June2020

We have the tools (nonviolence chief among them) to allow us to stand up to the
powerful and the reckless, and we have the fundamental idea of human solidarity
that we could take as our guide. . . .
Another name for human solidarity is love, and when I think about our world in its
present form, that is what overwhelms me. The human love that works to feed the
hungry and clothe the naked, the love that comes together in defence of sea
turtles and sea ice and of all else around us that is good. The love that lets each of
us see we’re not the most important thing on earth, and makes us okay with that. .
. . [2]
Over these past several months I have witnessed many examples of this
restraint, which Bill McKibben calls love. While the lives of our elders, our
vulnerable, and essential workers are at stake during the COVID-19 pandemic,
tens of millions of us across the globe have been restraining ourselves at home,
choosing not to do many things for many weeks in order to protect those we love
(and those others love as well). Surely the earth is breathing a sigh of relief for our
reduction in pollution and fossil fuel use. This “Great Pause,” as some are calling it,
gives me hope that we will soon find it within ourselves to protect our shared
home, not only for our own sake, but for our neighbors across the globe, and
future generations.
References:
[1] Some brief examples describing the book of creation:
Anthony of Egypt: “My book is the nature of created things; any time I want to
read the words of God, the book is before me.” Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the
Desert, 62.
Augustine: “It is the divine page that you must listen to; it is the book of the
universe that you must observe.” Expositions on the Psalms, 45.7
Ilia Delio: “Because the world expresses the Word . . . every creature is itself a
“little word.” The universe, therefore, appears as a book representing and
describing its Maker.” A Franciscan View of Creation (2003)
[2] Bill McKibben, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? (Wildfire:
2019), 255, 256.
Epigraphs: The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul, ch. 124. See Francis of
Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 2 (New City Press: 2000), 353; and
Holmes, Race and the Cosmos: An Invitation to View the World Differently, 2 nd ed.
(CAC Publishing: 2020), 216.
Image credit: Legend of St. Francis: 15. Sermon to the Birds (fresco detail), artist
unknown, formerly attributed to Giotto di Bondone, c. 1297–1299, Upper Basilica
of San Francesco d′Assisi, Assisi, Italy.