Coming together for positive change

A beautifully written article by the Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren recently explored the complexity of this season for her.
She notes Advent’s “countercultural sparseness [and] silent stillness. The music turns to minor keys and becomes contemplative, even mournful. The Scripture readings are apocalyptic and trippy, strikingly short on sweet tales of babies, little lambs and Christmas stars…”
“For Christians, Christmas is a celebration of Jesus’ birth – that light has come into darkness and, as the Gospel of John says, “the darkness could not overcome it.” But Advent bids us first to pause and to look, with complete honesty, at that darkness. Advent offers wisdom to the wider world. It reminds us that joy is trivialized if we do not first intentionally acknowledge the pain and wreckage of the world…”
“Our response to the wrongness of the world (and of ourselves) can often be an unhealthy escapism, and we can turn to the holidays as anesthesia from pain as much as anything else. We need collective space, as a society, to grieve – to look long and hard at what is cracked and fractured in our world and in our lives. Only then can celebration become deep, rich and resonant, not as a saccharine act of delusion but as a defiant act of hope.” (Want to Get Into the Christmas Spirit? Face the Darkness, The NYT, Nov. 30, 2019)
This year there is much to ruminate on, with the recent COP25 climate talks failing to make progress on much needed stronger carbon emission targets amid dramatic natural upheavals, after record breaking fire years in Australia and the Amazon and exponentially escalating ice loss in the poles.
Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates said, “You really can’t let people’s need for hope get in the way of the telling the truth.”
Rachel Riederer, inspired by Wallace-Wells’ The Uninhabitable Earth, explores some of the difficult psychological reasons for our society’s dangerously lax response to the climate crisis (The Other Kind of Climate Denialism, The New Yorker, March 6, 2019).
The psychologist Renee Lertzman notes we are in an “arrested, inchoate form of mourning” keeping us from action, that requires not only acknowledging our feelings, but also, more difficultly, our culpability in all of this: “We have to come to terms with the fact that what we’re doing is no longer sustainable, and the onus is on us to rise to the occasion.”
“What works really well is when people feel that they are invited and inspired to be part of something constructive, combined with having the safety to grapple with the magnitude of things,” Lertzman observed.
There has been a groundswell of people coming together in local and area groups to achieve positive climate action, including Creemore’s CLEAN and Collingwood’s CCAT. Another positive development is seeing this movement in established service groups, such as the Collingwood Probus Green working group. Nature groups such as Birds Canada (their annual bird count, working with the Audubon Society, takes place over the holidays), the Blue Mountain Watershed Trust, The Nature League, and local horticultural and tree societies are other venues that can help make a difference.
In the spirit of this holiday season, “buy less and buy local” seems particularly pertinent. Some sustainable Christmas suggestions from the plastic Grinch for those still in need include Baggu-style shopping bags (small enough to always have on hand, super strong), travel mug, travel spork, shampoo bars (if you have not yet tried these – Unwrapped Life brand is amazing!), proper razor, bamboo toothbrush, and NO lumps of coal ever ;). All of these items are available at local retailers. (Ideas inspired by “Recycling isn’t Working – 15 Ways to Shrink Your Plastic Footprint,” The Guardian, Nov. 27, 2019).
Other green gift ideas: Donations in honour of those who are in need of nothing (many great local endeavours to support, from art/music/writing community classes underwritten through the PHAHS initiatives with Sara, Brad, and Emily, to the First Nations work of Water First); or experiences, which offer memories and time to get together (e.g. tix to concerts at Avening, the Gayety, Simcoe St. Theatre, or Meaford Hall, local plays by Dan Needles, Shipyard Kitchen Party, or Theatre Collingwood, the Be the Change or Collingwood Cinema Club films, and the Lifelong Learning series, among many others. For kids – outings together e.g. skating at a cool outdoor circuit, or going to a cultural, scientific or sports event). When a physical gift is preferred, well considered books (e.g. The Uninhabitable Earth ;), consumables (e.g. homemade or locally made goodies, soy/beeswax candles), and locally made creative work can be useful and inspiring. An awkward favourite, regifting (that friend who really does look good in a forest green sweater 😉 and thoughtfully picked secondhand items are now au courant! Using recycled gift bags, cool fabric wraps, and good old newspaper (The Creemore Echo Christmas edition is perfect!) are some sustainable giftwrap options.
“The light of hope must outlast the fires of hate. That’s what the Hanukkah story teaches us. It’s what our young people can teach us – that one act of faith can make a miracle, that love is stronger than hate, that peace can triumph over conflict.” (Barack Obama, 2014).
Wishing everyone a peaceful and inspiring holiday season.