The Case of the Poison Peony
Any second now, the peonies in the Cathedral garden will bloom. The buds are fat, fat, fat, and I look at them with longing every time I am there. They are my favorite flower, so voluptuous, so extravagant in their generosity of bloom and scent. If someone made a peony-scented perfume that really smelled like the blossoms, you'd be able to track me throughout the town, because I'd be wearing it all the time. If it smelled, that is, like the flowers when they are growing in a garden, not like the pink one I stuck my nose into last week at a flower stand only to inhale a snootful of insecticide. Eau de Raid. It was shocking.
A real peony smells like a far-away rose on a misty day...no, like a sweet whisper...no, like... gee whiz! How does Luca Turin manage to describe aroma so exquisitely? It is sweet. Delicate. Somewhat sticky in a good way. The petals are cool and silky. In what kind of world is it possible for a peony in bloom to smell like a poison?
Why, in the kind of world we have created, my dear.
Last night at the Cathedral, we celebrated a special evensong, Evensong and Ecology.The Right Reverand Mark Sisk, Bishop of New York, officiated. The choir sang music by John Ireland and Grayston Ives. There in the darkening church, believers of many faith traditions prayed for the earth, and for our awareness, compassion, and willingness to change, to come together, to protect her. The passage from Genesis (Gen. 1:29 - 2:3) was read in Hebrew by Rabbi Lawrence Troster. A meditation on Holy Quran was intoned hauntingly in Arabic (a language that to me sounds like water pouring on rounded stones) by Mujadid Shah. Chandrika K. Tandon chanted a Sanskrit hymn to the Mother Goddess. After a sermon preached by Mary Evelyn Tucker of Yale University, we closed with a beautiful Litany for Peace written by Thich Nhat Hanh. "Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other", we said, " Let us plead with ourselves to live in a way which will not deprive other living beings of air, water, food, shelter, or the chance to live."
Let us plead with ourselves.
After the service, we were shown a new film, Renewal, which is an introduction to what people of different religions are doing all over this country about the destruction of the natural world that is taking place right now, as I am writing this, as you are reading it. For me, one of the most exciting aspects of this film is the entrance of evangelicals into the ecology movement. We all know this group of people to be powerful, politically canny, and religiously conscientious. I have long held the belief that when the evangelical community bites into Biblical earth stewardship, they will not let go, and they will have a tremendous positive effect.
After the film, my friend (and former neighbor in the Adirondacks) Bill McKibben spoke. In 1989, Bill published The End of Nature, the first book about global warming written for the general public. Since then he has published many other books about sustainable living, all of them wonderful and empowering. Bill is an articulate and passionate speaker. He spoke at length about how much more dire the situation is now than had been predicted back when global warming was a new phrase, how much more quickly destructive change is happening than anyone had imagined possible, and how narrow our window of action is. He has founded 350.org, an international movement that plans worldwide symbolic actions to take place this coming October 24th to demonstrate that we are serious about saving our earth (and saving our skins!).
Let us plead with ourselves.
Consider joining the 350 movement. Watch Renewal. Talk with your neighbors, your band members, your congregation, reading club, soccer team, drinking buddies, fellow dog run folks, EVERYONE. We have everything to lose. Already there are toxic rivers, dead prairies, stripped forests, decapitated mountains.
And poison peonies.