Loneliness of a Different Type

"What we're losing is not just the diversity part of biodiversity bu the bio part: life in sheer quantity. While I was writing this article, scientists learned that the world's largest king penguin colony shrank by 88 percent in 35 years."

"Scientists have begun to speak of functional extinction (as opposed to the more familiar kind, numerical extinction). Functionally extinct animals and plants are still present bu no longer prevalent enough to affect how an ecosystem works."

"We've begun to talk about living in the Anthropocene, a world shaped by humans. But E.O. Wilson, the naturalist and prophet of environmental degradation, has suggested another name: the Eremocine, the age of loneliness."

"In insects int he forest that Lister studied haven't been contending with pesticides or habitat loss, the two problems to which the Krefeld paper pointed. Instead, Lister chalks up their decline to climate change, which has already increased temperatures in Luquillo by 2 degrees Celsius since Lister first sampled there."

"Thomas believes that this naturalist tradition is also why Europe is acting much faster than other places - for example, the United States - to address the decline of insects: Interest leads to tracking, which leads to awareness, which leads to concern, which leads to action."

All of the above paragraphs are from "The Insect Apocalypse is Here: What will the decline of bugs means for the rest of life on earth?," cover story of the December 2, 2018 New York Times Magazine.
What to do?
Drive less so fewer roads need to be built so more land can stay dirt and weeds and anything that grows.
Use pesticides that are biorational.
Promote construction growth that does fill-in rather than sprawl. Work for zoning laws that limit conversion to development while maintaining the rights of land-owners.
Anything else of which you can think.

Hey friends, I’m pretty excited to announce I just published

a new mini-book: Religion-less Christianity and Renewing the Church: On Being a Follower of Jesus in God, for God, without God.  The way forward in renewing a faith that has honesty, integrity, authenticity and relevance is not to take a church style and change it but rather take a way of thinking about God (theology) and re-make it. I use 20th century pastor, teacher, author and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer's thinking on a "religion-less Christianity" applied to today's church to offer the framework for renewing the 21st century church.

I would love to have a conversation with you regarding what I think has some serious legs for us today: Bonhoeffer’s “religion-less Christianity,” such as it is as his thinking and writing specifically on that topic was cut short by his execution at the hands of Nazi Germany just before the liberation in the Spring of 1945.

Anyway where can we talk? If you are in the Orlando area I am happy to have coffee. I’ll buy! Let me know.

Or let’s talk here. If you care to read it (available at Amazon.com in E-book (Kindle) or hard copy) I'd love to have a conversation here with you. Post a note.

Best to all,

Johan

It's hard to know how much my lawn contributes to "red tide" algae blooms. I need to find out. Nutrient runoff is a problem and I am part of the problem.
My question: what can I do today to improve the conditions that reduce nutrient run-off/discharge?
I reached out to Congresswoman Val Demings Orlando Office to request a visit with Staff to discuss federal policy and legislation. I know most of what needs to be done needs to be done through the State of Florida and legislation and policy there, but still the Feds matter. It all matters. We all matter. We need a coordinated effort.
I'm just not comfortable anymore with reading about this and not trying to do something about it. I remember a couple of years back our Florida Legislature approving some $300 million to clean up the Indian River algae bloom mess. We like to think this is helpful. Well, yes, there is clean up needed. But how about changing regulations on septic tanks, how about spending that $300 to give homeowners cash to upgrade their septic tanks to ones that are decent, or spending for sewers that treat instead of septic tanks altogether? In other words, the science is there to tell us what the problem is but we won't do the political and economical sensible thing of prevention.
So, onward we go.
How is it going with your connection to the good earth today?

Hard to Hope

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There is a lot being written about climate change and environment even though it may be difficult to find in all the deluge of information that comes our way each day. Like anything else, you have to pay attention. And then, when you do find it, many times it’s hard to read because it’s hard to take because it can be depressing.  John Schwartz reviews William Vollmann’s new 2 volume work (No Immediate Danger, Vol. 1 of Carbon Ideologies and No Good Alternative, Vol. 2 of Carbon Ideologies) in Sunday, August 12^th’s New York Time Book Review. Here’s how Schwartz finishes:

“Reading these two books did have an effect on me; I became even more conscious of the resources I waste in my own life. I found myself wondering why I burn fossil fuels by driving two miles to a lovely park where I take my morning run, instead of trotting around my own neighborhood. It’s not that I stopped doing it, but I do feel worse about myself. Maybe that’s what the work was for”

There are two reasons people change: the pain is too great where they are or the promise is so wonderful where they want to be. So, maybe reading Carbon Ideologies brought Schwartz or is bringing Schwartz enough pain to bring about change in his life in carbon usage. Maybe.

I find that taking action, however small, helps me find hope. Here’s something for us: Sept. 8, 11am, Rise Up Orlando, at Lake Eola Park, to mark the Sept. 12-14 Global Climate Action Summit being held in San Francisco. Also this: check out your local Planning and Zoning Commission’s work. What is your local Comprehensive Plan and what, for example, is the plan for transportation that can and will reduce the carbon footprint? There is a lot to do my friends. When you find it hard to hope, get out there and do something.

Getting Back at It

I go through periods of ecological depression, that is to say, feeling numbed into inaction by the huge task of advocacy and action on behalf of climate change work. I'm thinking that in these days any environmental work, be it habitat preservation, species extermination, point and non-point discharge and run-off or whatever, is all about the climate change work.
I've been out of the loop, in that ecological depression, for some time, but I'm climbing back out. One significant boost has been, as hard as it is to read it and face the music, the NYTime Magazine of August 5, 2018 fully dedicated to climate work under this title: "Thirty years ago, we could have saved the planet." Oh my.
There is much to do, but knowing history (30 years ago et. al.) can help us not repeat doing what we did that did not help.
One thing that history can do is help engage conversation with those who do not see human activity as contributing to the climate's evolution.
Listen to this from the "30 Years Ago" feature piece (the year is 1982, the "Gore" is Al Gore, the setting is a Congressional Hearing on the "greenhouse effect."):
"There emerged, despite the general comity, a partisan divide. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans demanded action. 'Today I have a sense of deja vu,' said Robert Walker, a Republican from Pennsylvania. In each of the last five years, he said, 'we have been told and told and told that there is a problem with the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We all accept that fact, and we realize that the potential consequences are certainly major in their impact on mankind" (sic). Yet they had failed to propose a single law. 'Now is the time,' he said. 'The research is clear. It is up to us now to summon the political will.'
Gore disagreed: a higher degree of certainty was required, he believed, in order to persuade a majority of Congress to restrict the use of fossil fuels. The reforms required were of such magnitude and sweep that they 'would challenge the political will of our civilization."
Here's what I see:
-the research has been "clear" since the early 1980's (actually, before that!)
-Republicans used to be the on the side of environmental law that opened access to markets and increased productivity and a vital economy. What happened?
-Democrats used to be savvy in bi-partisan consensus building. What happened?
-political will is the name of the game then, and now.
Just learned of a big September 8, 2018 action called "Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice." I'm stepping into it. How about you?

On Religion-Less Christianity

LT on DB and RC

“Religion-less Christianity”

[Note: I write a weekly e-letter called "Life Together" and the below references to that come from this blog being initially sent in Life Together. If you have any interest in receiving Life Together drop me a response post here and I'll get you set up]

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran Pastor and Teaching Theologian, was imprisoned in 1943 by the Nazi Regime for anti-government (Nazi) activity and before he was executed in April 1945 under personal order of Hitler himself after never being released from prison, he wrote letters, essays, poems, and narratives both fiction and non-fiction. Toward the end of his imprisonment he wrote an outline to a book he never got to write. And in the last year of his imprisonment, and thus too his life, and what looked like to be what would be the focus of this unpublished book, he was writing of this thing called a “religion-less Christianity.” We never got the book. We never got the complete thinking of Bonhoeffer on the subject, but we got a bunch good thinking, writing, and ruminations to capture our imagination and call us to engage the faith in what Bonhoeffer called “a world come of age.” Since years ago being introduced to Bonhoeffer’s “religion-less Christianity” through the posthumously published Letters and Papers from Prison I have continuously been tracking this idea and dabbling as much as I could in learning more. For my sabbatical now in 2018 (roughly June 1 to Sept. 1, 3 months, dates still to be specified)  I choose Bonhoeffer’s “religion-less Christianity” as the focus for the “reflection” portion of my sabbatical. From what I know now I believe there is great stuff here for helping the church today be an engaging force of God’s unconditional love in a world that is less and less interested in religion but more and more interested in God.

Life Together (LT), the weekly e-letter I have been posting now for a number of years, takes its name from another work of Bonhoeffer, Life Together. Now, in 2018, this sabbatical year, in the e-letter I will be musing and writing specifically on the ins and outs of a religion-less Christianity and engaging Bonhoeffer’s work. It should be fun. I hope you enjoy it. It will be a time of growth and development for me and I hope will be helpful in your faith and life in Christ in the world.

Let’s get started.

How can I describe for you Dietrich Bonhoeffer (DB)’s “religion-less” Christianity?

“It is saying that God, in Jesus, and therefore always even without Jesus, is not the “God of the gaps,” here to fill our need where we need or our lack of information when we are lacking. God is not a power or being that stands ready at our beckon call to help us achieve and perfect the power and position to which we aspire. God does not stand at the periphery of our center in order to expand or enhance our place or influence. God, rather, is the center of all existence and we live within this being. Our humanity is not aided by divinity, but rather is divinity, but not as an elevation of humanity to divinity, and (perhaps) not as a deflation of divinity (c.f. the New Testament, e.g. Philippians 2 describing the decent of God to earth in Jesus), but rather by a revelation that humanity in all of its dearth and dust, is where the divine always has dwelt and will only dwell for the sake of or as the expression of the only thing that God (divinity) is: self-giving love. I am thinking right now of a couple of related descriptions of all of this: 1) Martin Luther’s statement that God is only found in suffering and death (note the word “only”) 2) an illustration of salvation I have conjured up and used many times that positions a drowning person being met by an arriving “life guard” who only saves by promising to die along with the drowning person and then does just that.”

Okay, here’s an interesting thing that as I think of it sheds some light not only on how I will be sharing my thoughts in 2018 on religion-less Christianity in Life Together but also expresses how we actually received DB’s direct address on this subject: the section above in quotes is something I wrote in my daily journal on December 22 and as I went back to it to share here I was typing along and realized when I got to the end it was really an incomplete essay, not a full or well-rounded exposition, and that more needed to be said and that the thoughts needed to be organized (not to say also vetted!). DB’s Letters and Papers in Prison, where we get his direct address on religion-less Christianity (let’s call it RC), were just that: letters and papers. My thoughts in Life Together on RC will be that too. Not fully thought out, not fully organized, not fully edited, just shared. And to give you an idea of how unvarnished what that sharing will be, here’s what I wrote in my journal on Dec. 22 just after I finished the above and as I was typing the above out now found abruptly disturbing because what I wrote begged for more description/explanation: “cleaned house, did laundry, got haircut, did some home finance.”

I went from noting DB’s RC to chronicling my chores. Ah, yes. And such is the way we live our life.

So, there you have it for now.  Some initial ramblings on DB’s RC and my engagement of it and sharing with you. Again, now in 2018, I’ll be using Life Together to just keep opening up this RC as much as possible. At least that’s the way if feels right now.