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Exhibition: Saving St Paul's: The Watch and the Second World War

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Exhibition: Saving St Paul's: The Watch and the Second World War

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A season for enchantment

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A season for enchantment

Anupama Ranawana considers how we can become re-enchanted with Creation this Creationtide.

1. What is ecological conversion?

As we enter the season of Creation this September, my thoughts linger on the fact that we are still very urgently in need of what is termed by those working faithfully on the ecological crisis as ecological conversion. 

Ecological conversion refers to an individual and communal process through which we, as persons of faith, attune our hearts and minds towards a greater love of God, each other and Creation (cf Laudato Si’). The concept is most often attributed to Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ but has been present within ecotheological writing for several years now. A key aspect of ecological conversion is working towards righting the relationships we have with God, with our neighbour and Creation. As John Paul II once asked, how do we become “more sensitive” to the ecological crisis? To this, people like Sally McFague, Ivone Gebara and Pope Francis would also ask, what are we actively doing to lessen this crisis? 

This is not only conversion at the individual level, but conversion that involves the whole community. In doing this we are motivated by the love that we have for Creator, for the world around us and for each other. This is a radical, outpouring of love that goes beyond nuclear family and just our own community. As Pope Francis stated in Laudato Si, “Social problems must be addressed by community networks and not simply by the sum of individual good deeds… The ecological conversion needed to bring about lasting change is also a community conversion” (LS 219). 

As part of doing this, many suggest that what we need to cultivate is a new kind of awareness. This awareness includes recognising the ways in which humanity has harmed and continues to harm Creation. Acknowledging this wrong includes repentance, and also finding ways to heal these wounds. A final part includes becoming re-enchanted with Creation. In this series of reflections, I will discuss what it can mean to become re-enchanted, and some personal moments in my own journey of re-enchantment.

2. Worms and rivers

It can be hard to feel a sense of enchantment in our everyday lives. Some argue that the reason why we do not feel this way is because our modern world is far too oriented toward greater efficiency, production and industry. Things like human labour and natural resources are working parts of the global economy and therefore we might not always engage with, for example, the sheer beauty of a river because it is also a source for things like food and a water supply. Therefore the river is also seen as something that has utility and purpose. When this is a predominant view, then it is easy to justify the constant use and exploitation of this river. So, perhaps, we detach ourselves from the river and its beauty, and magic, of what it says to us about the Creator, in order to be able to ‘use’ it. Some, particularly philosophers and theologians, argue that this dilutes our sense of wonder, and affects our ethics. 

So, in this reflection, I also join my voice to this need to become re-enchanted. This is not, of course, a way of saying that we must just idolise everything, but asking what we need to do to form a more connected and sensitive relationship with the Created world. 

Perhaps we can return to folk tales, folk songs, indigenous culture and long-held wisdom to find out how to do this. Or, while considering the harms we have done to Creation, also consider why we feel ethically able to be part of those harmful practices. We might consider what we need to allow to enter into our hearts and minds so that we become less comfortable with doing harm. What might we need to do to be affected by Creation that is interconnected and ensouled? 

An Orthodox priest who I admire greatly often speaks about watching worms turning the soil over and how this tilling process makes him think of the activity of giving life to life, and what he learns about redemption. He also uses it to teach his children and the children in his parish of the importance of worms and insects to preserving and maintaining our ecosystems, and why we should care for the ‘least of these'. Perhaps something we can do on a Sunday after worship - if we are lucky enough to have access to a green space - is to go and watch the worms turn the soil over.   

In the next two reflections I will provide some of my own personal approaches.

3. Warm in my bones

On an early morning in December 2022, I find myself seated quietly in the shallows of the Indian Ocean. I allow myself to relish the experience; the quiet before other humans awake, the soft calls of birds, the stray dog rooting around the beach eating leftovers from someone’s al fresco dinner, the waves lapping against the shore. I look at the vastness of the sea before me and allow myself to experience awe and wonder, that strange, terrifying sense of the Divine. I enjoy the feeling of the warm, salty ocean and the sensation of being warm in my bones. After several years in England and Scotland, I am finally back in Sri Lanka and this warmth is a sensation that had thus far only existed in my dreams. I say my morning prayers, with a heart and mind full of gratitude. I do not even mind the scuffling sound several yards to the right of me on the beach where a Bengal monitor is digging himself a nice warm sandy napping spot. I quiet the ten-year-old in me who is deeply frightened of all things reptile. 

The reverie only breaks when I remember that just a few miles to the north is a Port City development. This is a project that reclaims land from the sea in order to build a special economic metropolis in Colombo. The ecological and social impacts are numerous and have been the flashpoint of activism for many years, including the tireless work of faith-based communities. Even as I sit in my little pool, I can also see in the area around me the lines of erosion, the plastic waste several yards away. Up ahead I see the sign for a sea turtle conversation project that also tirelessly educates tourists and locals on what plastic waste does to marine life. My heart breaks and my mind is full of rage when I consider the totality of it all - how the island I love meets its death in so many ways. I look at the birds, the dog, the sea, the lizard. Are we not all bound by our desire for life? 

It is difficult to allow myself to experience these emotions because it affects my intellectual and spiritual life also. The same is true for all of us. Here, my sense of wonder and joy in the life-giving nature of the sea is in a head on collision with the grief and rage of the death that is visited upon it. I am recommitted to the work that I do, renewed in the answer I give every time someone asks me if rage is a destructive, violent feeling and therefore ‘not theological’. Here, re-enchantment and ongoing conversion occurs through allowing my theology to connect to my emotions.

Anupama is a young Asian woman with dark hair
Anupama Ranawana is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Durham.

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