Common Threads

As much as some of our days were quite full, including excursions, incursions, learning, and sharing, I think the key take-away for me was feeling deeply reassured and buoyed by the sense of no longer being so alone on this creation care journey, especially in naming and holding shared pain. To be an attentive, empathic, compassionate human being, one who loves one’s neighbours—both near and far—in this year that is 2023, is a journey that inevitably opens us up to the pain of struggle and of loss. Add non-human creatures to the mix, and add flora to the fauna, and then entire ecosystems too, and there is much distress that quite rightly causes grief. The groaning of creation, referred to in Romans chapter 8, comes to mind. We are part of creation too, and sometimes we need places for our groaning to be more fully expressed. My first experience of the ‘council of all beings’ communal practice was just that: for a short time we all embraced the identity of one different part of our created world, and spoke to one another “in character” of various perils and pains, be it exploitation, extraction, violence, neglect, or the very real threat of our extinction and consequent non-existence as a species or landform (we had a donkey, a bat, a turtle, bees, worms, a river and the atmosphere represented in the room, to name a few).

Interconnection

As just one example of the many threads that have been woven together so wonderfully in this recent season, on the March retreat I’d taken along my current reading, which just happened to be Ecological and Climate Conscious Coaching (2023), very hot off the press. While at the Blue Mountains, where we were literally up in the clouds some mornings, I read about the Deep Time Walk, which maps a 4.6km guided walk against the 4.6 billion years of Earth’s history. This equates to one million years for every metre, and accordingly the final 20cm of this walk represents the 200 000 years during which Homo sapiens has been on Earth. The very same day, Margie Abbott, one of our wonderful Sisters of Mercy leaders, introduced us to this same deep time concept! It can be incredibly powerful in re-shaping one’s perspective in terms of our unique and precious place in what is far more than mere human history, but rather the emergence of conscious life itself within an ever-expanding cosmos. I would not have expected this focus on cutting-edge scientific thinking, but ours is a God of quarks and black holes, of things more wonderful and mysterious than we could ever imagine. And somehow, in this vast universe, everything is interconnected.

This idea is another one of the key threads that has been emerging for me, and now that my eyes are open to it, I see interconnection everywhere. I also see its opposite: the language that “others” people, and omits and ostracises—that delights in drawing harsh dividing lines. Our rampant individualism, and our arrogant and deluded sense that we can make it on our own, our own way, on our own terms, seems ubiquitous. Pope Francis confronts this head-on in paragraph 19 of his recent letter, Laudate Deum, where he reiterates two of his core convictions: that “Everything is connected” and “No one is saved alone”. He calls out countries that put their national interest above the common good (paragraph 52), and his phrase “homicidal pragmatism” has stuck with me. He commends the life of authentic faith, recognising that it “not only gives strength to the human heart, but also transforms life, transfigures our goals, and sheds light on our relationships to others and with creation as a whole” (paragraph 70). These are timely words for all of us today, Catholic or not.

Extending the invitation

Other important components of the fellowship program included monthly mentoring sessions; materials to read, watch, or listen to each month; a group Zoom where we reflected on what we were learning and experiencing; and a personal project where we seek to engage with a pressing ecological issue in a way that educates, moves, and informs others. Late last year, while up at Gembrook Retreat, I reconnected with an old friend and it quickly became apparent that we were walking similar paths toward a more integrated, inclusive, expansive Christian spirituality. Out of this reconnection, the idea of a mini-retreat day of our own was birthed. We called it a Guling Gathering, as it was held in early August, within a short indigenous season that sits between deep winter and spring. It’s a season of new life breaking through cold earth: the emergence of orchids, the first signs of golden wattle. It’s a season of fresh and fragile hopefulness, which seemed fitting.

The Guling Gathering invited ten participants to come and rest in quiet, reflective, shared space. We read poetry and spoke in small groups of our deep hopes and our deep fears. We exercised creativity in courageously responding using pictures or words. We reflected on the idea of us all being called to be a part of something bigger and quite beautiful, just like an orchestra with many musicians all playing their own part, together contributing to a majestic symphony. We also connected less formally over morning cuppas and a simple lunch of soup and rolls. Some participants had no experience of church or faith, whereas others came as weary veterans seeking a space for a different kind of faith expression. There was a common consensus around there being a deep need for more opportunities like these, to carve out sacred space to come and simply be, together with others, in the midst of our noisy, frantic, and often fragmented lives; to practise stillness and silence, but also to find the courage to lean into the kind of deep and honest connection that ultimately we all crave.

Love in action

There are so many more threads, more than can be mentioned here. Other important ones were the growing and deepening sense that everything is indeed not just connected, but spiritual. I deeply identify with the words of Fr. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan from the Centre for Action and Contemplation, who speaks of “prophets who live on the very edge of the inside”. I resonate deeply with this sense of still swimming within the stream of the broader Christian tradition, but some days only just. In response to those who would decouple faith from material concerns, emerging church leaders like Brian McLaren have recently called for a Franciscan Renaissance: an expression of faith that is deeply grounded in ecology, nonviolence, economics, and inclusive solidarity; something thoroughly earthy in its focus, rather than exclusively heavenly.

I have come to sense a similar call so deeply, and I take deep encouragement that others do too. I feel that the challenge for many of us now is to get on with living it, and to eschew the comfortable temptation to keep merely reading, thinking, and even writing. I’m a curious person, and a lifelong learner, and reading and thinking and writing have been crucial and transformative parts of my own journey. But in our content-rich and noisy world, so full of words and images and ideas, it would be easy simply to add more of our own ideas and words, and ultimately to just add more noise. What the world needs now, it seems, is love in action: love of neighbour and love of creation, expressed in courageous and sacrificial deeds which flow from a present and trusting sense of God’s gracious abundance.

Through my time with the Sisters of Mercy and my fellowship companions, I have been encouraged to show up fully, holding in tension the fact that in these precarious times we have everything to fear, and simultaneously nothing to fear. I’ve also felt the call to rest in quiet trust that God holds the whole world in strong, kind, and trustworthy hands, mindful that—rather paradoxically—we are sacred co-creators who are being beckoned to actively and urgently play our own unique part in this unfolding symphony.