Cherishing the more-than-human world

Gillian and I (along with two others) are both involved in the creation of the monthly Iona services at All Saints Church in Kings Heath and recently we led a service called ‘Cherishing the more-than-human-world’.  This was prompted in part by the fact that July 24 was Earth Overshoot Day. This marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources exceeds what Earth can regenerate that year.  So, from 25 July until the end of the year, humans began consuming on ecological credit, deepening climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and global inequality. As the graph below makes clear, each year this date is arriving earlier and earlier. In 1971, it was 25 December. In 2024, it was 1 August. The earlier the date, the greater the ecological strain.  

Within these services we try to engage with issues and themes through words, music and making activities that enable us to share our experiences of faith and build community.   The Iona community off the coast of Scotland was founded upon the vision of working towards peace and justice for all and with this service we wanted to consider our relationship with the natural world in the context of climate justice.  We often involve art making activities as a form of wordless prayer, but in this service we simply gathered around a table of natural things (feathers, shells, flowers and dried leaves) and had a conversation.  Making space for this kind of genuine exploration of our lives in the context of faith and spirituality is really important to us, and to the church.  All Saints is planning to apply for Silver in Eco Church Awards in the near future, and worship is integral to this.  In my reflection before the discussion, I highlighted the way that historically, regarding humans as both separate and superior to the more-than-human world has led us to abuse the natural world and treat it as a resource, rather than nurture our interdependent relationship it.  A person who has interesting things to say on this is Robin Wall Kimmerer. 

“In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been and have had time to figure things out.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer (from Braiding Sweetgrass)