Whose backs are against the wall?

Our charge became clear during the opening worship session. Right there in black and white one of the conference organizers had the wisdom to print the words of one my spiritual mentors Howard Thurman from his seminal text Jesus and the Disinherited. It reads:“The masses of men live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them? The issue is not what it counsels them to do for others whose need may be greater, but what [the Christian] religion offers to meet their own needs.”After reading the quote, the worship leader asked the group, “Whose backs are against the wall?” It seemed to me that The Spirit had conspired to contextualize the study on climate justice that I had the privilege to facilitate for the South Georgia United Methodist Women’s annual Mission U conference. GIPL was quite honored to be invited to facilitate the study for the lovely women and I was quite excited to be one of GIPL’s representatives. What I have come to discover over my last year of working with GIPL is that this environmental work is fundamentally about people. In more academic settings this work becomes about science and data. In more activist settings this work becomes about systems and policy. But at the intersection of faith and environment where GIPL lives this work is primarily about care; caring for God’s people, caring for God’s creatures, caring for God’s creation. This focus on caring for and caring about God’s people who suffer from the adverse effects of climate change and environmental degradation became extraordinarily clear to me when this group of Methodist women continued to ask questions about and show interest in the stories of the people who suffer. From the working folks in Juliette, GA dealing with adverse health effects of living near coal ash ponds to the dwindling tribes of the Cataract Islands dealing with the disappearance of their islands I was continually struck by the depth of the compassion these women displayed.As part of our closing prayer at the end of each of our four two hour sessions, I asked the group to write down the names of the people we encountered in each session to place on our makeshift altar in the front of the room, along with the results of their “praying in color”. In addition to absolutely loving the coloring exercise I watched the great care these women took to recall and re-member the names and stories of those who were suffering. I was particularly moved at the end of the two day experience when I began to strip the makeshift altar that sat at the front of our room. What I saw was not just names of every origin you could imagine but I saw letters and poems and sincere prayers honoring, lamenting, and interceding for the lives of people we had never met. Particularly the name Matafele Peinem figured prominently on our alter. Many were deeply impacted by a clip we watched of a mother from the Marshall Islands reading a poem she wrote to her child in front of the UN General Assembly.  This mother’s words cuts through all of the confusion and debate and apathy that might exists when it comes to climate change and environmental degradation. She directly answers the question posed at the outset, she stands up to say, “Me!” She proclaims loudly to the world “My back and my child’s back are against the wall.” She stares directly into the face of the faithful and asks, “What do you have to say about this?” Based on my time spent on the beautiful St. Simon's I know that at the very least these people of faith, these Christians, these Methodist, these women in South Georgia have a lot to say.  [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4fdxXo4tnY[/embed]