This Lent, as maybe you have, I've been receiving daily emails from the Ecumenical Lenten Carbon Fast. Each morning, I find a suggestion for ways to reduce my impact on the earth. Some days, I open them and feel good-"use cloth bags when you go shopping." Easy! I do that! [Nearly always. Nearly]. Other days, I get the daily email and think, "No way!" For example, I'm just not going to be able to dry my clothes on a line outside in New England, in winter, with 2 small children. And sometimes, I get them, and barely read through before I'm distracted by something else. I assume my experience with this is fairly typical; some hits, some misses.
I calculated my household carbon footprint at the Nature Conservancy. Compared to the average American, we seem to be doing OK-73 tons vs. the American average of 110 for a family of four. Compared to a global average of 22 tons, though, we're pretty extravagant. Many groups (including all the sites linked from the Carbon Fast email and the Nature Conservancy, above) offer chances to "offset" your carbon emissions-you pay for the planting of trees or other environmental sustainability efforts to try to remedy the emissions you generate-but how effective that is, I can't be sure.
No one claims that an email a day will transform your life. That there is such a thing as a "Carbon Fast" at all, though, shows how our society has changed. Environmentalism is a movement as much as it is a series of tasks, our consciousness slowly being raised and our behaviors slowly coming around. We are now beginning to understand the cost of our lifestyle; it can't go on forever.
That's how social change happens; it always starts somewhere. The anthropologist Margaret Mead put it this way: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
This past Monday, I had occasion to think about social change at the Massachusetts State House, where I attended a press conference to encourage the legislature to add "gender identity and expression" to existing nondiscrimination legislation in Massachusetts. The Commonwealth already has laws to protect gays and lesbians from unfair discrimination in housing, health care, and employment, but those who are born a different gender from the one with which they identify are vulnerable, and face some of the highest rates of harassment and violence.
The bishop talked about how this struggle was different from others he'd been part of; Bishop Shaw has been a vocal supporter of same sex marriage, which he said was in some ways an easier issue. Nearly everyone knows someone who is gay. Awareness is slower to catch on, though, when fewer people are part of a particular group--one of the reasons Bishop Shaw is speaking out at this time. I care a lot about justice, I hope, as much as anyone, but if my daughter's godfather (who is transgendered and moderated the panel) hadn't invited me, would I have attended? I hope so. Our Bishop was there for the same reason-we are all learning. Learning, but not exactly in an intellectual way. We are learning how the will of God slowly unfolds and how, as our bishop said, none of us are free when all of us are not free. Our humanity is bound up in each other's.
Slowly, slowly, our consciousness shifts. This Sunday we'll have a presentation about the ONE campaign's work with AIDS in Africa. Thirty years ago, churches turned away from AIDS victims; now congregations across the globe, this Sunday, are hearing stories of what can happen when people receive treatment. Jesus raised Lazarus-people today are raised, too. Slowly, the silence is broken and the sin of sitting idly by is revealed.
Change happens slowly, and on so many levels; hearts, heads, communities, governments. It can take hard work to even imagine a new way of life, never mind actually bringing it to be. The most important part is the conversation; the way people get to know each other and hear other experiences. In our chapter for our Tuesday night study, we read about how Jesus often appears to be a stranger-even (especially!) those first resurrection appearances were deeply, deeply foreign. The disciples did not expect to meet him; how often do we expect to meet Jesus in those who differ from us? How closely are we listening for the stories, being willing to change our lives?
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