Category: Pondering Peace
Wonder and Grief
Each spring I am filled with wonder as the earth is transformed from looking dead and desolate to brimming with new life and color. When the time is right, first the crocuses, then the daffodils, then hyacinths and tulips all start emerging from the ground. As I make my frequent garden walks throughout the day, I look at each one, noting their progress, and cheering them on. Gradually, flower buds and then colorful blossoms emerge – purple, yellow, pink, and red. The cheerful curious faces of daffodils dance with the breeze. I admire them and tell them they are beautiful, feeling joy and wonder in my heart. Being in the presence of this renewal of life brings me a sense of hope and peace in the midst of all that threatens life in our world.
But this spring, just as the daffodils had started to bloom with many more buds yet to come, the warm spring weather collapsed, and temperatures plunged to far below freezing for several days. The forecasters told us this was coming, and I felt anxiety regarding how the flowers would fare. At dusk on the night when the deep freeze was to begin, I made my last garden walk to say goodbye to all the flowers and buds that would soon be dead. I felt sadness, and when the full effects of the freezing weather became apparent in flattened frozen plants, I even felt some grief. It was disappointing to have the joy of spring cut short. I worried if this was now going to happen every spring.
We are told by climate scientists that this “weather whiplash” of a warm early spring and then extreme temperature drops to freezing weather is related to climate change. With the arctic regions getting warmer much faster than further south, the temperature difference between them has been lessened such that the polar vortex holds cold air less tightly around the Arctic, allowing it to dip further south than normal, bringing its frigid arctic air. Now I realize that my loss of spring flowers is tiny compared to other impacts of climate change. It is nothing compared to losing one’s favorite sandy beach or ocean-side home due to rising sea levels and more intense storms. It is nothing compared to having one’s community devastated by wildfires or having the crops upon which one’s livelihood depends be decimated by drought and high temperatures. It was just a very small personal experience of the effects of climate change.
What is greatly distressing right now is how the current federal administration is deliberately and methodically promoting fossil fuels and attacking clean energy and other climate solutions, with the result of increasing carbon emissions and exacerbating climate change. Having promised to “drill, baby, drill,” they have leased and permitted more land and sea for oil and gas exploration. They have forced gas and coal plants to remain open when they were scheduled to be shuttered. They have withdrawn incentives for energy efficiency, electrification, electric vehicles, and clean energy development, while still heavily subsidizing fossil fuels. Their EPA has moved to reduce tailpipe and power plant emission standards and eliminated the endangerment finding that provided the basis for laws regulating greenhouse gases. They have encouraged the development of AI and data centers with their need for enormous amounts of energy and water. They have encouraged mining and logging in pristine forests and drastically reduced the budget of the forest service. They have pulled us out of the Paris climate agreement and refused to take any responsibility for a situation in which the United States is historically the greatest carbon emitter. It is unfathomable how this administration, along with the powerful wealthy who benefit from fossil fuel extraction, are willing in their greed to destroy the very earth that they are part of and upon which their lives and the lives of their children depend.
This American president has also started a needless war. The oversized United States military is already a major polluter. Now the use of military equipment and extensive bombing have greatly increased greenhouse gas emissions, especially as oil fields and refineries have been bombed, along with concrete buildings and industries. War is devastating to the people experiencing it, but it is also devastating to the earth. The prophet Hosea’s words describe it well. “Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing” (4:3). Creation is groaning, and we groan alongside it (Romans 8:22-23).
Eden Seminary’s Dr. Clint McCann shared the opening devotional at the Lutherans Restoring Creation EcoFaith Summit last week. He started with a quote from environmental lawyer James Gustave Speth. “I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that with thirty years of good science we could address the problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we [lawyers and] scientists don’t know how to do that.”
This is a call to the church. It is people of faith who should be at the forefront of a spiritual and cultural transformation that will lead us to treasure and care for all of creation. Romans 8 not only speaks of creation groaning, but also about it eagerly waiting for the children of God to be revealed. In Genesis we are told that humanity was formed in the image of a God who loves and cares for creation. We live as God’s children, reflecting God’s image, when we tend and protect the earth. This is a primary task for which humanity was created.
The World Council of Churches has recognized that it is a decisive kairos moment and has declared this decade (2025-2034) to be an Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action: Moving Together in Ecological Metanoia for Transformation. It calls on all of its constituent churches and denominations to make addressing climate change and working for climate justice their major focus for this decade. We as American Christians especially need to heed this call.
Quite probably at this time, the most important action we can take to care for the earth is to defend our democracy and work to elect new leaders who will be climate champions and lead with appropriate responses to the climate crisis we are in. We need to do whatever we can at personal, local, and state levels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But Speth’s words remind us that what is also needed is spiritual and cultural transformation such that the earth is not viewed as simply a resource to be used but rather a home to be cared for and a community in which we belong. Dr. McCann lifted up the possibility that wonder and awe may be key to this because they have the potential to transform us.
According to psychologists Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner, awe is that “feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends out understanding of the world.” Having found in their research that experiences of awe resulted in people being more generous, altruistic, and collaborative, they assert that “awe is the ultimate ‘collective’ emotion, for it motivates people to do things that enhance the greater good.” Experiences of awe help people see themselves in more humble ways and as part of something larger than themselves, making them more attuned to the common humanity shared with others. Perhaps wonder and awe can help overcome the obstacles of selfishness, greed, and apathy and both motivate and energize people to devote themselves to caring for creation and the good of all humanity.
There is plenty to wonder at within the natural world. Today as I looked out our window at the small flowering plants I had just placed in the ground, a beautiful hummingbird took a sip from the feeder and then sped on – the first in the season. Hummingbirds flying with their tiny wings all the way here from Central America are wondrous. So are sperm whales, who communicate with each other such that when a baby is born, others are there to quickly and gently bring that newborn to the surface to breathe and take turns doing so for the next several hours. And then there are octopuses which, among many other surprises, have nine brains, one in their head and “mini-brains” in each of their eight arms such that each can operate independently and yet also in harmonious action. So much about the creatures that inhabit the world fills me with wonder. So do the amazing sights we have seen during our travels to national parks – giant sequoia and redwood trees that are thousands of years old, canyons of unimaginable beauty, and restless ocean tides and waves.
The psalmist also experienced the world as filled with wonder. “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures… Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord!” (Ps. 104:24, 35). So let us immerse ourselves in the wonder and awe of creation and feel well up within us love, joy, and the desire to care for this world which God so deeply loves. Let us also allow ourselves to feel the grief and mourn with all creation over what is being lost. Then let us take our grief and love and wonder and let them energize us for the action needed to protect and care for this earth. And let us keep trusting that God is creatively and lovingly at work in our world, luring us toward spiritual and cultural transformation.
Rev. Ruth Rosell, Ph.D.
Director of the Buttry Center for Peace and Nonviolence
Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology Emerita
Central Seminary, Overland Park, KS
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.