Quote of the day: Poet Adam Zagajewski asks us to “try to praise a mutilated world,” … which frankly, is the only blessed world we have. We too are broken, and our relationship with the earth is torn and tattered.
Commentary: How do embrace our own broken-ness and that of the landscapes and communities we live within? We shed our disappointments, our romantic notions of virgin land and noble people, and we accept the gifts we are given, however worn and weary they have become. I just came back from a field trip with several Native American leaders to a sacred site being imperiled by border wall construction and groundwater mining. Nearby we witnessed seeing a family of five Central American refugees being arrested by Border Patrol. Despite their tears and deep grief, I did not feel that my indigenous friends whose grandparents once lived at that sacred site loved it any less because it had been desecrated by such chaos. Maybe they loved it even more with their querencia, their longing for home.
Suggested Action #17: Go out and assure everything broken in your world that your love has not been withdrawn. Accept and learn from your own brokenness. The salve in your wounds makes you fragrant!
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Gary Paul Nabhan aka Brother Coyote is a professed member of the Ecumenical Order of Franciscans, a graduate of the Living School, a conservation biologist, orchard-keeper and story-teller.
