When it comes to the climate crisis, I used to think that what we needed were more prophets. I thought we needed more Isaiahs to embody justice and speak truth to power—more Don Quixotes to inspire our imagination for how the world could be. Prophets were my rock stars, and with stakes so high, I wanted to see more of them holding protest signs, engaging in nonviolent direct action, and speaking to the state of the world with holy anger.
Now, I’m not so sure.
There’s an important place for prophets, to be sure, but the more I learn about spirituality, transformation, and ecology, the more I suspect that there may be something crucial missing.
Some background may be helpful here. I was ordained as a pastor in a progressive Christian tradition in 2018. If you don’t remember, 2018 was a fantastic year. Just… so mellow. Every headline was some variation of Donald Trump Does Something Racist or CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL AND IT’S GOING TO KILL ALL OF US! Border patrol had just started separating migrants from their children. For the next two years, we would struggle with a global pandemic topped off with an attempted coup and a nationwide existential crisis…
Ah, yes. Fond memories.
Practically, this meant that I entered pastoral work with a near-constant internal pressure to make everything I said, planned, and preached in some way “prophetic.” How could I not? Every day, the foundations were revealing more cracks, and it was obvious that the church needed to play a more active role in calling for justice and equity. Accordingly, every sermon was a call to action. Every book study was about some dire justice issue. Every newsletter advertised a protest or highlighted some way the church at large could do better… I think my strategy, in retrospect, was to anxiety my congregation into change, and the result, as you might’ve guessed, was not fantastic. There was burnout, resentment from both sides, meetings called, emails sent, and, ultimately, a short-lived career in the pulpit. “We don’t need a prophet right now,” I remember someone trying to explain to my deaf ears. “We need a pastor!”
After I left the church world, in an attempt to recoup and reconfigure my life, I took refuge in the world of chaplaincy. (What else does one do with an M. Div. and a desire to get away from church for a while?) I thought it would be temporary—something to do while I sorted out a more sustainable career in writing or teaching. However, the longer I spent in the world of spiritual care, the more it started to put my previous work into perspective. For years I had been exhausting myself trying to be a prophet, but in the hospital—where everyone was already neck-deep in crisis—I quickly learned that they didn’t need some angst-driven chaplain telling them what to do. That only ever made things worse. Instead, I learned that they needed an understanding companion to help re-construct meaning when their familiar stories were falling apart. They needed a safe space to feel the feelings that threatened to overwhelm and paralyze them. They needed someone to remind them that they had choices and could take agency. In short, I came to realize that they needed the same thing that my congregation had been asking for. They needed what I needed, although I didn’t know it.
I also realized that in a season of eco-anxiety and climate catastrophe, these may be the things we all need…
