waiting For the Ark
1999
Woodcut
4 ft x 5 ft
ENQUIRE
‘Waiting for the Ark’ is set in the 21st century Anthropocene where the animals are being displaced by the humans in an age of mass extinctions on an unprecedented scale because we have stolen their food and stolen their land claiming it as our own.
Here the animals wait for the ecological arc to keep them safe on the ravages of humanity, pointing to a different possibility as to how we might treat the other than humans with whom we share this planet with.
Christianity has for the most part turned its back on the earth and the creatures to live it in, as it has been more concerned with getting to heaven, and the physical has been neglected in favour of the spiritual. The biblical mandate at the beginning of Genesis 1 -28 that says ‘fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ This is in my opinion one of the most abused verses in the bible and when seen against the back drop of the age of the Anthropocene where humans have used and abused this planet in the extreme causing mass extinction of creatures on a global scale alongside a climate crisis that threatens to destroy us all, then it becomes clear that we have not become good stewards of the earth as was instructed a few verses later unless it suited our own agenda .
A Christian thinker that had a big influence on me when it came to thinking about responses to the changing environment, we live in is the Dutch theologian Hans Rookmaaker who was a professor at the free university of Amsterdam writing extensively about the relationship between Christianity, Art and Contemporary culture . Rookmaaker taught the spiritual principles of ‘Weeping, Praying, Thinking and Acting’ in that order and although his work does not specifically speak about the Climate crisis, we find ourselves in (he died in 1977) the core pillars of his teaching is in my opinion very relevant to the age we live in today and especially when thinking about ecological challenges we face today.
If any discussion or interaction around the collapsing ecologies of the world, either on a personal, societal or global level is to have a lasting impact it has to start from the position of weeping. Put simply we have to really feel the pain of the world in order for our hearts to be moved enough to take some kind of action. Many of us suffer from eco anxiety and have thus become frozen solid with a sense of futility because the problems facing our world ecologically are so great it is easier to ignore , to numb, to distract, to look away. However, if we really look around us and open our minds and heart to what we have done to the other than human life then what else can we truly do other than weep at what we have lost and are destroying daily. In the increasing secular culture of the western world, we have for the most part lost touch with the spiritual dimension of life. Spirit and matter have been separated with disastrous consequences for our environment, which has been used, abused and trashed as a resource for human ‘progress’. The statistics are staggeringly bleak and scary in our age of human induced mass extinction where we are literally killing and displacing much of what is around us so that humans can ‘thrive’ and grow ‘rich.’ If we stop seeing water as sacred, then we shouldn’t we dump sewage into it. If air is not sacred, then what is stopping us from polluting it. If animals, insects and birds are seen as having no spirit , then why shouldn’t we kill them with our pesticides . If fish are not sentient beings, does it matter if we hoover them all up, or turn them into industrially farmed commodities of profit and consumption.
For Rookmaaker weeping is the beginning of a call to action and for him the next stage to meaningful any action is prayer. Prayer as an activity is not about religion but about conversation with the web of life that we are intrinsically a part of . In our age of spirit denying logic that has tried its hardest to close off access to the spiritual realm’s prayer can help us to open the channels of communication that have long been closed been closed. When we can fully weep for the world, our hearts can start to be opened and we realise are not at the top of nature or separate from nature , but that in fact we are nature. Prayer is at its most effective when its starting point is weeping.
In our secular culture most discussions about how to solve the environmental tragedy that is unfolding around us start from the position of thinking, which is ultimately an expression of our humancentric view of the world where we consider ourselves to be the head of nature and thus able to solve it by logic and theorising , a position that is also propagated by Christianity.
According to Rookmaakers four pillars thinking is at its most effective when we start from the positions of weeping and praying. If weeping breaks us open and prayer offers a means of heart expression and communication, then thinking engages our logical brains in terms of learning, theorising, strategizing and understanding. When we understand something of the problem facing us then we can start to use our individual gifts to start to do something about them.
Weeping, praying and thinking without action is only part of the equation, we have to act by using the gifts we have been given, whether we are scientists , philosophers , politicians or creatives.
This planet is the only home we have, and as we destroy our home, we are simultaneously destroying ourselves alongside and everything else that lives alongside us . Weeping, praying, thinking acting in that order is in the opinion of Rookmaaker the starting point for any meaningful change of direction to take place for many of the challenges facing us today.
Here the animals wait for the ecological arc to keep them safe on the ravages of humanity, pointing to a different possibility as to how we might treat the other than humans with whom we share this planet with.
Christianity has for the most part turned its back on the earth and the creatures to live it in, as it has been more concerned with getting to heaven, and the physical has been neglected in favour of the spiritual. The biblical mandate at the beginning of Genesis 1 -28 that says ‘fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ This is in my opinion one of the most abused verses in the bible and when seen against the back drop of the age of the Anthropocene where humans have used and abused this planet in the extreme causing mass extinction of creatures on a global scale alongside a climate crisis that threatens to destroy us all, then it becomes clear that we have not become good stewards of the earth as was instructed a few verses later unless it suited our own agenda .
A Christian thinker that had a big influence on me when it came to thinking about responses to the changing environment, we live in is the Dutch theologian Hans Rookmaaker who was a professor at the free university of Amsterdam writing extensively about the relationship between Christianity, Art and Contemporary culture . Rookmaaker taught the spiritual principles of ‘Weeping, Praying, Thinking and Acting’ in that order and although his work does not specifically speak about the Climate crisis, we find ourselves in (he died in 1977) the core pillars of his teaching is in my opinion very relevant to the age we live in today and especially when thinking about ecological challenges we face today.
If any discussion or interaction around the collapsing ecologies of the world, either on a personal, societal or global level is to have a lasting impact it has to start from the position of weeping. Put simply we have to really feel the pain of the world in order for our hearts to be moved enough to take some kind of action. Many of us suffer from eco anxiety and have thus become frozen solid with a sense of futility because the problems facing our world ecologically are so great it is easier to ignore , to numb, to distract, to look away. However, if we really look around us and open our minds and heart to what we have done to the other than human life then what else can we truly do other than weep at what we have lost and are destroying daily. In the increasing secular culture of the western world, we have for the most part lost touch with the spiritual dimension of life. Spirit and matter have been separated with disastrous consequences for our environment, which has been used, abused and trashed as a resource for human ‘progress’. The statistics are staggeringly bleak and scary in our age of human induced mass extinction where we are literally killing and displacing much of what is around us so that humans can ‘thrive’ and grow ‘rich.’ If we stop seeing water as sacred, then we shouldn’t we dump sewage into it. If air is not sacred, then what is stopping us from polluting it. If animals, insects and birds are seen as having no spirit , then why shouldn’t we kill them with our pesticides . If fish are not sentient beings, does it matter if we hoover them all up, or turn them into industrially farmed commodities of profit and consumption.
For Rookmaaker weeping is the beginning of a call to action and for him the next stage to meaningful any action is prayer. Prayer as an activity is not about religion but about conversation with the web of life that we are intrinsically a part of . In our age of spirit denying logic that has tried its hardest to close off access to the spiritual realm’s prayer can help us to open the channels of communication that have long been closed been closed. When we can fully weep for the world, our hearts can start to be opened and we realise are not at the top of nature or separate from nature , but that in fact we are nature. Prayer is at its most effective when its starting point is weeping.
In our secular culture most discussions about how to solve the environmental tragedy that is unfolding around us start from the position of thinking, which is ultimately an expression of our humancentric view of the world where we consider ourselves to be the head of nature and thus able to solve it by logic and theorising , a position that is also propagated by Christianity.
According to Rookmaakers four pillars thinking is at its most effective when we start from the positions of weeping and praying. If weeping breaks us open and prayer offers a means of heart expression and communication, then thinking engages our logical brains in terms of learning, theorising, strategizing and understanding. When we understand something of the problem facing us then we can start to use our individual gifts to start to do something about them.
Weeping, praying and thinking without action is only part of the equation, we have to act by using the gifts we have been given, whether we are scientists , philosophers , politicians or creatives.
This planet is the only home we have, and as we destroy our home, we are simultaneously destroying ourselves alongside and everything else that lives alongside us . Weeping, praying, thinking acting in that order is in the opinion of Rookmaaker the starting point for any meaningful change of direction to take place for many of the challenges facing us today.