Climate Advocates in El Paso Meet with Bishop Mark Seitz

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The Climate Interfaith Network El Paso and Just Catholics held a joint meeting with  Bishop Mark Seitz, DD, on June 20 2022.

“As people of faith, we are concerned about the quality of our environment and the well-being of our communities already affected by climate change and air pollution,” said Odile Coirier, fmm, El Paso organizer for New Mexico El Paso Region Interfaith Power & Light.

“The aim of our visit was to share our vision and mission and to get some insights and support from the Bishop of El Paso, Texas, on how to engage our community members in climate actions, to promote care for creation through the message of Laudato Si provided by Pope Francis with a special attention toward the young generations,” said Coirier.

“Time is now to act and collaborate with others,” she said.

Meeting the World in Geneva: Attending UN Biodiversity meetings in a Post-Pandemic World

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Here are excerpts from an article that Cynthia Gonzalez, advocacy coordinator for St. Columban Mission for Justice, Peace and Ecology, wrote for her organization. She composed the piece after attending the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 14-29, 2022, with her colleague Amy Echeverria.  Cynthia, who resides in El Paso, Texas, is a board member of New Mexico El Paso Region Interfaith Power & Light (NMEPR-IPL).

By Cynthia L. Gonzalez

After two years of a world pandemic, our perceptions of what the world looks like and how it feels might be different. At least that is how it has been for me. For example, walks by the park in my neighborhood are such a treasure to me now. After several months of spending most of my time at home, those walks by the park have become my moments of peace and comfort. The same happens when I see people gathering, smiling, or having conversations. In a way, I feel like it is the first time that I have seen people doing that. I think the pandemic has helped me recognize things that were there before, but I just didn’t notice or appreciate them. Through conversations with friends and relatives, I have found that many feel the same way.

A couple of months ago, in March of 2022, I had the opportunity to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, and attend meetings of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UN CBD). It was the first time I had traveled outside the country since the pandemic started. These UN CBD meetings were so important because the discussions we had were meant to help the global community advance the agenda of COP15.

COP15 is scheduled to take place later this year and the world’s governments will adopt a decade-long strategic plan to conserve and protect the world’s biodiversity. This strategic plan will also help shape action on this issue for decades to come. After a global pandemic, political instability around the world, and the disastrous signs all around us of environmental collapse, the significance of the meetings in Geneva were even more powerful than I anticipated.

I am privileged to have been given an opportunity to see first-hand how interconnected our world is. I am grateful that I got to hear the testimony from developing countries, who are more severely impacted by ecology degradation even though they contributed the least to the problem. Their presence reminded me that what we do in the United States and in other rich nations, ripples across the planet and impacts people far from our homes.

The meetings were long, technical, and intense. Even strong delegations with more than six representatives (the maximum number of delegates allowed at the same time in the venue) found it difficult to keep up with the discussions on many critical agenda items. These larger delegations often had part of their team following the discussions from their hotel room or even from their home countries

Cynthia Gonzalez (L) and Amy Echeverria (R)

Advocates representing Indigenous groups, local communities, youth, women and girls, and civil society organizations, of which the Columbans were a part, were present throughout the meetings. We were all there asking for ambition during the negotiations and shared the same sense of urgency.

The voices of indigenous groups and youth were particularly powerful. Indigenous groups currently protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Their voices as the experts at conservation were critical, especially because many conservation actions could impact their ancient traditions and lifestyle. They’re also great teachers at showing us how to take care of Mother/Sister Earth, as they often refer to our planet. They’ve also been some of the groups more severely impacted by the current degradation of our forest, land, and sea. I was inspired by their tenacity and commitment to protect our common home.

As the UN CBD meetings started coming to a close, the delegations decided it was important for them to hold another set of meetings from June 21-26, 2022 in Nairobi, Kenya. The goal of these meetings is to continue to work of developing the strategic plan that will be presented and adopted at COP15. The fact that they had to add another meeting to their calendars gave me a clear sense of how enormous the work ahead is.

And yet, after months and months of isolation, after what felt like a never-ending series of crises from COVID to political unrest to the war in Ukraine, attending these meetings in Geneva (at the epicenter of international action) was an incredible and life changing experience for me.

As Pope Francis reminds us, “All it takes is one good person to restore hope!” (LS #71).

Read full article

 

 

Sister Joan on Owls, opera and ‘Ordinary Times’

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(The following is a column that Sister Joan Brown, executive director of New Mexico El Paso Region IPL, wrote for the Gallup Independent newspaper on the weekend of June 18-19)

We are visited by owls in our neighborhood each night — six of them. A number of neighbors gather sometimes, standing in the middle of the street greeting them as they fly and land upon dead branches, their heads turning and searching.

Last night, I was visited by a female opera singer at 3 am. Her distant, hauntingly beautiful voice accompanied me for several hours in my neighborhood where dogs bark and the roosters begin the day early. Opera is not the usual music we hear amidst street racing, rap and rancheros — but it began in Italy as a way to tell the dramatic stories of life of the ordinary people.

In some Christian denominations, now is the Sunday scripture cycle of “Ordinary Times.” The stories are told of Jesus living among his people. As I reflect upon our times, the owls, the opera and the fires, drought, pollution, and climate disruption paired with many other challenges like economic disparity and inflation – these are not ordinary times. Many voices wake and call to us in the night.

The writer of Psalm 102, often called a Psalm of Affliction, echoes our feelings of being overwhelmed in a time of crisis seeing ruins and feeling at a loss, desiring to be understood. I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof.

We long for not only comfort in our times, but wisdom and community. In Psalm 102 the owl is lonely among the ruins and her call echoes in the night. She reminds us that death and destruction can be invitations to transformation with keen eyes to see and “Whoever has ears, let them hear.” Matt, 13:9.

The author Duane Elgin, offers in his book, “Choosing Earth: Humanity’s Journey of Initiation Through Breakdown and Collapse to Mature Planetary Community,” an invitation to open our eyes to the call for institutional change, including religious institutions in light of growing grief and suffering on Earth.

In the introduction, Francis Weller writes, “We are living in turbulent times on this beautiful planet.” The health and well-being of any time is a reflection of our souls. “A soul that is awake is entangled with the living world — its beauty, allure, and wonder, its sorrows, rips, and tears. Given the state of the world and our soulful lives, we must pause and ask, “What is the condition or our souls?’” He later reflects, “Grief will be the keynote for the foreseeable future. Our ability to stay present to this tidal wave of loss depends on our capacity to cultivate this essential skill. We must take up an apprenticeship with sorrow.”

The Psalmists and Jesus can assist us with an “apprenticeship with sorrow” in authentic ways that lead to deeper spiritual maturity, community and action for the Common Good. Ultimately our souls and bodies can only live in ever challenging times if we are rooted deeply in whatever spiritual or religious path we choose. Spiritual grounding is essential for us now. We can begin to hold that which makes our hearts break as we recognize the beauty and that we walk in community.

Ultimately it is the journey of Love that allows us to enter grief and reality. We love our family members, and neighbors who suffer. We love the creatures going extinct. We love the forests burning. We love the rivers who only see the water of our tears. We love the lands and air that are polluted. Our loving is the measure of our grief and our commitment to action. Robin Wall Kimmerer in “Braiding Sweetgrass,” writes, “If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.” This past week, I and some other faith leaders traveled to Southeast New Mexico to be in solidarity with frontline communities trying to address health and environmental concerns in the oil and gas area of the Permian Basin where it was 110 degrees. We heard stories from our neighbors about concerns for the water and air and their health and that of their children. We cried witnessing their stories and the devastated lands. We prayed for healing for this state that we love. We know new ways to act and advocate for clean, air, water and for the health of our neighbors.

Our lives as people of faith can be like the woman opera singer at 3 a.m. telling her dramatic story for others to hear. Our lives as people of faith can be like the cry of the owl to transformation amidst destruction. Our lives as people of faith can be like the Psalmist and Jesus who faced the difficult yet were strengthened by an ever-present God of Justice, Beauty, and Love.

“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.”