Loving the Earth

A brief Ash Wednesday reflection

I was teaching at a residential high school the first time I remember hearing about Ash Wednesday. A lot of my kids wanted to go to mass and didn’t have a driver, so I volunteered to take them. I’m a big proponent of folks being able to partake in rituals that are important to their faith. I was also curious. It was the first time I ever got ashes on my head and reminded I was going to die. Okay, it was less morbid than that; they said it very poetically: “from dust you came, and to dust you’ll return.”

There’s something beautiful about being reminded not only of my mortality, but of my connectedness with the Earth/the land. Another part of Ash Wednesday/Lent is repentance. I don’t love (personal) sin talk for reasons I’m sure I’ll write about later. I do, however, like the call to turn from sin– or doing that which harms ourselves and our neighbors– and to be more loving/God-like. I appreciate the time I have to reflect and examine myself and the world around me, and consequently the call to act. Repentance requires changed action, it calls us to do something differently.

A couple of years ago, I focused on environmental sins (which also intersect with racism). We read Isaiah 58 before I shared. This was on my heart, so I’m sharing an editing excerpt below:

In Colors of the Wind, Pocahontas opens with the following lines:

You think you own whatever land you land on

The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim,

But I know every rock, tree, and creature

Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

Although the movie is historically inaccurate, the opening lines to this song capture the relationship that Indigenous people have with the non-human world. Pocahontas invites John (colonizer) to slow down and appreciate the Earth and all of its inhabitants as neighbors and not entities over which we have dominion. She implores him to treat them with respect/as equals.

I was given a similar directive when I visited Perú. The Quechua people of the Andes introduced me to Pachamama. During our time together, I was able to conceptualize the Earth as a being worthy of being treated with honor and respect. I remember having a different reverence for both the deity and just the idea of “Mother Earth” before leaving.

Black people in Warren County, North Carolina, issued the same call: respect the earth. These activists fought not only for their wellbeing, but for the wellbeing of their environment when they birthed the environmental justice movement. NC state officials were going to build a PCB landfill which would have caused the (mostly Black) people in that county to suffer greatly. These activists understood both the sanctity of Earth, and the connection between the degradation of the Earth and the maltreatment of marginalized individuals.

All of these folks see the Earth as their neighbor; they know we are called to protect it and each other. The text in Isaiah encourages us to be active agents of justice– to ensure all of creation is in right relationship with one another– with a focus on the most vulnerable among us. This season, I am inviting myself to remember the Earth is my vulnerable neighbor: poor, naked, and hungry. All three of these examples call our attention to the symbiotic relationship between Earth/humanity. I’m reminded by the ashes imposed upon my forehead, the Earth is a huge part of me (and vice versa). I am hoping to draw near to God by giving up/adding practices that can help illuminate my interdependence with all of Creation during this season.