Quote of the Day: When black novelist James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” I don’t think he was talking about the harm that is done to the environment that we live in, or how our health is harmed when we harm the environment.” But it can be applied to that, for Earth Day #1 began the “truth and reconciliation” about the long-term damage done to the environment that sickened our children, killed off our elderly prematurely, and gave the marginalized in our communities no safe refuge. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac also daylighted the fact that “we live in a world of wounds.”
Commentary: When we do harm to our common home, we break up our home of creatures and cultures through the ecological process called habitat fragmentation. A broken home. To care for all of Creation is to begin to restore our home to live-ability, and once again, to love-ability.
Suggested Action #46: As you walk today, notice the wounds in the habitats you walk through, and in your larger community. But don’t stop there: see what cures, salves and social medicines are at your door step. Become a healer. Justice. Peace. Care for Creation. The healing salves.
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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.
