Solving the problem of climate change requires more than the development of technology, it needs the ancient wisdom of paying attention. This is Part II of an article by eco-theologian Dr Deborah Guess.*
Paying attention can be a significant part of an ecologically sustainable way of living, because it can provide an intuitive, experiential or empathetic type of knowledge of the created world of which we are part.
French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil sees attention as vital for loving our neighbour and attending to their suffering. And as eco-theologians such as Sallie McFague and Elizabeth Johnson have argued, our understanding of who our neighbour is today must expand to include Earth and its suffering.
It is important for us to learn to love the natural world and to understand ourselves as part of that world, as dependent on it. Contemplative practice ‘gives a wide and generous respect for other forms of life’, hermit and theologian Maggie Ross says, and enables us to engage with the world in a deeper way than science can measure, so that we receive, she says, ‘what the natural world wishes to tell us as well as allowing the natural world to discover who we are’.
Tuning in to nature
The repetition of the prayer-word or mantra in meditation involves a particular type of attention. It is a practice that prepares us to attend carefully to the world in which we live and to recognise that we are part of it. In the words of Maggie Ross, attending to nature helps us to become more attuned to it and to recognise our deep connection with it. She says:
The subtle senses come alive: the skin warns of changes in humidity and barometric pressure; the sense of smell becomes acute to fox, martin, salt, rain, fog, kelp, whale, and ten thousand other scents. And the sixth sense wakes up: a person may not see, smell or hear the bear on the other side of the berry bushes, but when the hairs on the back of the neck stand up he or she immediately recognises that it is best to leave quickly and quietly.
Sallie McFague says that our perspective, our way of looking at nature, must shift from what she calls the arrogant eye to the loving eye. The arrogant eye which is acquisitive, sees things as either for me or against me. It simplifies in order to control, and denies complexity and mystery.
The loving eye, on the other hand, acknowledges complexity, mystery and difference. It ‘recognizes that boundaries exist between the self and the other, that the interests of other persons (and the natural world) are not identical with one’s own, that knowing another takes time and attention.’
Living the ordinary
The process of paying attention locates the participant in the present time and place and in the ordinariness of daily life. The ordinary can be difficult for us to appreciate because we tend to be interested in the extraordinary, the special, the remarkable. But attentive and transformed living, both spiritual and ecological, is deeply immersed in the ordinary, in the real and present time and place.
Maggie Ross says that the work of silence is not a separate compartment of life called ‘spirituality’: it is living the ordinary through transfigured perception. She notes that many people do not go beyond elementary meditation because they fail to realise ‘that what they dismiss as “ordinary” contains in itself the goal that they seek’.
Many environmental movements and projects are very much about focusing on the ordinary and the everyday. The minimalist movement, for example. Authentic minimalism has for many years encouraged small-scale, inexpensive, simple, environmentally low-impact ways of living.
Similarly, highly practical, everyday ways of living have been given expression in numerous movements such as Permaculture, Transition Towns, the Slow Movement, and community gardens.
Living with reality
Scientists sometimes suggest a future that is catastrophic or dire. The world I mostly grew up in was quite positive about the future. Yes, the possibility of nuclear war was then (as it still is) in the background. And lots of us were concerned about the environment 40 or 50 years ago. But we always thought it could, and would, be sorted out in time. It looks a lot bleaker now.
Wherever and whenever we live, we must honestly face reality or we are deceiving ourselves. One of the fruits of the practice of meditation is that it puts us squarely in touch with present and actual reality, turning us away from distraction, denial or fantasy.
It is very important that saying the prayer-word or mantra concentrates us in the present moment because while we are in the present moment we are not subject to the negative and potentially depressing train of thought about how things used to be, and neither are we subject to the fear and anxiety that flow from thinking about the future.
Environmental action and living can only benefit from recognising that ultimately we can only authentically live and act in the present time and place. To be intensely aware of living in the present place and time is honest and empowering.
Self-control
The Canadian philosopher and poet Jan Zwicky says that paying attention to what is around us helps to transform habits because, ‘The more we attend to the world, the less we find ourselves wishing to control it’.
The development of self-control, she says, is what will effect numerous daily actions that involve changed environmental habits—from wearing old clothes through eating seasonally to vacationing at or near home. Letting go is related to not doing something, giving something up.
Both spiritually and ecologically there is something quite significant in doing nothing. It has resonances with the apophatic side of Christianity, where we accept that there is a limit on what we can know or say about God.
Renunciation and letting go of attachment/control has a central place not only in religious life but also in an environmental ethic. Just as letting go of control, and similarly of attachment and desires, is commonly advocated in spiritual practices and religious life, so an ecological ethos supports letting go of love of things, buying them, and holding on to them.
The ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ logo is great but it’s not been applied properly. Reduce is at the top because it’s the most important. Too much emphasis has gone into recycling without addressing the other two, and especially the first one ‘reduce’, which means simply reduce the amount of stuff you buy: unless you really need it, don’t buy it in the first place.
Can we ‘tame’ nature?
The over-use and abuse of nature is said to be the result of the human desire to exert control over nature, and to the assumption that we can control nature.
Obviously there are many ways in which people have always changed the natural world. But in the last few hundred years the idea has grown that a more or less complete control over the world is possible. Some environmentalists have objected to that, and perhaps our own recent evidence in Australia also questions the idea that it is even possible for humans to have a rigid control over the Earth.
In both the Australian fires of 2019-2020 and, following close on them, the pandemic, a shift has perhaps occurred in the way we look at ourselves and nature. Just as we struggled to control the fires, so we have struggled to control the virus. With the fires it felt that we were on the losing side and those images of holiday-makers being evacuated from Mallacoota were powerful.
On COVID, we have found control a little easier, so far at least, perhaps because much of it was over our winter, because we are more geographically dispersed than some societies, and because some quite strict political decisions were made.
But still, through both fires and COVID we were given pause for thought as to how much we actually can control nature. As former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has said, ‘the pandemic has set a large question mark against the assumption of guaranteed security that has been the backdrop to the lives of more prosperous communities and individuals for decades – the narrative that we are steadily “taming” our environment’.
The upside of letting go
Although talk of self-control or self-limitation may sound quite negative, and for some people in some situations it can certainly be hard, and even painful, it can, and has at times, led to positive outcomes. Victory Gardens in the UK and North America during WWII for example.
At the present time, although some people in our precarious work environment would like to work more hours, for others fewer working hours would be welcome and would allow time for care of self and for environmentally helpful practices like growing our own food and making our own clothes.
Letting go and doing less can relieve the stress that comes from being too busy or from having to make too many choices. Giving up some things allows for other more life-giving things to be done instead, again as people discovered in the pandemic when they took up things like bread making.
And limiting our actions may bear fruit communally, not for us but for others. Reducing the extent and mode of our travel may seem quite restricting, but less pollution would enable children to play outside without masks in places like Beijing or Delhi.
Knowledge
It’s hard to discern right environmental action without at least a basic environmental knowledge. Perhaps the most tragic dimension of ecological catastrophe is a lack of knowledge and information, as expressed in forms of climate denial or minimisation.
Being informed by well-researched scientific data definitely does not need to be seen as a separate intellectual exercise that has nothing to do with our practical everyday lives or with our spirituality or religious practice. Our whole person needs to respect and engage with the world around us.
Laurence Freeman, Benedictine Monk and Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation, has said that the present environmental crisis is so complex that the only thing that can begin to deal with it is a radical simplicity. What we need the most, he says, is to learn the art of being still, because environmentally destructive behaviour has connections with the loss of stillness that has occurred in human beings.
Religious practices that inculcate self-limitation develop in their practitioners an appreciation of simplicity, and resilience for a time of crisis. And spiritual practices, including meditation, are a highly fruitful way to begin to cultivate what Pope Francis calls ‘sound virtues’ which will help people ‘to make a selfless ecological commitment’.
Both Parts 1 and 11 of this article are based on talks given on 15 May 2021 at a Meditatio event organised by WCCM-Australia. See https://wccmaustralia.org.au/
*Dr Deborah Guess is a long-time meditator and member of the World Community for Christian Meditation. She is also an Honorary Research Associate and Adjunct Teacher at Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia. Her main research and teaching area is ecological theology. Deborah also practises permaculture and sustainable living at her home in the Yarra Ranges to the east of Melbourne. Among current projects, Deborah is writing a book about the ecological theology of place.