Facing a world on fire

If I told you I’ve come to believe that the best way to respond to the climate crisis is the cultivation of the contemplative life, I’d expect raised eyebrows. You might reasonably reply that, no, now is the time for action, both corporately and individually, rather than contemplation. I hear that. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen knows we have reasons for disquiet about the future of our planet. The crisis we’re facing should, one might argue, stimulate any right-thinking person to fresh social and political action. In contrast, the word contemplation carries implications of retreat, of detachment and cool consideration.

I hear the insistence that contemplation, whatever its place as a therapeutic response to eco-anxiety, does not represent a serious public action to address our climate emergency. I wonder, however, if such a reaction relies on a misrepresentation of the word contemplation. Rowan Williams recently pointed out that the word contemplation is intimidating. It has, he says, too many syllables. The very word makes us think contemplation is both difficult and too esoteric to be practically valuable.

Theoria, the Greek root for contemplation, means “watching” or “looking.” This suggests that contemplation is not so much about stilling ourselves or heading inward in order to find better strategies to cope with the world. Rather, it is about paying attention to what is really going on. And according to theologian Janet Soskice, “attention is rewarded with reality.”