Year: 2015

A Responsibility, Not a Suggestion

For many of us at Houghton College, the Faith & Justice Symposium is an annual reminder of the reality of the injustices that are present in the world we live in. This Wednesday, Reverend Tafue Lusama shared his powerful story of how climate change and sea level rise is affecting his home: the island nation of Tuvalu in the South Pacific. And yet his story is not limited to the South Pacific Island nations. The climate crisis that the citizens of Tuvalu are facing is the same crisis that members of every nation across the globe are facing: our world is changing and we must change with it, for better or for worse.

I could list overwhelming amounts of scientific explanations of how climate change is negatively affecting humankind, but the data, numbers, and jargon probably won’t change your life; those things didn’t change mine.

What changed my life? Experiencing reality changed my life. In the past two years I have seen how climate change has affected people’s livelihoods from the mountains of Tanzania to the Alaskan coast.  From climate scientist, Katharine Hayhoe, to my homestay parents in Tanzania, I have heard stories of climate change affecting individuals’ lives.

Climate change, I realized, is an injustice that has social, economic, and physical ramifications. And the greatest injustice of climate change is the reality that those who are affected the most have contributed the least to the problem. Once I connected these dots, I had a decision to make: do something or do nothing. There is no middle ground. I am – we all are – called to loving action, no ifs-ands-or-buts about it.

This call to action became real to me when I had the opportunity to lobby Representative Tom Reed’s staffer, Drew Wayne, to support the PREPARE Act (a bill  designed to help communities prepare for the dangerous effects of extreme weather) in Washington D.C. this summer. I was in the capitol for ten days to be trained as an Advocacy Corps Organizer for the Friends Committee of National Legislation Headquarters – one of eighteen young adults from across the country who joined together with the goal of bringing climate issues to the forefront of our Senators’ and Representatives’ attention.

My life has been changed by the stories I have heard on climate change, and I have realized that my voice, MY story, has  the potential to influence change. This is where you step in. You also have a voice.  When you see an injustice in the world that strikes you at the core of your being, it is not a suggestion, but a responsibility to respond.

Before you stop me and say that you don’t want to get involved in politics, I remind you that our government is designed for its people, regardless of what cynics may say. As I found out this summer, as a constituent of a district, you have a legal right to lobby your congressperson. Scheduling a visit may be challenging because of time constraints, but it is free. While you have to go through security to enter any of the House or Senate Office buildings, you can enter at any time. The only thing stopping you from talking to your congressperson or their legislative staff is you.

And here is where I lay it on thick: Reverend Lusama is here on a speaking tour of the United States to talk about how climate change is affecting his country, in an effort to encourage American people to act. Because even though his nation may be physically destroyed by rising sea levels, he does not have the ability to change American policy on climate change. Who does? Our Congress does. Who can talk to Congress? Citizens of the USA. What are you? A Citizen of the USA.
You have the ability to communicate the need for bipartisan action on climate change to Congress. Your voice, your story, your passion has the potential to make a difference, if you use it. Don’t waste your voice. I refuse to waste mine.

I love animals. Future plans of mine include living on a small farm, raising my own animals, and growing my own food. I loved animals so much in highschool I was vegetarian for two years, despite the health problems that arose due to a lack of protein.

In today’s culture there is a black and white answer in response to the cruelty animals endure within the meat packing industry: if you care, you’re vegetarian or vegan. If you eat meat, however, you must not care about what happens to animals before they end up on your plate. I bought into this way of thinking for years eating chicken with a guilty conscious, feeling a tug on my heart as I bit into a hamburger. It wasn’t until recently after watching a documentary, The Ghosts in Our Machines, that I realized that while God gave us animals to eat, He didn’t give us animals to mistreat.

The documentary aims to expose how horribly unjust the living conditions and the treatment of animals truly are within lab testing and industries such as meat packing, dairy farming, and fur trading. While it does indeed prove the horrific conditions and treatment of these it, also proves how much society needs these animals. Our society depends on these creatures, these God-given creatures, for nourishment and sustenance, yet we don’t bat an eye when they’re caged, beaten, and lined up for slaughter in a way that imitates the conveyor belt in the dining hall on which we line our used dishes. We treat these animals like dirty dishes. We objectify them.

Instead of seeing them as living, breathing creatures that are capable of feeling, we look at animals and see dinner. I’m not going to address the whole ‘do animals have a soul’ debate, but one thing is a given: animals feel. They feel physical pain just like you and I do. Pigs feel the pain in their legs from being caged and unable to move. Chickens feel the pain of fellow birds pecking them until they’re raw and bloody due to lack of space. Cows feel the pain of being branded with a hot iron, or metal clips in their ears. Animals feel pain.

My job at a small Christian camp this summer  gave me the opportunity to care for domestic farm animals such as pigs, chickens, goats, calves, and even ducks. Caring for these animals every day for two months led me to form a bond with these creatures, along with a strengthened sense of love and respect for animals in general. At the end of the summer my pigs, Harry and Lewis, were slaughtered. They were three weeks old when they arrived at camp, still small and shy. I played with them, fed them, loved them, petted them, and watched them grow, all while knowing they’d soon die.

Morbid? Slightly, but these animals were given everything they needed and wanted. They were loved, respected, and adored. This is the way God intended us to treat animals, not in a way takes away any connect or bond, replacing it with a production line. We have domesticated farm animals. They are dependent on us to nurture them, care for them, and feed them. However, when they turn to us for help meeting these needs, we slaughter them without a second thought. Much like the planet, we are called to watch over and care for the animals God has placed before us.  We can’t treat some animals we encounter (i.e. dogs and cats) with respect, and disregard the others. If we’re going to utilize them as a food source, which we have so readily done for centuries, we need to be able to respect and appreciate the role they play in life. People today care so much for the environment, and are actively taking steps to improve our way of living through creating and utilizing alternative energy sources. Aren’t animals part of this environment we care so much for? Shouldn’t we be fighting for both the humans and creatures of this planet?
I realize it’s difficult for us, as students, to afford farm raised ground beef, that’s not my challenge for you today, nor is it to stop eating meat all together. I’m challenging you  to be aware. Do your research, know that cage free doesn’t mean cruelty free, know which companies are committed to the humane treatment of animals. Take one day of the week and abstain from eating meat in a way of honoring the sacrifice and the treatment of the animals that have given you sustenance. As you bite into that hamburger, drink a glass of milk, or nibble on an egg, think of the animal that gave their life for you to be able to eat.  Say a prayer of thanks to God for providing us with ways to nourish ourselves, then pray that the senseless, inhumane killings of animals one day may cease. My wish is that one day you will be able to look at a cow and see, not a steak, but the beautiful, durable, complex creature that God gifted us with.

Before beginning my freshman year at Houghton I spent the summer working as a counselor at Northern Frontier Camp, a Christian ministry in the Adirondacks. Whether the sun was shining or the rain was pouring, every Saturday one of the directors would lead the entire camp in singing, “It’s a beautiful day, and I thank God for the weather. It’s a beautiful day, and I’m living it for my Lord. It’s a beautiful day, and things are gonna get better. Why? Cause I’m living each day by the promises of God’s word.” I looked forward to this moment every Saturday; however, during my fifth week at camp that simple song took on new meaning for me.

That Friday, I received a call from my mom informing me that her father was in the hospital having developed a severe cardiac condition. The next morning, I received another call and I learned that his surgery had not gone well and they weren’t sure how much longer he had to live. My immediate family had never suffered the loss of a grandparent before, and I could sense the deep pain in my mom’s voice as she told me this news. We cried together, and at that moment everything in me wanted to be home supporting my family. But I was at camp, and it was Saturday.

Before lunch started, everyone in the dining hall began to sing “It’s a beautiful day,” and I immediately experienced an intense feeling of anger; what right did these people have to naively sing about what a beautiful day it was when my grandfather and family were undergoing such acute distress? As I continued to sing through my tears however, I was convicted of something else. What right had I to so thoroughly enjoy this song every other Saturday, only to reject it when it no longer conformed to my emotional state and external circumstances? I was profoundly impacted by the unchanging truth of that song’s lyrics, even as I continued to experience the feelings of hurt and anger arising from my family’s situation.

This is just one experience out of several which have shaped my view of worship over the past three years. I believe that worship must be valued primarily as an expression of faith. Furthermore, I understand faith to be not an emotion, but rather a firm belief in something. Thus, expressing faith in something can be seen as an essentially cognitive act which does not require emotional confirmation in order to be authentic. Often when I worship, the lyrics or melody may not deeply resonate with me on an emotional level. Nevertheless, I still genuinely understand and believe in the truth of God’s glory as portrayed in the lyrics I sing. For me, worship consists of my deliberate decision to express that belief through song, regardless of how I may feel at the time.

The temptation to overemphasize the emotional dimension of worship is strong, especially since many contemporary worship songs are extremely effective at invoking a specific emotional response. This emotional aspect of worship is in no way wrong in and of itself; when the gospel choir performs in chapel, the feelings of joy and excitement which they so often inspire are a wonderful blessing. The danger lies in our tendency to associate a specific emotional response with an “authentic” worship experience, and then experience disappointment or guilt when such emotions are absent. Instead, God invites us to bring all of our emotions before Him, both the positive and the negative, while deciding to focus on what we believe to be true.
For an individual who attends a church service or Koinonia while struggling through the unthinkable, the sense of euphoric bliss toward which modern worship so often seems to strive may appear completely inaccessible. And that’s okay. In our broken world, the act of worship should not be expected to purge from its participants the emotions of fear, anger, and loneliness. Rather, God is glorified through our deliberate declaration of praise even when the words we speak come nowhere close to expressing the doubt or pain which we may feel in our hearts.