the First Peoples of this country, and the science of climate change. The fires that have ravaged this country are symbolic of the fires of the passion for money and power and our intractable distraction that brings not life but death. Consumer consciousness has the whole globe in its grip. We are divorced from reality and need seriously to wake up; to be transfigured. Contemplative consciousness hears and sees the whole of life and also bears the pain of present crucifixions.
Do we have the heart to change? I don’t know. The risk that we are at a threshold for a ‘tipping cascade’ is increasing. In Australia we had mega-fires, massive and frequent dust storms and damaging hail-storms in different parts of the country at the same time. If the fires didn’t get the birds the hail-storm, we are told, killed hundreds of them.
A terrifying thought hit me as I walked across the bridge in Moruya to see if the road home had opened. We had evacuated to our own church in town to escape the fires. It was hot and windy and swirling smoke and ash filled the air; and the sound and sight of planes (water bombers), and a red-orange sky made for a sense of apocalypse. What if this is going to be the ‘new normal’, I thought? It seems entirely plausible now. The image returns to me as though it were something I watched on the screen. It’s hard to believe it was real. But it was. And it seems increasingly likely that we will live through this again, and again.
Many are filled with deep grief, anger and despair, or just apathy, as we live through these times. But we must return, come home, to Love. We must go through this by way of Love, come what may. Contemplative and compassionate action may the most powerful response we can make.
The birds who flew out to sea could not come home. Perhaps we might commit to coming home for them?
Reflecting on living through these days of fire, I’m conscious that the practice of meditation integrated into daily life proved to be significant at such a time.
The practice of meditation is a grounding and stabilising influence. At times of acute crisis it can enable some equilibrium. But it must never become a soporific. The bushfire crisis in Australia, or as one journalist has called it the pyro-hydro-climate crisis, is an international catastrophe.
Anger can energise action. Jesus’ response to the injustice and exploitation of the Temple moneychangers led to his turning of their tables. As a community we need to do the same.
Anger, channelled as deep and persistent conviction and action, is an appropriate response to present conditions. A contemplative response is measured and spiritually intelligent but no less insistent than any form of activist protest.
The times in which we are living demand radical action. Come what may though, if we lose our capacity for love, then we forfeit our Christian vocation and identity. We can only live in this broken world as truly human beings when we act with truthful and courageous love for the common good.
Contemplative consciousness is clear-sighted, compassionate and wise. In a country such as ours, where the politics of coal and climate has been so polarised and toxic, the discipline of contemplative practice seems vitally important.
The bitterness of activists is easily understood. Yet we must ‘maintain the rage’ in a way that subverts the old adversarial system. We must dive deeper and respond to our ‘adversaries’ not with hatred, but with intelligent, insistent and compassionate action. The daily practice of meditation is like a filter through which we can allow our own toxic thoughts and feelings to become transformed into energy for that action.
The image of the cross burnt into the ground after the fire swept through is a haunting reminder that the earth is being crucified. We must keep our attention on what needs to be done.
*The Rev’d Linda Chapman OAM is an Anglican priest and presently Rector of the parish of Moruya on the far south coast of New South Wales, Australia. Linda founded ‘Open Sanctuary’ at Tilba Tilba: a contemplative ecumenical community committed to living out practical sustainable life principles and the practice of silence. Linda nurtures the Christian contemplative way and is an oblate of the World Community for Christian Meditation. An occasional retreat leader and spiritual director, as well as advocate for action on climate and conservation, Linda sees the urgent need to be contemplative in action for the common good.
Please consider making COP26 a particular focus of your prayer and meditation times during the life of the conference. Multiple resources for prayer, study and action are also available at the following websites:
The World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM)
https://wccm.org/outreach-areas/nature-and-the-environment/
The National Council of Churches in Australia
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FB9j70UZvZEKOyJDSXzFu-mRvKc6q02J/view
Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC):
https://www.arrcc.org.au/
[1] Bill Neidje. ‘Gagadu Man. J.B Books, Australia 2005