The God Dance: Economy

Like ecology and theology, economy is a word that attempts to represent the totality—if we let it. The economy focuses on money and through the lens of money sees the whole world. In economic terms, something is significant when it has a price tag. More and more, our relationship with money is the means by which we interact with other people and with our environment. Just as seeking to understand ecology reveals our participation in the cosmos, seeking to understand our global and local economy reveals how we relate to one another and to the environment. The economy is a merely a part of the environment and another step in the God-Dance.

The divine community described in the last post can also be thought of as a divine economy, in which all things of value are a gift and each gift multiplies in giving. Out of God’s creation, we draw what we need for food, shelter, and living as a gift. The modern economic narrative claims that what we draw out of the land is the right of the owner, but this has never been the case. If we participate in the divine economy, we take from the land as a gift and we re-create what we take for the benefit of others and for the land itself. In short, we glorify God.

When we spend our money in a thriving local economy, every dollar spent multiplies. If I decide to sell the radishes I planted in my new garden box and earn 2$, I have 2$ of income. If I use those same dollars to pay my neighbor for moving the dirt (which we did), my neighbor has 2$ of income. If he gets a haircut with a local barber and the barber buys food from the local corner store, both the barber and the shopkeeper have 2$ of income. This can continue until the money ends up in the bank or is spent outside the neighborhood. If the money circulates 10 times, the 2$ that my radishes earned do 20$ of work. We can garden the land to make it richer and spend the money to make our neighbors richer. When money serves relationships among people and the land, the economy takes its place within the God-Dance. 

In an urban neighborhood like South Hills, money flows in through wages and social services and flows almost immediately out to suburban businesses. The monetary value coming in presumably comes from somewhere--some environmental resource or someone's labor. The money going out is invested in other places. According to cridata.org, while residents of the South Hill neighborhood spent $4,525,145 in 2014, businesses in the neighborhood only sold $209, 647 worth of goods and services. These are the lowest of any neighborhood in the city, largely because of its size, but it is also the lowest ratio in the city of sales fulfilled by resident purchase. Only 4.63% of the money residents are spending in South Hill actually goes to local businesses on Franklin Street. This means that only 4.63% of my 2$ or only 4 cents out of every dollar stays in the neighborhood. As 95% of money spent in South Hill is spent outside the area, the multiplier effect goes to places such as the mall or big box stores or car dealerships.  This is evident merely looking at the landscape—the quality and size of the buildings and space businesses in the suburbs can afford compared to an urban area. 

Abandoned home in 2013, before it was fixed up
and re-valued by the market. 

In 2013, 54.1% of people in South Hill were below the poverty level, the highest percentage of any neighborhood in Grand Rapids (also one of the smallest neighborhoods in Grand Rapids). Though we are in need of each other, we could provide for each other. People who are labeled poor by statistics have talents and abilities, and many of them are running small businesses or working odd jobs. If we spent our money to value our neighbor’s gifts rather than our corporation’s products, perhaps we could begin to rebuild trust in one another and participate in a place in which we all belong.

Of course, getting to know one another and what each person has to offer takes time and context—board game nights, potlucks, and shopping locally. Getting to know the ecology in which we participate and what this land and this place offer freely takes time as well. We do not need to be disheartened that the neighborhood is not what we want it to be, but can celebrate what it already is. If money passes over this place, perhaps that is because we have failed to see what is valuable here and failed to invest in what is good. Participating in the God-Dance also involves participating in the pattern of Jesus Christ, facing rejection and humiliation with confidence in resurrection. But every part of this pattern is another step. The invitation to participate, wherever you are, is open.

The God Dance: Theology

Perichoresis by Peter Cahill

At the end of the last post, I asked who could bring about a spiritual and cultural transformation necessary to address our environmental crisis rooted in our greed, apathy, and selfishness, and I promised a Christian response. As we think about South Hills and seeking a commonly shared story for so many diverse people to identify this place as home, we have no easy answers.

Great love is the only force that can overcome greed, apathy, selfishness—those human traits that cause ecological destruction and divide ‘us’ into ‘us and them.’ Experiencing love invariably changes us, especially a love which willingly sacrifices and suffers. Great love willing to suffer is the only force which can re-unite us and transform our greed into generosity, our apathy to compassion, and our selfishness into selflessness.

There are no short cuts. There is no systemic solution to the problem of the human heart. Great love and suffering is the only way, so who can love enough and suffer enough for us to transform our spiritual and cultural situation? Only Jesus can.

We can only participate in the love revolution Jesus started 2000 years ago, first letting Jesus transform our own hearts. We are invited into the social order held not by power and fear but by love, servanthood, and sacrifice. We are invited into the kingdom of God, to participate in what God has been up to before the world began.

What does this look like? Jesus prayed this prayer as he ate with his disciples for the last time, before he was betrayed to his death.

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. ² For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. ³ Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. ⁴ I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. (John 17:1-5)

My friend Peter sketched the painting above while learning about the Trinity and Perichoresis—the theological concepts that this passage suggests.  Perichoresis refers to the way in which the members of the Trinity relate to one another, constantly making space for one another in service and praise. Perichoresis suggests an eternal God-Dance in which members of the Trinity continually love one another. Jesus shows how this love involves willingly giving up power and suffering rejection and even death. As I study South Hills and consider the ecology, the economy, and the development efforts in this place, I have these images in my mind about who God is. He is a diverse unity, three in one, a united community.

Such a concept of God has big implications for how we relate to one another and the world. Jesus explains it in his prayer. God the Father glorifies the Son and the Son glorifies the Father. They have what we refer to in Christian ABCD parlance as Dignified Interdependence. Both receive from one another and are dependent on one another. Both give to one another. In this relationship, Jesus obeys the Father and the Father honors Jesus. The three persons of God celebrate one another, and because they are so busy celebrating each other, there is no room for fear or shame or apathy in God. Instead, the celebration flows over. Out of that abundant love, God created the cosmos.

Take a moment to look outside at your small corner of this grand work of delight, and you will see what kind of God we serve. The ecological patterns, the geological foundations, and the spinning of the cosmic spheres speak back the celebration with which they were made.

God also created us as he created the cosmos, glorifying us so that we could glorify God. He made us as part of the God Dance, participants in a community of trust and mutual celebration. Our calling as created beings is to play our part in this cosmic love movement, to be a people who give glory back to God in who we are.

You may also notice out the window some destruction: an excessive amount of concrete and asphalt, road kill, a big box store, or some other sign that doesn’t seem to fit a universal pattern of sacrificial love.

Unfortunately, we stepped out and continue to step out of this community of trust. God had the knowledge of good and evil covered, but we still wanted it for ourselves—to be the judges of right and wrong. We take the gifts that God has given us and try to store them up and to hoard them. We fail to give glory back to God. We are afraid that he will stop giving. We are afraid of each other. We are afraid of dying.

The reality is that people have hurt us, and we have experienced the need to defend ourselves. Often people in the church and people closest to us hurt us the most. Or perhaps it is those people destroying the environment with their greed and apathy. Perhaps it is those racists or those gentrifiers. Perhaps it is those Muslims or those rich people. Or perhaps it is those immoral poor people. Perhaps it is everyone else’s fault that this world is so dangerous, so we keep others out of our lives and live out our faith alone.

We even say that with all this hurt and suffering in the world, perhaps it is God’s fault. Many people judge God, punishing him with exile from our little lives. Having exiled God, we find ourselves alone. We may either feel that we have everything together by ourselves or reality confronts us with a strong sense of an abyss.

In our pride, our apathy, our greed, and our shame, we have broken the harmony of God’s world.  The result is our own isolation. The ecological destruction and economic inequality are physical manifestations of our spiritual condition.

God has every right to leave us there, destitute. But what does our maker do? He gives to us again even in the face of our hostility. He loved us so much that he became one of us and accepted our punishment, letting us drag him out of the city of peace to crucify him for threatening our sense of order and our own plan for salvation. He lets us do this again and again, but death cannot hold God.

By accepting our punishment, Jesus welcomes us back into the divine community and reconnects us to the God-Dance. His unearned suffering is redemptive, by which I mean, pride quickly crumbles before someone willingly dying for you. We can no longer be apathetic, but when we see how much has been given, we care very much. We no longer need to keep so much for ourselves. Where we have condemned ourselves, we see that God himself does not condemn us but rather would die for us. We are reconciled to God and to the whole God-Dance of loving, giving, and receiving.

This is good news, and because of it, we are free to love and to welcome others as God loved and welcomed us. We know we can trust God, so we can risk the suffering that comes along with love. If we allow Jesus to change us to look more like him, this should have social, ecological, economic, and geographical implications as he redraws the dividing lines. As we seek to get to know Jesus and follow him in South Hills, these are the implications we are seeking to understand so that God's will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Let’s refer back to the first story I told when I started talking about participation and the God-Dance. A seminary student, an ex-felon, and a community connector enjoyed a fellowship to create a garden. We experienced a literally creative fellowship of different people, and this may be the most important implication about who God is and what he has done for us. No matter what social systems or ecological realities come and go, no matter what powers oppress or disasters fall, we are invited to participate in a communion which continually creates and celebrates to give glory back to God. Jesus said that eternal life is in knowing him, and in knowing him, we are joined to a communion stronger than death. 

The distant, judgmental God becomes our father. The convicted God-man becomes a brother. The imagined Spirit becomes a felt presence. We participate. 

Jesus finished his prayer like this:

²⁰ “My prayer is not for [my disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³ I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
²⁴ “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

²⁵ “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I have made you^[e] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” (John 17: 20-26)

9/14/16 - 10/20/16

10-20-16

Birds:

Red-bellied Woodpecker
Northern Junco
Northern Cardinal
Sharp Shinned Hawk
Blue Jay
Golden Crowned Kinglet

10-18-16

Birds:

House Sparrow
Blue Jay
American Goldfinch
Sharp Shinned Hawk

10-13-16

Birds:

Blue Jays
House Sparrows

10-11-16

Birds:

Northern Cardinal
House Sparrow
European Starling

10-08-16

Birds:

Black capped Chickadee
Sand Hill Crane
House Sparrow
10-07-16

Birds:

Downy Woodpecker

10-06-16

Birds:

House Sparrow
European Starling
Downy Woodpecker
White-breasted Nuthatch

10-05-16

Birds:

European Starlings
Red-bellied Woodpecker
House Sparrow
White breasted Nuthatch
American Goldfinch
Canadian Goose
American Robin
Blue Jay

10-04-16

Birds:

White Breasted Nuthatch
European Starlings

10-03-16

Birds:

House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
Blue Jay

9-29-16

Birds:

House Sparrow
European Starling
Black Capped Chickadee

9-27-16

Birds:

House Sparrow
American Robin
Northern Cardinal
European Starling
Downy Woodpecker

9-26-16

Birds:

House Sparrow
Downy Woodpecker

9-22-16

Birds:

European Starling
White Breasted Nuthatch
Chimney Swift
American Crow
Duck sp.

9-21-16

Birds:

Blue Jays
Northern Cardinal
House Sparrow
American Goldfinch

9-20-16

Birds:

Blue Jay
European Starling
House Sparrow

9-19-16

Birds:

Blue Jay
Chimney Swift
Rock Pigeon
Wild Turkey
House Sparrow

9-15-16

Birds:

American Robin
House Sparrow

9-14-16

Birds:

House Sparrow
Blue Jay

The God Dance: Ecology

“I used to think that the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science, we could address these problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, apathy, and greed, and to deal with these, we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”

                            -Gus Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 2013

 

Start at time 1:06:40 to hear Peter Harris, co-founder of A Rocha International, explain 

why conservation is a Gospel issue

Almost every day, I take walks in the neighborhood to intentionally meet neighbors and be present. Walking alone can sometimes be difficult, so I seek to enjoy it by bird watching and inviting others to walk with me. As we go along, I often hear the chatter of a bird or see the flash of a wing and look up into the sky. This has the potential to interrupt conversations, but has led to greater interest in Urban Ecology. The relationships of creatures in an urban environment fascinate me. Wild things remain at the edge of human experience, even in a human environment.

Several weeks ago, I saw a Wild Turkey in the yard across the street from the Frank Lloyd Wright House. That was the second time I have seen it there. The South Hill Neighborhood Association Facebook page has plenty of pictures of turkeys that wander our area. There was mourning when a car hit one several years ago.  Despite the dangers and lack of habitat, turkeys make a living in this urban neighborhood.

Natural, undeveloped, or wild spaces are thought about and studied ecologically, but our back yards, our churches, and our businesses are not. A fallacy behind ecology is when we see it solely as study of wild things separate from ourselves. We don’t always think about ourselves as living things in relationship with other living things and our environment. But we participate in ecology.

Last week, my friend Shikuru and I went walking to meet neighbors

and hear stories. We met a couple on their porch who had laid cardboard, horse manure, and mulch over their lawn and planted all sorts of vegetables and trees. In front of their house, they planted several bushes of bright orange flowers. The flowers—poetically named Cosmos—attract hummingbirds. The couple gave us some seeds.

By planting these flowers, the couple committed an ecologically creative act. The flowers harness energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil to produce nectar, seeds, and beauty. Hummingbirds and souls are fed. Seeds are given to neighbors. And as the man said, he doesn’t have to mow his lawn any more.

We participate in ecology. In the South Hills area ecology, one living thing leads to another.  We have lots of squirrels, house sparrows, and European starlings. We also have skunks, raccoons, turkeys, wasps, flies, and bedbugs. We have these creatures in particular, because we have created a landscape in which these creatures thrive.

When someone lets their property turn into a jungle, woodchucks find a habitat. Sparrows find their homes in our gutters and chimney swifts in our chimneys. I have some suspicions about raccoons living under porches and know mice and bats take refuge in our walls. Many creatures, like house flies, live off the debris of human life. With other animals, the trees we plant, the gardens we create, and the bird feeders we fill create ecological space for more biodiversity.

The plants and animals for which we create space in turn shape the ecological space that we inhabit. The mulberry trees create sweet delight in the summer and sticky purple sidewalks. We create lawns that we have to mow and that our children can play on, and we plant tomatoes, zucchini, and chard that we consume. Our trees cool our streets with their shade and decrease the speed at which rain ends up in our storm drains. We shape the place and the place shapes us.

If we create our landscape for the animals that brighten our day and give us life by planting native species, we can attract hummingbirds and monarch butterflies. But even if we don’t intentionally give to create space for life, our waste is used. Life finds a way to keep living, and each entity gives to the other and receives from the other whether we are aware of it or not. We participate.  We are a part of the web of living things, connected to all of it.

The Last Wild Area in South Hills

As we seek to understand ecology, we must acknowledge our own creative role as well as how we are shaped by it. Such an admission quickly brings us to confront other words integrally connected with ecology: economy, theology, and development. Because ecology seeks to understand the systems of relationships between living things and with their environment, ecology is a discipline that seeks to understand the totality. These other words, though they have different starting points, similarly force us to consider our role in the cosmos and our interconnectedness.  As we continue along the path of seeking to understand ecology fully (or the economy or development), more and more must be included in the study. In this sense, ecology is a truth-seeking discipline, and if we pursue it, we will be forced to encounter our place, each other, and Christ.

To heal a landscape in which we are connected from ecological destruction, we can begin with our own property. With that alone, we are forced to reckon with the local climate, soils, and species already present and available and with our own habits and energy levels. But if we want to think about the health of the whole, we need to get to know one another and understand our habits and energy levels as a people. Community listening and Asset Based Community Development can play a role here. 

But our ecological crisis is a moral issue requiring a spiritual and cultural transformation away from greed, apathy, and selfishness. Who can bring about such a transformation? And how would such a transformation affect our network of living things? Next week, I will share a Christian response to the first question. The second question can only be answered in the living of it.

 by Peter Cahill