The knife-edge of normal: ordinary life in a climate emergency

 On my way back from the hair salon, I stopped off to see the foxes in the enclosure.  One looks like a white-muzzled senior, the other slightly younger, stands near the front of the cage. Here, the animals live behind barricades, on display for curious toddlers or parents who want to show their kids a goat or a chicken.

Are we living the end of the world as we know it? I blurted out to a friend last week. No, I'm not talking about Jesus returning, though it would be nice to speculate.

 I can't even remember what I learned about the more esoteric aspects of millennial theology. Whatever it was, it probably wouldn't be reassuring right now (I do remember Christians can't agree on how it all will end).

I wonder, instead, how long we can maintain any semblance of normalcy in a world where so many are beginning to experience something else entirely.

Am I an alarmist? I would love to be wrong.

The fox looks back at me with an inscrutable gaze. Then they turn away, ambling towards one of the black plastic tubes place in their cage.  To protect them from the heat? For a change from the monotony of being cooped up behind metal barriers for the rest of their days?

How have we come to live in a world where many animals need to live in zoos or sanctuaries because there are so few of their kind left?

I am haunted by the words of Carol Devine, an activist pastor I interviewed.  She told me that we're currently feeling the effects of our behavior from 50 years ago. She lives with that grief every day.

Take that in for a minute.

We know that the melting of the ironically named "permafrost" is releasing more and more carbon into our atmosphere.   I heard a member of an indigenous community living in the Arctic Circle say that he would try to explain to his eighteen month old daughter when his family and neighbors had to start to live differently because of the warming conditions. Pushing caribou to migrate elsewhere. Bringing hungry wolves closer to town.  In Alaska sea ice is melting, as this story notes, at a rate 2-3 times faster than it is elsewhere in the world.

Immigrants are leaving Central America in part because they can no longer earn a living as farmers.  Hurricanes devastate Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and our own Southeast coast on the regular.

In  Brazil, 500 million bees have seemingly died in the past three months.

We commend heroines like Katherine Hayhoe, a scientist married to an evangelical pastor, in part because she is so very rare among conservative Christians. Sadly, many seem to be climate change deniers. Sure, they are entitled to their own opinion - but their recalcitrance is directly affecting our well-being.

How can people of  faith have a positive impact?  Aim for carbon neutrality in your churches. Become less dependent on disposables at home.  Hound your members of Congress. Vote. Encourage your clergy to create programs that may change minds. And perhaps, perhaps, join the civil disobedience movement that is beginning to find its voice here and in Europe.  We need to find ways to speak for those people who have no financial or political clout right now, from indigenous tribes to poor farmers.

Keep hope alive - even when you don't feel hopeful. Jesus came to a people ground under the heel of an authoritarian empire and illuminated the darkness of violence and humiliation with the light of nonviolent resistance and prophetic integrity. He asks the same of us.

I watch the fox until they settle down under the tree inside the bars. Then I walk down to the Schuylkill to catch the glimmer of light on the water, the rowers, and the leaves floating on the current, as they have done before humans touched this landscape. For today, it is enough.