A Rocha USA Blog

As Boomers (and Hulu fans) will remember, the Dragnet detective was famous for his deadpan, cut-to-the-chase approach: “Just the facts, ma’am.” Good for police work; not so much for prompting change—environmental or any other kind. To do that, we have to aim for the heart, not just the head.

Consider any number of modern maladies: obesity, HIV/AIDS, drug addiction, etc. All are “treatable” with facts: “A leads to B. Avoid A, you avoid B.” All are still rampant.

Or ponder the health of planet Earth. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’ Red List:

• Thirty-eight percent of known species are currently threatened with extinction.
• The current extinction rate is approximately 1,000 times faster than the “background” or natural rate.
• One species goes extinct every 20 minutes.

Care only about people? Consider these sobering statistics:

• Sixty percent of Earth’s “ecosystem services,” which process our wastes and provide us with air, water and food, are seriously degraded and cannot be maintained at this pace. (United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.)
• Some forty percent of deaths worldwide are caused by pollution of various types. (Cornell University)

If facts alone were enough to convince us--and by extension our institutions and societies--to change, surely these would do the trick. They haven’t.

Nor, I must add, has a clear understanding of what the Bible says on the subject. We now have countless books, sermons and seminars on creation care. The facts are in. The theology is settled. God really does care about God’s creation and told humankind to take care of it. And still we Christians argue, waffle and ignore.

Despite the failure of both science and theology to affect change, those of us in the conservation arena—both secular and faith-based—continue to act as if they will: “All we need is for people to understand!” At best, we are like rubes speaking louder and slower to force English on a Frenchman. At worst, we’re poster children for Einstein’s definition of insanity.  We keep talking at the head, when we should be speaking to the heart.

How do we do that? In a word: relationship.

Marketers, of course, know how to tug at our heartstrings. Photos of the starving child or the polar bear cub have their place, I suppose. But a true change of heart—one accompanied by lasting changes in attitude and behavior—requires more. It requires relationship. By inviting people into relationship--with those of us who care about the creation, with the creation itself, and especially with the Creator—we begin to speak to the heart (as opposed to merely pulling its strings). And the heart begins to listen. Someone may be uninterested in environmental protection, but an afternoon weeding and watering the community garden with a person who is both loving and passionate about growing things changes the conversation. I may know nothing of the mercury poisoning our rivers, but time on the water with a winsome and knowledgeable guide can't help but enlighten and inspire me to care. Relationships —more than facts, theology or anything else—change our hearts and then change our actions.

To Christians, this should come as no surprise. It is, after all, how God does it.

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going… and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives is today expressed in consumptive terms…we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.

This October marks A Rocha’s 10^th official anniversary in the USA. I say “official” because many a seed was sown long before that first board meeting October 16, 2000 in our living room in Arlington, Virginia. In his book, Kingfisher’s Fire, which I’ve been rereading of late, A Rocha Founder Peter Harris recalls some of that jet-lagged sowing—from meetings with kindred spirits like Au Sable Institute’s Cal Dewitt and A Rocha USA’s own future founder Ginny Vroblesky to debates with snarling critics like the man who declared, “The Reformation happened to stop people like you!”

Whether warm welcome or cold, however, Peter and his lovely wife Miranda kept coming back to the States, spurred on by the quixotic desire to tilt against American Christendom’s unholy exports of prosperity gospel and rampant consumerism that wreak havoc on people and planet alike by blessing and fueling “aspirations to the kind of wealth which can only be achieved by over-exploiting creation.” And with each return, they watered and weeded and waited, until at last those seeds began to sprout--A Rocha USA poked out.

To continue with the gardening metaphor, the 10 years since have seen yet more watering and weeding and waiting; a (budgetary) drought or two; and now, at last, the first fruits of harvest—projects in 8 communities across the nation with more on the way; education and training programs; and, most encouragingly, growing acceptance by the Church of the biblical mandate to care for the Earth.

In celebration of this milestone, A Rocha USA is having a party—a big party. In fact, we’re inviting 10,000 people to join in the celebration by becoming a fan of A Rocha. It’s simple. It’s quick. It’s free (though if you want to throw a couple of bucks in the hat by the door, who are we to object!) And it’s oh so clever: 10^th year, 10^th month, 10,000 fans. All you have to do is click here and “like” us on Facebook and then ask your friends, family and colleagues to do the same. And make sure to ask your crazy aunt that forwards every chain email to everyone in her address book.

Okay, I admit that it sounds a lot like high school; but just think what 10,000 people could do to help spread the word and build the movement to care for this amazing, yet increasingly damaged Earth! Community gardens planted. Streams cleaned. Forests protected. And more--much, much more. Here in the United States and around the world.

Just think.

And then act—please.

The Earth is hurting. Creation is groaning. We need all hands on deck.

So, please take a half a minute and help spread the word; help heal the planet.

As Peter Harris puts it, “No other context for A Rocha is changing faster than the USA one and maybe no other change is destined to have a greater impact on environmental conditions worldwide.”

Let’s do this.