Disciple - This Fragile Earth: The Plastic Mirror
Questioning what one material means to us
By the Rev. Stephanie Allen
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s these little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu
It’s a rare thing when Easter, Earth Day and Arbor Day fall in the same week, and we couldn’t help but celebrate that 2019 trinity with a look at Creation Care. A priority of the Diocese of North Carolina, there are countless ways to start reconnecting with the land we call home. What the step is, is less important than the fact the step is taken, because it’s up to every one of us to care for this environment of which every one of us is a part.
The Plastic Mirror
In the classic movie “The Graduate,” recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock, played by a young Dustin Hoffman, is trying to figure out what to do with his life. A little exchange happens several times with one of his father’s friends:
Mr. Maguire: I want to say one word to you, Benjamin. Just one word.
Benjamin Braddock: Yes, sir.
Mr. Maguire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. Maguire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
This Lenten season there were multiple opportunities to fast from plastic as a Lenten discipline. The “Living Lent” program from the Church of Scotland prominently featured giving up single-use plastic. The Church of England offered for the second year in a row a “Plastic-less Lent Challenge” with resources to help reduce regular use of plastics. Even Presiding Bishop Michael Curry got in on the action, with The Episcopal Church releasing the “Pledge to Care for Creation” campaign, asking churches and individuals to study the reflection guide during Lent and commit to the pledge by Easter.
A Google search of “giving up plastic for Lent” brings up millions of results. All these options leave us as befuddled as poor Benjamin Braddock: Exactly how do you mean?
A PLASTIC FAST
Why fast from plastic? Why take a pledge to care for creation? I know I can tune into certain news outlets that will tell me the planet is doomed, global warming is assured and human-created climate change is responsible for the destruction of us all. I can also tune into other news outlets that will tell me all of it is a hoax. What is a good Episcopalian, trying to follow in the Way of Love of Jesus, supposed to think about all of this?
Fasting from plastic is in many ways fasting from convenience. Convenience that, for many of us, comes at the expense of creation care. My productivity and busyness are my idols, and the convenience of plastics the temple that allows me to worship my own importance. Jesus said in more than one Gospel, “Where your treasure is, there is your heart.” How much do I spend on convenience?
Too much? Maybe. Is this just life as we know it today, and what else can we do? Maybe. As much as I rely on the very things we understand contribute to climate change, when I start to listen to that quiet whisper that I deserve all of these things and my way of life is too important to question, I become the center of my universe. Those whispers drown out the voice of God, who wants to be the center of my life, who desires my actions be oriented towards loving God and loving my neighbor. Consider the words of the Litany of Penitence read at Ash Wednesday:
We confess to you, Lord, all our fast unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives…
Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people…
Our intemperate love of worldly good and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work
What if we went old school, back to St. Augustine, St. Ambrose and Thomas Aquinas, and used the ideas of “cardinal virtues” to talk about climate change? Rather than gloom and doom or outright denial, what if we, as Episcopalians, examined our use of fossil fuels through the lenses of prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice?
THROUGH THE LENS
What if I looked at my life with some prudence and wisdom, and opened my eyes to the consequences of climate change on my health, my children’s health and the health of my planet? My quick drive through the drive-thru for an easy dinner has consequences via the resources used to make that convenience a reality for me. Where do we, as a culture, take certain ways of life for granted, telling ourselves things like mass transportation and renewable energy are not feasible or sensible? Is that prudent, or might we go deeper into wisdom to find alternate solutions?
I acknowledge I am using my trip through the drive-thru as a straw man. The health of the planet will not be restored if I simply stop it with the fast food. And it is not reality to say I will never again eat another hamburger from McDonald’s. I’m simply not that good of a person. But if I start questioning my assumptions about the things I utilize to make my life work, if I can have the fortitude and courage to face the impact of my Costco membership with its easy access to must-buy fruit kept in a plastic clamshell that traveled a very long way, if I can have the courage to ask for God’s help in finding a different way and ask for grace when I reach the limits of my imagination, what might that look like?
Speaking of Costco, I wonder what my interior life might look like if I spent more time around the virtue of temperance. I don’t mean giving up wine for Lent. If temperance is the restraint of appetite, what are the things I tell myself I must have, the appetite for bigger and better for my church, my family, myself? Temperance asks us to consider well our choices as consumers. Temperance reminds us our souls are fed through communion with God. I believe temperance asks me to set aside the privilege I hold to think I am entitled to all that I own.
Which leads us to justice. We talk a lot about racism and racial reconciliation in the Diocese of North Carolina. Part of that work is a recognition there is a racial gap in the communities that create pollution and the communities that suffer the effects. In reporting on a study published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America” (PNAS), National Public Radio said, “The researchers found that air pollution is disproportionately caused by white Americans’ consumption of goods and services, but disproportionately inhaled by black and Hispanic Americans.” What if the racial reconciliation, social justice and environmental ministries in our churches worked together to address the environmental impacts of racism? It could bring home the fact that while we might feel virtuous recycling the plastic bottles we drank during the meeting, it’s more and more likely those bottles are actually going to end up in a landfill, leaking plastic particulates into the ground and ground water, or will be burned in an incinerator that resides in somebody else’s backyard.
The actual virtues of prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice mean we have to question what really happens to those bottles when we are done.
TAKE HEART
Are you overwhelmed now? Hopeless? Back to gloom and doom? Take heart! Not only does our Christian tradition give us the four cardinal virtues, we also have the three “theological” virtues of faith, hope and love. We don’t need to save the world; Jesus has already done that. We will affect change not by our own merit, but through the saving grace of God. Faith allows us to act, even if we don’t know the result, even if we don’t act perfectly and even when we fail. Hope allows us to see the possibility of a healthy planet restored to wholeness - a new creation that God has promised. Love gives us the power to love ourselves when we fail, love our neighbors to create a better place for them and to love our God who guides us through it all.
THE PLASTIC CHALLENGE
The role of plastic in our lives is a very good starting place to examine our life choices and the effects those choices have on the world around us. Learn more about the effects of plastic on the environment and how you can undertake your own “plastic fast” at any point in the year.
The Episcopal Church’s Creation Care Pledge: bit.ly/EpiscopalPledge
Church of Scotland’s “Living Lent”: livinglent.org
Church of England’s “Plastic-less Lent”: bit.ly/PlasticLessLent
Study on racial gap between pollution creators and those who live with the effects: bit.ly/NPRStudy
“The Story of Bottled Water”: bit.ly/BottledWaterStory
The Rev. Stephanie Allen is the rector at Nativity, Raleigh.
Tags: North Carolina Disciple
