Guest opinion: 'Earth is in crisis from climate change, mass extinction, and pollution'

“I feel very close to God when I’m surrounded by nature. I love being alone by the water or hidden in the trees. I feel calm. I enjoy the beauty of life and being able to experience it,” wrote a young woman, a Florida Gulf Coast University student, during a class exercise I was conducting. In saying so, she was expressing a universal human experience.

Thomas Merton, one of the most influential spiritual writers of modern times, wrote in his journal: “Out here in the woods I can think of nothing except God, and it is not so much that I think of Him either. I am as aware of Him as of the sun and the clouds and the blue sky and the thin cedar trees.”

Popular poet Mary Oliver writes: “[H]ow can you help / but grow wise / with such teachings / as these--/ the untrimmable light / of the world, / the ocean’s shine, / the prayers that are made / out of grass?”

And Pope Francis, in Laudato Si’, his historic encyclical on the environment, offers this: “It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet.”

“Laudato Si’”, means “Praise Be To You,” an apt title, and is addressed to all people, not only Roman Catholics. Subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home,” it is a call to stewardship based upon an ecological spirituality expressed in the statements above and rooted in convictions of faith.

For Christians worldwide, September 1 through October 4 is the Season of Creation, a celebration in action and prayer to protect our common home. Lord knows, it needs protecting.

Earth is in crisis from climate change, mass extinction, and pollution. Laudato Si’ documents this and emphasizes that what imperils the well-being of the earth imperils the well-being of our neighbor and future generations.

Here in Florida, our waters are in crisis, too. We ranked first in a recent report for the highest total acres of lakes too polluted for swimming or healthy aquatic life. Eighty percent of Florida’s 1,000 artesian springs are impaired. Manatees died in tragic numbers in 2021, mostly because our pollution has killed the seagrass they feed upon. About 9,000 miles of streams and rivers are impaired with fecal bacteria, and red tides and blue-green algae blooms pose constant threats.

“Never,” the pope says, “have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years.” He asserts “a legal framework which can set clear boundaries and ensure the protection of ecosystems has become indispensable.”

In Florida, right now, there are efforts to amend our state constitution to grant all Floridians a fundamental “Right to Clean and Healthy Waters,” because our current environmental laws have proven inadequate. Stewardship takes many forms, and faith communities should view a constitutional right to clean water as providing a means of Creation Care our spiritual convictions call for.

Legally recognizing the fundamental right of citizens to healthy waters would better enable us to do what Pope Francis insists we must do: live within clear environmental boundaries so that our pollution doesn’t degrade what ultimately are God’s waters. We are stewards remember, not owners, and as stewards with this right, we can, when necessary, use the courts to compel the state to provide the protections Florida waters need.

Season of Creation activities remind individuals and communities of faith that they have a crucial role in protecting the natural world. In Florida this means healing our waters, and I hope that during this special season, faith communities will act and pray accordingly.

I hope they respond to the season as have parishioners of Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine who on September 1st held a “Rosary for the Earth,” and on October 2nd will hold a “Pilgrimage for the Planet.” They, like Unitarian Universalists statewide are advocating a “Right to Clean and Healthy Waters” by signing and getting others to sign the petition at FloridaRightToCleanWater.org.

I hope faith communities statewide will prioritize and organize efforts to do so, because, in David v. Goliath fashion, we need 900,000 signed petitions to qualify for the 2024 ballot.

And I hope non-Christian faith communities will do the same, because stewardship based upon ecological spirituality is as universal as sensing God in the natural world.

The Season of Creation highlights stewardship through action and prayer. With that in mind, every signed “Right to Clean and Healthy Waters” petition is an act of ecological spirituality, if it is meant to be, and every signed petition, like every blade of grass, is a prayer.

Joseph Bonasia is Chair of Florida Rights of Nature Network.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Right to clean water can aid spiritually based stewardship of Florida waters