We don't need each other anymore, and that's the saddest thing we've done--perhaps even sadder than the scourge of climate change, which is at least anonymous and impersonal.

--Bill Mickibben, quoted on Speaking of Faith

He-Oh, Bessay Nehai!

A month on the road sounds like a long time. Some days it feels like it-- like nothing would be nicer than my own space, my own food, my own people. To turn off India. Other days I can't fathom going home, and the snow and and the sidewalks and the giant houses seem all too close. How can I go back and be happy and well-fed and obscenely rich?

But here we are: one month on the road, two weeks back in Bangalore, and then home for Christmas. If you're following along on a map, we're hitting up Orissa (Koraput district), Hyderabad, Medak, Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi. Lots of planes, trains, and automobiles.

One week in and we're spending the weekend in Hyderabad. Last week was Koraput, a hilly rural district dotted with tribal villages. We visited several of them, and even spent the night in one. It was incredible. No advertisements. No trash on the ground. People living in and with the forest, taking from it and giving back. They had a mini-hydro-electric dam which gave them enough energy to run a mill and light their houses but didn't cause much environmental harm at all. They were incredibly kind. I can't explain how beautiful this place was, or the people. I learned to say 'very good' in the tribal language. Bessay Nehai. Yes. Very good.

We had a meeting there on climate change. They told us their story. The people here, who are deeply in tune with the earth's rhythms, noticed that their seasons were changing before they had ever heard the words 'climate change' or 'global warming'. The rainy season here has shrunk and the hot summer has expanded, making agriculture difficult. Wild fruits ripen at different times, and the food is smaller in size and less good to eat than before. Water is less plentiful. The star patterns, which they study to know when to plant and when to celebrate festivals, don't line up with the seasons like they used to. They had been wondering if they were being punished by God for something, that the earth itself is rebelling against them. Slowly, however, they learned that other villages, even other countries, are experiencing the same thing. Now they are worried about how to survive, how their children will survive in future generations. We tel them that they are by no means being punished (except, perhaps, for the actions of others)-- that the way they live in partnership with the earth is admirable, an example for the rest of us. We apologize for the role that we and our culture have contributed to the hardship they are experiencing, and tell them that together we want to try to stop it. And we tell them to keep telling their story—that people like us, too disconnected with the earth to notice these changes, need to hear from them. We need to know that livelihoods are being affected by our consumptive actions now, not just in some distant future. The people of Putsil are innocent in terms of climate-changing behavior, yet they are worried about their survival. Climate change is real, and its urgent. It needs more than our lip-service to change it—it needs our real dedication, our willingness to change our lifestyles, and all the ingenuity we can muster.

Wanna hear something that drives me nuts?

Bottled.

Water.

Now don't get me wrong-- I really love water. I love being hydrated. I love the way that water tastes (even St. Peter water!). I love swimming in water, canoeing on water, and hearing running water first thing when I wake up in the morning.

I love the way that water makes things live.

How many times have you heard this: 60% of the human body is water. We can't live without it.

In Daoism, water is a symbol for the Dao, or 'the way'. It loves humble places. It nourishes all things without trying. It fits into every vessel.

In my personal spiritual journey, water has become a symbol for God--perhaps its because I spent three months living on rivers. A river is always changing, always the same. It can be furious and powerful and dangerous, or broad and sunny and calm. It changes the landscape. Everything nearby draws its life from the river.

We are so blessed to have access to clean drinking water just by turning on a tap. 1.2 billion people in the world are not so blessed. Currently a cholera epidemic is killing hundreds in Zimbabwe--an epidemic that wouldn't exist if clean water were available.

So why do we feel the need to buy and sell bottled water? Why do we trap this essence of life in cheap plastic, which only adds to the pollution problem? In some parts of the world public water sources are being privatized in order to produced bottled water, increasing the need of the poor and oppressed while feeding the consumer culture of the elite.

So...

What are you going to do?

Radical Abundance Part III

What is real wealth, do you think?

Is it money?

I bet you would say no. Money is money. It's one thing, and its not necessarily bad, but real wealth, if you were to ask me, is access to health care and education and green space and good food. Even more, wealth is family and friends and a place to call home. A thriving community. A healthy relationship with the earth. and, however it irons out, a sense of spirituality-- that there is more than me. Majora Carter says that people need three things in order to be healthy, happy humans:

• someone to love,
• something to do,
• and something to look forward to.

If we believe, (and I think that we do) that everyone should have those things-- that everyone should be wealthy in love and health and the good things of the earth, and that no one is truly wealthy until everyone is-- then I think we have to do some drastic changing of the system. I'm no economist, and I really can't claim to know the smallest thing about how the market works, but it seems to me that our money system isn't designed to work towards wealth at all.

So what?

I think one of the great tragedies of our era is the death of community. It still lives in some places, but despite my family's good intentions and best efforts, I hardly know any of my neighbors. I certainly don't feel like our neighborhood could be a center of support in a crisis, or that there's any real sense of pride in where we come from. Timothy Gorringes and David Korten, two of the speakers at the conference, both suggested that the best way to save ourselves from all kinds of ecological, social, and economic doom is to pull together in community. Regions should be able to support themselves agriculturally. The big money from Minnesota shouldn't head straight into the pockets of some guy in New York who's already rich-- instead we should keep the economy local. We should do away with agri-business, with big corporations, with over-seas sweatshops, and the attitude that junk somehow is worth our money and energy.

Gorringes talked about the "transition town" movement, a grass-roots sustainability revolution that's changing communities in the UK by getting people talking. That's what I want to do-- start a conversation. Get to know someone. As one speaker put it, "join the choir". Ask how we can creatively come together to change systems that none of us like.

I think its really possible that we are the ones that we've been waiting for.

Radical Abundance part II

Whew!

It's been a busy couple of days. I'm going to break down my thoughts from the 'Radical Abundance, theology of sustainability' conference into a couple of posts so it's not so overwhelming. I've got a lot to think about!

The entire experience had the dual overtones of hope and urgency. Urgency because we know that we don't have much time. The era of our dependency on oil is coming to an end, whether we like it or not-- there simply isn't enough. The earth cannot continue to support a system that survives only by turning usable resources into toxic waste in order to make the rich richer, while the vast majority of the world's population suffer as the Earth's bounty is snatched from under their feet. America uses 25% of the worlds resources. On any given day, the city of New York uses as much energy as the entire continent of Africa. And the world's current crisis isn't simply an environmental one-- all of creation is languishing in injustice. 'The least of these', as Jesus called them, the poorest of the poor, are shouldering the heaviest ecological burden and have no voice to protest.

The picture is overwhelmingly grim. Everyone is negatively affected by injustice. We are not spiritually whole if we are separate from the universe that we were created as a part of, and we cannot be whole if we are separate from each other. Somehow, though, each presenter spoke with optimism. Despite the terrifying prospects and the unhappy present, my experience at the conference was filled with smiles. There was-- there is-- hope. Majora Carter spoke about her experience in the South Bronx-- an area in the poorest 5 congressional districts in the country. The neighborhood has a 25% unemployment rate, and 1/3 of the population is under the poverty line. It handles most of New York's solid waste and has several power plants. The children suffer from an asthma epidemic. It is a desolate place, with very little green space. But change is coming to the South Bronx-- through Majora Carter's organization, parks have been created, wetlands reclaimed, trees planted, and green-roofs installed. A program now exists that trains locals in the skills necessary for green jobs, and now those who had been unemployed and seemingly unemployable are reclaiming the Earth.

Good things happen.