The Magnitude of All Things – Thoughts on grief and the climate crisis

A presentation at St. George the Martyr, Victoria BC — Wednesday April 24, 2024 — Kenneth Gray

The late Fran Haberlin, co-director of the Sorrento Centre always began her presentations with: “Gee it’s great to be here,” and “where do we go from here?” Well it is great to be here and thanks for coming out, and yes, where do we go from here amidst the rise of desperate hard-right geopolitics, invasive wars, physical and cultural genocide, and most significantly, the climate crisis?

“Our little book” (as I like to call it) has garnered much interest especially from those who knew Ellie Johnson well, prior to her retirement from Church House in 2008 and since her death in 2022. The material in section four, however, which sets out themes directly relevant to today’s world, work that continues to raise issues of ecojustice, of healing and reconciliation—all of a prophetic nature— these have been more difficult to explicate.

In my own essay: Ecojustice and Mission: Thoughts on a Relevant Missional Terminology I pay hommage to the late Dr. Chris Lind,  teacher, mentor, and friend to both Maylanne and me, who died far too soon almost ten years ago. It was Chris who first introduced me to the term ecojustice and to the ecojustice principles developed by the Australian Lutheran theologian Norman Habel. Chris cited the German Protestant theologian Jurgen Moltmann: “What we call the environmental crisis is not merely a crisis in the natural environment of human beings. It is nothing less than a crisis in human beings themselves. It is a crisis of life on this planet [. . .] As far as we can judge, it is the beginning of a life-and- death struggle for creation on this earth.” Regarding his own stance, Lind writes: “Speaking as someone who comes to this debate after decades of involvement in issues of social justice, I can say that the movement to an Earth-centred consciousness is as profound a challenge as I have encountered.”

My colleague, the Rev. Dr. Cathy Campbell introduced me to the work of Jaren Sawatsky, a onetime university professor, author, and researcher in peace and conflict studies, who now lives with Huntington’s Disease through which he views life and healing. Sawatsky argues that healing justice will offer opportunities and a way forward in the pursuit of justice and peace. Specifically, he brings together Spirit with Land: “Healing justice does not begin with states and institutions. Healing justice [. . .] begins and ends with the Spirit and the land [. . . T]his kind of justice is not primarily about social control but more about cultivating a life that acknowledges and responds to the gift, beauty, and fragility of life.” Other authors in our collection such as Jeffrey Metcalfe and Jesse Zink follow similar lines of enquiry. I conclude my own essay with a consideration of how healing justice will affect the rebuilding of the village of Lytton BC. It must be noted however, that progress has been abysmally slow.

Through an article in the Anglican Theological Review I discovered a book: Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World by Glenn Albrecht. Albrecht is an environmental philosopher with both theoretical and applied interests in the relationship between ecosystem and human health. He has researched the impact of mining in the Upper Hunter Region of NSW, Australia, and now, the impact of climate change on communities, again in the Hunter Region, via a secular, philosophical enquiry and analysis. In a 2005 article “Solastalgia: a new concept in human health and identity” he describes “the homesickness you have when you are still at home and your home environment is changing in ways you find distressing.”

[From WIKI] Solastalgia is a neologism, formed by the combination of the Latin words sōlācium (comfort) and the Greek root -algia (pain, suffering, grief), that describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change. It is best described as the lived experience of negatively perceived environmental change. More recent approaches have connected solastalgia to the experience of historic heritage threatened by the climate crisis, such as the ancient cities of Venice, Amsterdam, and Hoi An (Viet Nam). There is not time today to investigate the voluminous vocabulary more fully; his development of an extensive descriptive vocabulary does seem Tolkienesque in both its scope and detail. That said, we need language through which we can locate ourselves, language which invites and encourages self-expression, words and concepts around which we can gather, converse, and strategize. Lest you think that no such powerful terms exist, consider the following: the opioid crisis; Gaza; search the landfill. I increasingly find concerned persons of all ages struggling to find their voice in the present ecojustice maelstrom. The need for healing and reconciliation remains, not only amongst people, not only with the earth, but with and through our broken spirits.

Another contributor to section four is Dr. Slyvia Keesmaat who proscribes an ecojustice curriculum for theological students of all capabilities and interests. She is presently writing a book on “climate grief” which I am sure will be excellent and timely. But I suggest while such grief is physical, emotional, and real, we need other language to help us claim hopeful space and continue to engage deeply and lovingly. Victoria-based author Elin Kelsey makes a strong case for hope in her book Hope Matters: Changing the Way we Think is Critical to Solving the Environmental Crisis. Hopefully, these and other publications will respond to a growing quiescence amongst some activists, scholars, and community and church leaders. One positive way forward comes through the arts, and especially through film production.

I encourage you to watch and share The Magnitude of All Things (NFB, available online here). When Jennifer Abbott lost her sister to cancer, her sorrow opened her up to the profound gravity of climate breakdown. Abbott’s new documentary The Magnitude of All Things draws intimate parallels between the experiences of grief—both personal and planetary. Stories from the frontlines of climate change merge with recollections from the filmmaker’s childhood on Ontario’s Georgian Bay. What do these stories have in common? The answer, surprisingly, is everything. For the people featured, climate change is not happening in the distant future: it is kicking down the front door. Battles waged, lamentations of loss, and raw testimony coalesce into an extraordinary tapestry, woven together with raw emotion and staggering beauty that transform darkness into light, grief into action. In many ways the film brings together what I have shared this morning. Please watch it; promote it; build events around it. I would be pleased to zoom in with groups and congregations if my input would be helpful to you.

Thanks for listening; thanks for staying awake; please buy our book—we have seventy two left and Kathie does not want me to take any home.

References above refer to:

Partnership as Mission
Essays in Memory of Ellie Johnson
Edited by Kenneth Gray and Maylanne Maybee
Foreword by James Boyles

Book Details