Expanding Our Sense of Sacred Community

This past week I attended a conference, Epiphany West, which gave me both a necessary credit and some new insights into theology and the environment. The theme of the conference was “Sacred Elements,” and our sessions and speakers focused on ways to develop new theologies and even new spirituality for confronting and dealing with the growing environmental crisis. Throughout the week, the anthropologist in me kept kicking in. The more I thought about our environmental problems the more I thought they are really people problems - our inability to honor the gift of the earth given from our ancestors in the past, our inability to adjust our personal and corporate behavior now, and our inability to adjust what we do to ensure that future generations will enjoy the gift of this world. I was particularly struck by an insight from a panelist in a session called “Muslims Going Green.” He argued that the fundamental crisis was not a behavioral crisis or a policy crisis but rather a spiritual crisis. I felt that was very true and it also resonated with my growing sense that there really isn’t an environmental problem as much as an anthro-problem.

The very last talk, by Dr. Marion Grau (theology professor at CDSP), bumped me in a little different direction. She argued that we religious and faithful folk need to explore “re-sacralizing” or “re-enchanting” the elements - earth, fire, air, water. These elements are fundamentally sacred in many religions, even if we have somewhat drifted from emphasizing their sacred and holy quality in Christianity. Her emphasis on these elements as a focus for our theological reflection and for spirituality made me shift my focus on us humans. Perhaps it isn’t simply a matter of a human-caused problem with a human-centric solution. OR, maybe we simply need to expand our idea of community to include these elements. Perhaps we need to sacralize them by granting them the same sacred import we grant to human life. What if we included our world’s elements - earth, fire, air, water, their chemicals, their glorious combinations, in our community of care in a profoundly fundamental way, with the same import as we give to our human community members? I’m looking forward to seeing where Dr. Grau’s theology goes.

In many ways I was drawn back to my faith and religion because it helped me get beyond my own narrow ego. Say what you will about religion, but I think good ones remind you that you are not the center of the universe. Faith and religion also gave me daily reminders to focus on community, on my obligations to others starting with God. I’m now pondering effective ways and ideas that can help us all to grow our community even more, to include the very elements of our world.