The Episcopal Sisters of the Community of the Holy Spirit on the upper West Side of New York are transforming their convent into one of the most eco-friendly buildings in New York City.
We in the West – about one in six people globally – typically see ourselves as consumers. More is better. Newer is better. The most and the newest is best. McFague reports that 93% of U.S. teenagers say shopping is their favorite pastime and that the U.S. has an amazing sixteen square feet of shopping space per resident.
I believe that this community… will combine Franciscan and Benedictine charisms, as well as the central insight of the new monasticism: “inhabiting the abandoned spaces of empire.” Appalachian communities find it hard to forget how American prosperity comes at great price to the land and people of our region. Rather than focus on these deficits, we choose to focus on assets like family, faith, community, a rich artistic heritage, and the land.
About 640,000 palm fronds, ordered through the University of Minnesota’s eco-palms program, will be distributed this Sunday in some 2,500 congregations. That’s a jump from 360,000 eco-palms that were shipped to U.S. congregations last year and from just 5,000 palms in 2005.
If Earth Hour happens only once a year, and for one hour, then it is a huge failure. Worse than that, the whole feel-good propaganda around it distracts many people from the serious danger the environment is in. It is almost like giving a placebo to a very sick patient. It is a medication that does nothing concrete, but takes away fears from people’s minds and allows them to go back to their daily environmental unfriendly activities, once the Earth Hour is over.
Until he states clearly that powerful people in his own Communion don’t believe human activity contributes to global warming, and that he appeases these people so that they won’t split the Communion over the issue of homosexuality, he has little credibility on this matter.
The Community of the Holy Spirit has designed a newer, smaller convent that will be both simpler to maintain and significantly reduce their carbon footprint. This comes after a decade of increasing environmental awareness to their ministries of teaching and spiritual direction.
While in the house, residents will engage in several environmental and religious activities, including growing and harvesting their own individual plots of land, buying produce from local farmers markets, participating in group prayer sessions and committing to community service project
It wasn’t on CNN, but last month hundreds of theologians, activists, and indigenous people came together in Brazil to envision a new world; the gathering stressed diversity and sustainability, migration, and climate change.
In the Zohar, God says to Noah: “Foolish shepherd! I lingered with you and spoke to you at length so that you would ask mercy for the world! But as soon as you heard that you would be safe in the ark, the evil of the world did not touch your heart. You built the ark and saved yourself. Now that the world has been destroyed you open your mouth to utter questions and pleas.”