Wangar Maathai on spirituality and the environment

[the_future_modernes]

Spiritual Environmentalism: Healing Ourselves by Replenishing the Earth

During my more than three decades as an environmentalist and campaigner for democratic rights, people have often asked me whether spirituality, different religious traditions, and the Bible in particular had inspired me, and influenced my activism and the work of the Green Belt Movement (GBM). Did I conceive conservation of the environment and empowerment of ordinary people as a kind of religious vocation? Were there spiritual lessons to be learned and applied to their own environmental efforts, or in their lives as a whole?

When I began this work in 1977, I wasn't motivated by my faith or by religion in general. Instead, I was thinking literally and practically about solving problems on the ground. I wanted to help rural populations, especially women, with the basic needs they described to me during seminars and workshops. They said that they needed clean drinking water, adequate and nutritious food, income, and energy for cooking and heating. So, when I was asked these questions during the early days, I'd answer that I didn't think digging holes and mobilizing communities to protect or restore the trees, forests, watersheds, soil, or habitats for wildlife that surrounded them was spiritual work.

I didn't think digging holes and mobilizing communities to protect or restore the trees, forests, watersheds, soil, or habitats for wildlife that surrounded them was spiritual work.

However, I never differentiated between activities that might be called "spiritual" and those that might be termed "secular." After a few years I came to recognize that our efforts weren't only about planting trees, but were also about sowing seeds of a different sort—the ones necessary to give communities the self-confidence and self-knowledge to rediscover their authentic voice and speak out on behalf of their rights (human, environmental, civic, and political). Our task also became to expand what we call "democratic space," in which ordinary citizens could make decisions on their own behalf to benefit themselves, their community, their country, and the environment that sustains them.

In this context, I began to appreciate that there was something that inspired and sustained the GBM and those participating in its activities over the years. Many people from different communities and regions reached out to us because they wanted us to share the approach with others. I came to realize that the work of the GBM was driven by certain intangible values. These values were: love for the environment; a gratitude and respect for Earth's resources; a capacity to empower and better oneself; and a spirit of service and volunteerism. Together, these values encapsulate the intangible, subtle, nonmaterialistic aspects of the GBM as an organization. They enabled us to continue working, even through the difficult times.MORE

It irritates me that that question was asked, really. I have a nasty feeling that Westerners think that the only way POC get into the enviro movement is because of our exotic religions. Whereas, you know, Westerners use reason and logic to need to save the environment. Anyway, if your spirituality leads you to want to take action, good for you.

Comments

[urocyon]

I get particularly irritated at the mystical exoticism getting set up dismissively in opposition to reason and logic. And, with all the ignorant stereotyped assumptions going around, I hesitate to even mention that, yeah, my own spirituality influences this kind of thing.

Especially since it's Westerners who are so determined to set up all these BS oppositional binaries with themselves obviously on the side of Reason. When what I'm doing kinda depends on critical thinking and pragmatism. (Both of which suggest that tearing up the planet you're living on is not very smart or healthy...)

I like the way Jack Forbes put it:
Religion is, in reality, living. Our religion is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think–all of these things–twenty-four hours a day. One’s religion, then, is one’s life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived.

Religion is not prayer, it is not a church, it is not theistic, it is not atheistic, it has little to do with what white people call “religion.” It is our every act. If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion; if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion. . .

Thus New York City, with its dirt, its slums, its crime, its violence, its greed, its wealthy elite, its tall buildings, its Mafia, its cooked leadership, and its art galleries–all of New York City–is the white society’s “church”…Many people often pretend that they can escape from the consequences of their own acts, but Native philosophy teaches differently. We create our own reality. Perhaps the acts of creation are our “religion” and the concrete creations are our “churches”.

Long quote, but good. There's something busted in pretty much the whole Western exoticizing approach to any kind of "spirituality", IME, even before POC come up. Then, talk about train wrecks. :-|