Advertisement

Earth care as a spiritual formation exercise

Someone asked me recently how stewardship of creation relates to my personal faith. It seemed like a simple enough question to answer, until I really started thinking about it.

From a young age, I’ve had a deep-seated belief that God created the earth good and commanded humans to take care of it. As a kid, my family recycled as our way of caring for the earth, but we didn’t pay all that much attention to our energy usage. It’s only within the last 10 years that I’ve become extremely concerned about the state of our environment. Plastics in the ocean, climate change, animals going extinct, poor air and water quality — the urgency of the situation today forces me to consider how my faith engages with earth care.

Habits are hard to change. Recycling is nearly second nature to me now; turning off the lights when I’m not in a room is not. And what about the bigger changes that appear necessary to helping our planet, such as driving and flying less, using less plastic and eating less meat? I need something more than the doomsayers to motivate me to change my habits. I need the Holy Spirit.

And so I’ve come to think of earth care as a spiritual formation exercise. Recycling shapes my faith. And my faith motivates me to recycle. By considering earth care part of my spiritual formation, I’m not simply caring for the planet, I’m being shaped into a different kind of person. I recently read a book called “Earthkeeping and Character” that talked about what the Christian tradition has to offer the creation care movement, especially in terms of the development of virtues. So many of the virtues can have an ecological edge to them – simplicity, frugality, wonder and awe, courage.  (Read my Presbyterian Outlook book review here.)

I keep coming back to simplicity and frugality. In the storehouses of the Christian faith is a virtue we have deemed undesirable in a society whose economy thrives on buying more and more stuff. I’ve learned, almost unconsciously, that indulging myself is good and depriving myself is bad. So, it’s really hard to exercise discipline in my buying habits. When I feel like a boba tea (my favorite indulgence), I buy boba tea, despite the cost and the large plastic cup and straw I throw away afterwards.

It’s not that I spend beyond my means. What troubles me is the fact that an indulgence has turned into a need that I can have whenever I want it. It doesn’t occur to me to give up that indulgence (or even to enjoy it less every month) for the sake of simplicity. But think about how transformative simplicity could be for our planet! Not to buy more than we need? We would have less waste, for sure, and we probably wouldn’t need to live in such big houses (as many do in Texas). I suspect I would also drive less if I gave up my indulgences and lived more frugally.

In this pursuit of simplicity, I decided to give up boba tea for Lent last year. But then, I found myself tempted to replace boba tea with another indulgence — a Starbucks latte, for example. So embedded in me is the message “Treat yourself” that whenever I’m extra tired or excited, I immediately want to buy something to either make me feel better or savor my happiness. Living more simply is not easy in an age of overconsumption. And yet it is a virtue I continue to pursue.

Simplicity is a virtue I care about because I care about the planet, but it has so many transformative qualities. I suspect it’s easier to commune with God when one’s life is uncluttered. I also suspect it’s easier to be in relationships with others when one’s life is simpler. So the spiritual formation exercise helps me care for the planet and attend to my relationships with God and others. That sounds like faith formation to me.

RACHEL YOUNG is the associate pastor of spiritual formation at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church, in Houston, Texas.  She is married to Josh, who also serves on staff at Clear Lake Presbyterian as the director of contemporary worship and media.

 

LATEST STORIES

Advertisement