POINTSOFVIEW | AT HOME ON EARTH
By Kyle Kramer
Praised Be You, Our Mothers
Kyle Kramer
?
WANT MORE? Visit our website: StAnthonyMessenger.org
Francis and Pope Francis, I want to connect others have been on my mind and in my heart lately. A few months ago, more deeply with the earth as our mother. I’m trying to learn what that means. my beloved wife’s mom passed away. Cyndi grieves this loss at the same time she conLike our human mothers, Mother Earth templates her own changing role and identity gives birth to us all. She knits us together in her womb, growing the seeds of our being in as a mother of soon-to-be-adult children. My mother is still living, but age and a long her soil, forming us from the dust of ancient stars, gathering atoms and struggle with incurable cancer have left their marks. I worry molecules, imbuing them about her in ways I never with the divine miracle of life Generous and itself—this amazing organism did when she was younger that is our body, animated and more robust. strong as Mother Because mothers have by God’s breath and bearEarth is, she’s also been so front and center in ing God’s image. vulnerable, just Some mothers are neglectmy consciousness, I’m also like our human thinking a lot about our ful or even abusive, but most mothers. mothers instinctively nurture “sister Mother Earth,” as St. Francis of Assisi described and protect their children. So our world in his famous does Mother Earth. She pro“Canticle of the Sun.” Even vides everything we need to thrive, from the “various fruit with coloured though I’ve given most of my adult life to caring for the earth, I’ve mostly tended toward flowers and herbs” praised by St. Francis, to the breathable air, drinkable water, shielding the pronoun “it” rather than “she.” Maybe I was afraid of being heretical or anthropocenfrom cosmic radiation, and the vast array of tric. Or maybe, which I think is more likely, complex conditions that make life on this I’ve just been too up in my head. planet possible. Flourishing isn’t just about resources; it’s about community. Mother Earth connects A SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE us to the broader web of life and all of the But that has really begun to shift, especially as I’ve been connecting more with my own aging beautiful, reciprocal relationships that are the threads of that web. From the microorganisms mother and walking with Cyndi through the in our own gut biome to the society of fellow grief of losing hers. Following the lead of St.
16 • August 2021 | StAnthonyMessenger.org
ISTOCK IMAGES: TOP: NASTCO; RIGHT: MONKEY BUSINESS IMAGES
EarthandSpiritCenter.org
M
TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF KYLE KRAMER; TOP: SIDNEY BERNSTEIN/ISTOCK
Kyle is the executive director of the Passionist Earth & Spirit Center, which offers interfaith educational programming in meditation, ecology, and social compassion. He serves as a Catholic climate ambassador for the US Conference of Catholic Bishopssponsored Catholic Climate Covenant and is the author of Making Room: Soul-Deep Satisfaction through Simple Living (Franciscan Media, 2021). He speaks across the country on issues of ecology and spirituality. He and his family spent 15 years as organic farmers and homesteaders in Spencer County, Indiana.
