Halifax, Nova Scotia in the aftermath of Hurricane Juan
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
Matthew 6: 25-29 NRSVue
Eco-anxiety:
extreme worry about current and future harm to the environment caused by human activity and climate change.
In late August of 2003 we left Nova Scotia and the congregation I was serving in downtown Halifax to return to Ontario. One of our daughters who was 18 at the time decided to stay and work after completing high school and while we were uncomfortable leaving her behind she was with the trusted family of her close friend.
Just a few weeks later -- 20 years ago today -- a massive storm swept across Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Maritimers are accustomed to "battening down the hatches" in the face of extreme weather but Hurricane Juan, a tropical cyclone, was the fiercest storm in more than a hundred years with sustained winds of 170 kilometres an hour.
The lovely treed street where Jocelyn was living was virtually impassable for a couple of days and they were without power for more than a week. A huge maple in front of what had been our home a month before was uprooted and leaned ominously against the house. Jocelyn was soon making her way to work in one of the few buildings with power because it was next to the police station, which was a priority for power restoration. I phoned the manager and scolded him because there was no concern that she and other employees were making their way along streets with downed power lines and forced to literally climb over trees.
Twenty years later we are aware that Juan was the beginning of a new era of storms in Atlantic Canada. In 2019 we were in Newfoundland when the tail end of Hurricane Dorian moved through with intense winds and rain. Last year Hurricane Fiona created havoc in the province just after we were there and this year everyone was watching with concern as Hurricane Lee approached, ourselves included.
During the week of Lee CBC Radio offered programming each day regarding the climate emergency and referred several times to eco-anxiety. Did that term exist 20 years ago? They spoke with folk in the Port aux Basque area who lost everything to the storm and others who live literally on the brink of disaster.
I regularly ponder how we are to respond as people of faith to the gloom and doom of ecological catastrophe. In the two decades since Hurricane Juan we have been immersed in unprecedented change across the country. My brother was visiting his son in British Columbia two years ago when an atmospheric river (another new-to-me term) inundated the province. Friends and family elsewhere have dealt with unprecedented heat and wildfire smoke.
We can't take a "what, me worry" approach simply because Jesus invited us to live beyond anxiety and fear. He also encouraged his disciples to pay attention to the signs of the times. It's worth noting that Jesus invited his followers to look to the flowers and birds as a way of addressing worry. One of the symptoms of eco-anxiety is solastalgia, grief and sadness over the loss to natural environments.
We can choose to be actively engaged in care of and advocacy for Creation rather than being paralyzed by eco-anxiety foreboding. We can draw on the wisdom of Indigenous spirituality and stewardship. And whenever possible we can look to the beauty around us and express our gratitude. We can do so for our sakes, the well-being of generations to come, and as fidelity to the Creator and Creation.
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