Living in Texas has heightened one of my family’s hobbies in my life: birdwatching. Birdwatching used to be something we would do in my family when sitting down with my grandparents after church. We would chat and look at the chickadees and barn swallows grazing. Now I sit outside and watch the cardinals and bluejays, especially when I am trying to find some kind of inner peace. Inner peace seems to be really hard to find these days, right?
Jonica Newby, the author of Beyond Climate Grief: A Journey of Love, Snow, Fire and an Enchanted Beer Can recounts her story of awakening to climate change and its impacts when she realized that somewhere in the near future there was going to be no snow. Have you thought of that before? No snow. The correlation of a warmer climate to the amount of snowfall had never struck me until I read her book. And in this book, she talks about how she grieved for the world not having snow, and what action she took because of it.
After reading Newby’s book and taking my own time to watch the birds, it helped me realize that it was helpful for me to have a reason, a more tangible reason, to help motivate myself to take action on climate change. Like the birds. Climate change is a multifaceted, global issue that affects people’s lives in so many different ways. Getting into the work of learning about and combating climate change is hard, because there are so many issues to look at and learn about. With the internet it’s easy for us to go online and learn about climate, and then be overwhelmed by the issues. But somehow the birds always bring me back to this moment and what I can do now.
Shamiso Winnet Mupara, one of our EcoFaith Dialogue webinar speakers, talks about this issue in her work of deforestation as Director of Environmental Buddies Zimbabwe. She says, “You have no idea how I feel when I plant a tree and it survives. For me the most exciting thing, to say if there’s hope for a tree, what about hope for human beings?” And she is right. If there’s hope for the trees to grow, there’s hope for humanity. If there’s hope for the snow to fall, there is hope for humans. If there is hope for the birds to sing, there is hope for us. And the best thing we can do with that hope is to take action, no matter how small. As Shamiso says, “Just do it. Wake up every morning excited to do it. Tell yourself you are capable of making a difference even if it’s the smallest difference, just do it. It will create a ripple circle.”
“The work of grieving for the world translates into a fierce and undying devotion to the world.” – The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller
EcoFaith Dialogues is a 787-sponsored project where we interview missionaries around the world about their experience with the impacts of climate change. Click here to hear the interviews and learn more about the project.