Where faith and climate justice meet | NCPR News - North Country Public Radio

Where faith and climate justice meet | NCPR News

Where faith and climate justice meet
Monica Sandreczki (News Host, Reporter)

For James Galasinski, climate change is a spiritual matter.

He's the pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Canton, which is exploring the intersection of social justice, climate change and faith at a summit this weekend.

They're hosting a weekend of talks and activities with artists and professors, Black farmers and Mohawk storytellers, environmentalists and local government leaders. Galasinski spoke with Monica Sandreczki.

Monica SandreczkiFinding the intersection of faith and climate change

MONICA SANDRECZKI: Many conversations on a national scale frame conversations about climate change in this sort of economic framework. What is the advantage, or what does framing it in a spiritual frame do and why is that important?

JAMES GALASINSKI: I think spirituality and religion has been used as an apologetic, to subdue, to have dominion, to multiply and conquer and colonize. Certain passages in sacred texts have been taken out of context to support that. But there are also lots of other valuable mythopoetic phrases in religion that are calling us to be humble. That we're not the exceptional human species or the exceptional country or whatever. We are a species, among many, and it's from the ground that we came, and it's to the ground that we will return. How do we live then knowing that? I think we should live with more care with more presence to this moment, to this time with more love, with looking at historic wrongs, and how can we repair them.

MONICA SANDRECZKI: There's a researcher at the University of Nottingham, Christopher Ives. From his research, he sort of came to [the idea that] appealing to faith-based worldviews has this potential to sort of bypass political divides by appealing to this common, maybe sacred duty, or a sense of shared justice that's divinely inspired. I wonder what are ways to bring more people into the fold here in the North Country?

GALASINSKI: Yeah. Good question. I wish I had the solution to that. I do think that religious communities can play a strong role in this because we are already organized. But as someone who as a profession, every Sunday, does literally preach to the choir. I can tell you that the choir needs preaching to!

I'm thinking of liberal causes and liberal social justice issues, and things don't happen because we're all infighting about the tactic, and how to do it, and whose grander idea is better than the others or whatever. And nothing actually gets accomplished.

I mean, the point of justice work is to make change. And I think we do that through connection, through relationships, through one-on-one meeting. And we can't do that if we're all splintered and bickering and broken and fractured and not connected to each other.

I think there's potential in language that we use, too. I'm still working on that and trying to figure out what it is, but I think it's more story. I think it's more poetry. It's less guilt. It's less fear, and less despair, and more pointing out, "oh, Soulfire farm in upstate New York is doing this great work. How can we learn from them? How can we grow together?"

SANDRECZKI: When you talk about incorporating more story and more poetry, has there been a poem that's been speaking to you in a certain way lately?

GALASINSKI: I've been rereading the "Tao Te Ching" and chapter 29 was really speaking to me.

SANDRECZKI: What is that?

GALASINSKI: I just so happened to have it right here to my desk! (retrieves book from desk) But it says,

Do you want to improve the world?

I don't think it can be done.

The world is sacred.

It can't be improved.

If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.

If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.

I think we've been treating nature and the Earth as an object. It's not an object. It's part of the interdependent web of life that we're part of. We shouldn't objectify humans. We shouldn't objectify rivers and earth and sky.

On Saturday, October the 14, we're going to be talking about 'what are our local vulnerabilities?' According to some research, we're positioned in a relatively good spot in the North Country here in a Goldilocks zone. I've heard Pennsylvania to Maine will be a good area to be in. How are we thinking about this?

How are we preparing that there could be climate migrants coming to the North Country? Do we have the infrastructure in place? How will we change? How will we adapt? There may be more storms. Is the Canton sewer— can it take those kind of extra storms? New York City can't. Can we? I don't know.

These are discussions we need to have and hopefully, engage local policymakers to think proactively into the future.