In the end, I think General Synod for me was about hope. Hope for our church, hope for humanity, hope for our earth. Several speakers spoke directly about hope, and it was a thread that undergirded many of the resolutions passed.
Hope is the middle ground -- Dr. David Orr. Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College and senior advisor to the President. In a Keynote Speech, Dr. Orr spoke in the clearest, most powerful way I have ever heard about climate change. He talked about how there is a 30-year lag between the changes of levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and when we feel the effects on a global scale. So what we are experiencing as climate change today is because of the changes to the atmosphere in the 1980s!!! And, of course, the level of carbon dioxide has increased significantly since then. Small changes in carbon dioxide levels can have big effects. And it hangs around: The carbon we put in the atmosphere today will be around 1,000 years from now. Dr. Orr emphasized that this is consensus science now – not a matter of belief, but of chemistry and physics.
It’s a very dismal picture, and Dr. Orr spoke eloquently about the problem of how this truth is presented, because it can lead to despair, which leads to inaction. He prefers to hold on to hope. He sees hope as “the middle ground” between optimism and pessimism. Optimism “doesn’t ask anything of you” – things are fine, no action needed. Pessimism he sees as a sin – so, he says, “we don’t want to go there.” Hope does ask something of us – asks us to work for a better outcome, a better future.
I’ve always loved the poem by Emily Dickenson that describes “hope” and begins:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
Given Dr. Orr’s description of the effects we are likely to experience over the next decades as a result of climate change, the middle stanza of the poem seems particularly apt:
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
But Dr. Orr would definitely not agree with the final stanza of Emily Dickenson’s poem:
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
For Dr. Orr, hope is not passive optimism – hope is a call to action. Action for change. And, I think, to trust that God will provide us a way to act so we can change and effect change.
This action can take many forms. Praying for a miracle (a big one) is good, but there are more concrete steps we can take. There are the usual, of course, like investing in renewable energy, divesting from fossil fuels, taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint in the myriad of ways currently available. These are all good, positive steps – even if the impact of each would be small. Because of how they raise awareness and attitudes. But Dr. Orr was most focused on what we need to do to effect larger change – beginning with changing the national debate on this issue.
For example, he wants to find ways to tie rights to responsibilities again, and restore the integrity of public words like “politics,” “government,” and “public service.” For example, “politics,” “political,” and “politician” have become dirty words – but politics is where we talk about what is best for “us,” not just for “me.” It is how we act as a society, which as Edmund Burke wrote, “is a partnership not only between those who are living, but those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” It’s not just about today – but about tomorrow.
The problem of climate change is not like most problems we have faced in the past – it is not an isolated problem, it is a systemic crisis. It’s not just about global warming, it’s about global destabilization. It requires the kind of systemic response that only government can provide. If we have no trust in government, so government cannot act, we as a people cannot respond. And, as Dr. Martin Luther King said about another systemic problem back in 1967, “there is such a thing as being too late … ”
But perhaps what sticks with me most from Dr. Orr’s talk was how he envisioned the course of public debate on this issue so far, why the public has been so passive in the face of scientific warnings that began in the first half of the last century. He recited this quote: “There were rumors of unfathomable things. And because we couldn’t fathom them, we didn’t believe them.” This is from a book called The History of Love about World War II. We are facing a holocaust of a different kind in our future. But what long-term effects climate change will have on our world and our lives is so unfathomable, so hard to wrap our heads around, so contrary to our experience, that we try ignore it, or simply can’t believe it.
Dr. Orr’s talk was in the tradition of all true apocalyptic literature, including that in the Bible. It paints a picture of a dark future so that we can repent, we can change our ways, and so we can change our future. And so, ultimately, apocalyptic literature is the work of hope. Let us hope, together.
Hopeful – Maria Hinojosa. I’ve already mentioned the powerful speech given by NPR’s Maria Hinojosa. In speaking about immigrants and immigration, she did what she does best; she told stories of the deepest pain. With a bit of a quizzical look on her face, she said someone described her work as looking for the saddest situation, then looking for the saddest person involved in that situation and then tell a story about them. She admitted that was probably true. But while admitting that most of what she reports is at best challenging, and at worst seems cause for despair, she also told stories of hope.
It seems to me that the hopeful stories she told were hopeful precisely because they involved change – not necessarily to the situation yet – but to people’s attitudes. It’s the same sort of thing Dr. Orr was talking about in the environmental public policy arena. Change in the way people view immigrants, change in the public debate. Change begins with us – in our hearts, in the way we speak and act and vote.
I also suspect that it is just as important, in the long-view, for Maria to tell what she called “stories of hope” – because without hope there is no point in telling the other stories. All they are is sad. But with hope the sad stories are also become “hopeful” – in that they are calls to action. Keep telling the stories, Maria. There is hope. People are listening.
Managing Resurrection – Ben Guess. The three members of the five-person Collegium of Officers, the senior body under our governance structure, who were up for re-election this year spoke at Synod. I was particularly struck by the presentation by Ben Guess, Executive Minister for Local Church Ministries. He also spoke at our recent South Central Conference annual meeting. He spoke about the strength of our church, despite hand-wringers who say we are in decline. He said that if “resilience, determination and grace are any measure of the strength of a church” – and he believes they are – then we are strong. It’s just that those measures are harder to quantify than the number of people in the pews or the bottom line of a balance sheet.
So there is cause for hope – hope for the new life being birthed in our midst. Resurrection. But resurrection is about change.
He suggested that part of the problem isn’t that our church isn’t weak or dying, but that we thought we could “manage resurrection.” We forgot that before you can have resurrection, there must be death. If we trusted resurrection and the Holy Spirit more, we would be less concerned about the church’s future – though it may look nothing like the church of the past – and we would see the signs of strength and resurrection all around.
We often try to “manage resurrection” don’t we? We want it on our terms. But, as with David Orr, the fact that the future may look nothing like the past – not be comfortable, or even familiar, doesn’t mean there is no hope. With the church changing all around us – perhaps what we need to “manage” isn’t the change, but our attitude towards it. Change is not the enemy. Resurrection is change. The church is alive, it is strong, and it is changing – and so are we. Amen.
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