How To Keep Caring; Radical Hope; The Moon
And: join me in a conversation!
In April, I, along with friends and colleagues at Climate Mental Health Network, will be joining at the invitation of Courtney Martin and maybe some other Substackers in a social experiment called The Week. The way it works is, over the course of one week (I’m planning April 16, 17, 18) you commit to getting together with other folks in your community to watching three one-hour climate documentaries, each followed by a 30-minute discussion.
My ask to you: If this sounds cool, organize one in your local community and then tell me about it! Or if you want to join me in NYC, write back and let me know! I’ll write posts each day of the 3 days we gather about the conversation in Brooklyn. I’d LOVE to hear about your conversations with your crews. Where might the similarities and differences be? And maybe if enough people are interested we can even do a live Zoom together and talk about our big take-aways? If you’re down, just reply to this message!
Hi friends.
I struggled with what to say this week. My mind has been going in a million different directions, my days are chockablock with different meetings, projects, collaborations, and I’m also in the middle of a month of whirlwind travel, touching down for a few days here and there.
It feels these days like out there in the world, and among my friends and family, there’s so much to mourn and so much to celebrate.
It’s not just me, I know. We’re rounding the corner from winter into spring. It’s an in-between time.
So in lieu of just one topic, I’m going to set out a little snack plate for you, of things that I’ve found helpful and beautiful and just wow recently.
1. How to keep caring amid endless crises
I remember sitting on the subway, almost a decade ago, when a baby’s hungry cry in the arms of his grandfather brought the milk painfully to my own breasts. For me, having children obliterated any lingering illusion of an absolute separation between myself and others.
Now we live in a world where we can lie on our side safe in bed and have live images of suffering children beamed into our eyes, 24/7/365. What does this make of the moral imperative to hold witness? And how can we keep feeling connected to everyone when it’s so painful?
I’ve noticed myself turning away a little more often lately.
SO, I was so happy to hear
, (you should be reading her Substack, The Examined Family,)talking on her podcast, Slate’s How To, to Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor and author, about how to not look away from the news, and from pain that friends and family may be in, and equally how to not be paralyzed by it.
It takes two things: a consistent practice of action in the world, at whatever level you’re able to, and an inner, spiritual practice as well.
“In the quiet and stillness of your life, with your hand on your own heart… just go take a breath and go, what is mine to do?”
A lot of people I know are talking about Rabbi Sharon Brous’s new book, The Amen Effect. She was great on Ezra Klein’s podcast last November. And as she wrote recently in the New York Times, part of your spiritual practice can be your connection to others.
Make a thing of showing up: for the funeral, for the birthday dinner. One thing I’ve made a practice of recently—before I open up Instagram on my phone, take the time to check in over text with a couple of friends and family members instead.
Bolz-Weber relates activism to process of seeking a calling. So does Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, in her TED talk about finding the center of your climate Venn diagram.
And that introduces the idea that there may be joy in finding your place in the work, even when the work is helping fix something that’s very messed up. Back to Bolz-Weber:
“You’ve got to act with the gifts you have in the way you’re called to.
“Now, I’ve always been drawn to the theologian Frederick Buechner’s idea that our calling is where our quote, deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.”
Listen to the whole How To podcast here.
2. Radical Hope
I was proud to co-author this article with Harriet Shugarman for the journal Early Childhood Matters, about parental climate emotions. The article includes action steps. One of them is “explore radical hope.”
“A concept often credited to philosopher Jonathan Lear, radical hope involves anticipating a future good in the face of turmoil and collapse, even though we might be unable to picture what this “good” might look like right now (Van Broekhoven, n.d.).
This philosophy can help us reflect deeply about how we can and will continue as a species, even when we must say goodbye to familiar places and cultures, as they are irreversibly altered or even disappeared by climate change. As parents, we have engaged in the ultimate act of radical hope by bringing new life into the world, which we expect to continue on after us. How do we do our best to make good on that commitment?”
3. Navajo Nation objects to a plan to send human remains to the moon
This is one of those headlines that’s been whirling around in my brain since I read it last month, so I’m taking the opportunity to share it with you.
So, here in 2024, there are these companies, “Celestis” and “Elysium”, that offer to shoot human ashes off to the moon, in a rocket, for a price.
The Navajo Nation wrote a letter and said, please don’t do this, we consider it desecration of the moon, which is sacred not only to us, but to tribal nations around the world.
Well, the companies went ahead anyway. But it turned out that 70 people’s ashes — including those of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke—didn’t make it. The private company’s lunar lander burned up on reentry, so their loved ones will have to visit them in the South Pacific instead.
Is that an allegory about the ownership of sacredness, the evolution of tradition, the finality of death? I don’t know, but I did hear that the moon is also shrinking like a raisin.