My daughter has always been terrified of bugs, but she likes to help me in the garden. Earlier this spring, as we turned the soil to prepare our garden for planting, she noticed worms wriggling in the dirt and looked up with concern. I explained how the worms help us by aerating and composting the soil and that our garden would not be as healthy without them. She seemed mollified by this—and even a little intrigued—and, digging slowly, took care to work around the worms so as not to hurt them. We’ve spent the past months tending the garden, always greeting the plants and animals who make it their home, and last week, she scooped up a big worm to say hi before gently returning it to the earth.
Although a story of a 6-year-old overcoming her fear of bugs might seem insignificant in this divisive and intense political season, I am convinced that every time we nurture relationships with those around us—especially those we have “othered”—we help to heal our world. Further, there are a number of lessons we can learn from this about how to relate to one another politically, knowing that we are all creatures related to and dependent upon the same Earth. Attending to ecological principles can help us foster a political environment that reflects the unitive and incarnate love of God.
In Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home), Pope Francis echoes St. Pope John Paul II, calling us to an ecological conversion, “whereby the effects of [our] encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in [our] relationship with the world around [us].” Jesus, like us, was dust of the Earth, and in Christ, “all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). Taking seriously our origins as dust of the Earth necessitates the recognition that everything we humans do is a part of nature—we are not separate from but integral to the ecosystems that make up the web of life, which is held together in the body of Christ. If we are looking for common ground, we need look no further than the ground beneath our feet.
This reality invites us to consider whether our actions, systems, and worldviews reflect and nurture this web of life—or tear it apart. Healthy ecosystems depend upon biodiversity, reciprocity, and nondomination (or collaboration), and these are three ecological virtues that I urge Catholics to cultivate and bring to bear in political engagement.
Biodiversity is the term used to describe the incredible variety of life on Earth. We humans are but one species among millions in this abundant and mysterious web of life. Biodiversity thrives through mutual exchange among species. Ecosystems, which expand into biomes and beyond to shape the entire global community, are regions in which all living beings interact with one another and their local environments to ensure a reciprocal relationship, whereby each species receives what it needs to thrive and shares its gifts with others in return—each life using the resources it needs until it becomes a resource for others in the circle of life. United in this way, even predation and competition occur in the service of collaboration. When a species tries to take more than it needs, it becomes quickly apparent that its overreach is as destructive to its own flourishing as to the others around it, as the resources it once depended upon are no longer available to sustain it.
Theologically speaking, we believe in a God who is pure relationship—love transcending and incarnating matter, emerging in new ways and new relationships. As bearers of the image of God, we are relational all the way down. An ecological political ethic rooted in this relationality should motivate participation in community-building and citizenship—and the protection of the right to participation—as we attend to the needs and gifts of all in order to cultivate healthy ecosystems. Holding onto biodiversity, reciprocity, and nondomination as core values can help us challenge systems that pit us against one another or reinforce binary frameworks for problem-solving and policymaking. These values can help us avoid the traps of vilifying “the other,” exploiting others for our own gain, or treating politics as a zero-sum game.
My daughter’s proximity to the worms, her recognition of a shared goal (despite different approaches to achieving it), and her willingness to learn about the worms and their needs eased her fear and helped her approach them with kindness. Where previously she saw foes, she now found friends. Encountering others more intimately usually does calm our fears, which are often built around caricatures and a refusal to listen to others’ experiences.
What should we do, though, when we observe that others are not approaching political engagement in this way and, indeed, are weaponizing dangerous policies and rhetoric? We cannot simply ignore it under the pretense of virtue, like the “white moderate” Martin Luther King Jr. railed against in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Just as I weed my garden to prevent certain species from dominating and hoarding my garden’s nutrients, there must be a way to push back against invasive ideologies while remaining committed to the participation of all. But how can we claim coherently that our vision of the good is the right one?
We can start by attending to the body. Despite the diversity of views about what is good, we can confidently maintain that there are certain things all living beings need for their physical flourishing: water, food, rest, safe shelter, health care, freedom, and so on. These require systemic recognition of bodies as goods to be nurtured, and policies ensuring access to these universal needs are more effective in reducing abortion rates, for example, than laws attempting to prohibit abortion directly. Further, they require a reciprocal understanding that overconsumption and inequity are unsustainable, so the health of the planet is an integral consideration.
Maintaining this baseline reorients the political conversation from idealistic, metaphysical concerns to concerns about the reality of our lives and all the many lives with whom we intersect. Using this as a lens for policy analysis can help us move beyond the ideological and recognize our common ground.
Given that political extremism often grows out of a sense of isolation, exclusion, and powerlessness, learning to see ourselves as belonging to this living body—as integral participants in it—could serve as a critical means of defusing some of the anger as we contribute to systems and relationships built on love. While many of us do not experience a connection with the natural world as constitutive of our identity, our own bodies can offer a bridge.
By seeking out embodied action in community, we can nurture our sense of belonging to the Earth and one another. Volunteer at a community garden, connect with a mutual aid or buy-nothing group in your area, or join an outdoor club. Small steps such as these can facilitate encounters with neighbors, and they can help us remain attentive to the interconnectedness and interdependence that we share with the entire web of life.
In light of these ecological principles, we are challenged to transform ourselves and the systems we inhabit—to turn from self-serving and exploitative competition to collaborative mutual flourishing, rejecting power dynamics that reinforce hierarchies and thrive off exclusionary tactics, misinformation, or willful ignorance. Democracy is an important tool for this social transformation, as it is meant to empower all people equally to share in determining the good; at the same time, our democratic participation must be undergirded by ecological conversion, which grounds us in the awareness that human life is situated within broader ecosystems that call us to participate with love and reciprocity. By attending to these connections, we can, like my daughter, learn to overcome our fears and live into the reality of love that grounds us all. In this rooted love, we embody the kin-dom of God, the eternal love that draws the Earth and everything in it to abundant life.
This article also appears in the October 2024 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 89, No. 10, pages 21-22). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
Image: Unsplash/Julian Zwengel
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