For Crying Out Loud
David R. Weiss — July 15, 2023
I am in favor. (Of crying out loud.) As the title declares, I am for crying out loud. I’d almost go so far as to say, in this moment of ecological crisis / climate breakdown, that if anything can save us now, it’s tears.
It’s more complicated than that though. And “save us,” seems like overreach. We’re in this for keeps. And by “keeps,” I mean collapse. There is no turning back at this point. You could make the case that back around 1970, had we dared to throw the emergency brake on fossil fuel burning-and also on our rapacious consumption-we might have averted the catastrophe that now passes for our children’s and grandchildren’s trust fund. But it’s at least equally possible that by 1970 the forces at play-industrial, technological, economic, political, and not least cultural and religious -had achieved so much interlocking inertia, that the emergency brake wouldn’t have budged, even if someone had tried to throw it. No, we’re in this for keeps.
There is no green tech coming along fast enough (or without its own nightmarish ecological costs) to save us-not to mention no coalescence of political will anywhere on the horizon. And, to date, every great green hope paraded in front of us, promises to sustain unfettered growth on a finite planet, the single biggest lie in all of Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history. Hence, by “keeps,” I mean collapse.
There is no saving us-if by that you mean the restoration of some semblance of the bright future we imagined in our youth. And there is no saving us-if by that you mean the smooth orderly transition to a simpler way of life that aligns with the planet’s abundant but oh so finite capacity. Oh, we will transition to that “simpler” way of life, because ultimately Earth will align us with its capacity. But it will not be smooth or orderly.
Like ill-tempered toddlers we will be dragged kicking and screaming (and dying) into alignment. Indeed, the kicking and screaming has already started. But it will get worse. The dying, too-already started … and to get worse. No doubt there will be tears aplenty spilled along the way. But that weeping, while it may be momentarily cathartic, will not save us.
The tears that might save us will be of a different sort. These will be tears not for what is happening to us (or to those nearest), but for what is happening to the world around us. Tears for others. For all others.
We long for a magical solution to our ecological peril. Let me tell you, this is as close to magic as it gets. Gut-wrenching magic, though. Here is the supreme truth of our lives: we are one. Every shimmering wave, every twinkling star, every quivering quark, and every creeping critter-ONE. Interwoven. Pulsing. Breathing. Kin.
And we-humans as a whole, though, of course, it is hardly the whole of us-have unleashed a system that is DESIGNED to rip apart the interwoven-pulsing-breathing fabric of creation. To position us as “above”-meaning against all others. To extract, exploit, extinguish life-beauty in the name of accumulative progress as though death-making is our noble purpose in life. Global human civilization is built on the notion that we can kill the planet without killing ourselves. The superficial truth-the low-hanging fruit so to speak-is that we can’t. Our way of life is wrecking (has wrecked!) the support system needed for the very life we cherish most: our own. Oops.
But the supreme truth-the priceless pearl-that may yet help us tend to the wreckage left in the wake of our death-making civilization is this: all that we have exploited-extracted-extinguished … all that we have reckoned “other,” so as to set our lives against it … all this is interwoven-pulsing-breathing-dying KIN. We are one. And if we dare open ourselves to that truth, the tears will come from a very different place. No longer born of self-interest, we will weep for kin-interest, all-interest, one-interest: for the entire gamut of life-beauty that is under assault from the inertia of our empires.
Such tears will threaten to undo us. How do you weep “in moderation” for the loss of so much? The loss of so much finally known as kin? It will be gut-wrenching. And it will be magic. Because the deepest power accessible to us in the universe, the ground of authentic human agency, the womb of holiness if you wish, is to live from the awareness that we-all-are ONE. Interwoven. Pulsing. Breathing. Kin.
That awareness-should we choose to avail ourselves of it-will dawn with tears. In another age, perhaps it could arise from blissful reflection or immersion in the natural world. In this age of ecological wreckage wrought by us, it will dawn with tears … or it will not dawn at all. And yet, behind-beneath-beyond those tears is the power of the universe beckoning-begging-empowering us to act with empathy-outrage-love-care.
There will be need for more than tears in the days to come. Awe and gratitude, laughter and joy, skills-sharing and community-building, and loads of hard work, too. But we fool ourselves-it’s actually much worse than foolery; it’s a deadly delusion-when we think we will do and do and do some more and save the tears for later. The tears are the saving. They are the echo of ONEness in our soul, the opening of empathy, the ground of our power, and the roots of our resolve. Right now EVERYTHING hinges on our willingness to weep. And I’ll keep saying that until you join me in declaring yourself-
For crying out loud.
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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, doing “public theology” around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, diversity, and peace. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in writing Community Supported Theology atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.
Originally published at http://davidrweiss.com on July 15, 2023.
