5% better!

What would it be like to see Isaiah’s vision come true, with God’s holy mountain so filled with peace that everyone could live in harmony with all living creatures?  It’s a big vision of peace.  Not too practical when we struggle to even have dogs and cats share the same household without too much ruckus!

Peace seems like a far off pipe dream in this day and age.  We may be aware of the challenges of listening to family members driven by conspiracy theories, or watching the latest news from Ukraine wondering when it will end.  We may be arguing with friends who deny climate change or we may be struggling with climate grief, the latest buzz phrase to explain the complex emotions we have when we think about all the smoke this summer.

There’s a lot of grief out there.  When we hear of people who adopted pets during the Covid lockdowns now turning their pets back to animal shelters, it’s obvious that for many, ‘pet therapy’ didn’t work for them.  Or maybe it worked in the short term but not for the long haul.  Our pets are not served well when we use them to fill holes in our lives that they are not capable of filling.  The French word for pet is “animal de compagne” or animal companion.  Not a toy or a replacement child, or even a form of emotional therapy. A companion who has a limited vocabulary mostly around treats and feelings.  Learning how to have a healthy relationship with a pet is not easy, and many people found that out the hard way during Covid.  Some gave up, and some persisted.

We are as a world, addicted to quick fixes that will solve our problems.  All too often, those fixes only touch the surface of what we are dealing with.  We can get easily overwhelmed with all the challenges that we as a community and as a world are facing.  Rev. Dianne Strickland, a retired United Church minister and traumatologist, told Alberta congregations that 76 percent of Canadians had experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives, and described living through Covid as a collective traumatic experience that we all had.

That might have been in the past, but it still echoes in our lives two years later.  When we hear of a potential salt shortage, we rush to the stores to buy salt, only to find the shelves empty.  Our use of plastics is being reduced now that we know how dangerous they are, and we may feel anger that this change is being dictated by new government policies.  And people are trying to organize a boycott of Canadian schools who teach that all people are worthy of respect regardless of gender.  But that too can lead to anger, confrontation, grief and a loss of peace.

We humans like to be complacent, and it is not easy to restore once our complacency has been challenged.  We long to be like the goldfish swimming calmly in its bowl, the canary singing in its cage safe from predators, the horse that can bask in the sun and graze at its leisure.  But we are not animals.  Our brains, very similar to our feathered and furred and scaled friends, is bigger and more complicated.  Our relationships with each other are much more complicated too.  Finding peace and comfort with our neighbors is not done in the same way as an alley cat having a fight with another tomcat. 

Jesus gave wise advice for complex humans wanting peace.  Don’t fight on Facebook or through a bunch of texts or e-mails.  Talk to the person directly with the intention of looking to build peace and understanding.  If that doesn’t work, ask for help.  In small towns, we tend to avoid conversations like that.  But like adopting a pet during Covid, it can mask our pain and grief and lead to avoiding the real issues rather than working together to find solutions.  In congregations, that may mean having a conversation with our ministry and personnel committees.

And keep our big picture in mind.  The big picture that Isaiah painted where there is so much peace that even a rabbit can cuddle up without fear to a big wolf and a mouse can play with a cat.  And that big picture doesn’t need big actions.  It can be as simple as buying a small solar panel to help charge phones and small items.  It can be as small as remembering to bring those reusable grocery bags to the store.  It can be 5% better.

It can be as simple as asking to go for coffee with someone and really listening to what is going on for them.  It can be as simple as putting out seeds for birds, or taking your pets to visit others who don’t have pets.  Living with respect in creation, a phrase of our United Church Creed, reminds us that it is about our attitudes and intentions as much as it is about our actions.  When we love our pets and treat them with respect as the companion animals they are, when we don’t treat them as objects to fix our surface problems, and work together, we are participating in building that beautiful dream where all will live in peace in God’s great community!