At Home in the Web of Life

Introduction:

Twenty Years Ago

Some 20 years ago, with the help of the people of Appalachia, the Catholic bishops of the region issued a pastoral letter called This Land is Home to Me.[2] Since that time more than 200,000 copies have gone all over the planet. Now, 20 years later, we offer an anniversary message.[3]

In the original pastoral letter, after listening to voices of the region, we wrote about

- the mountain people,

- their suffering,

- their strength,

- their oneness with the rest of nature,

- their hunger for justice,

- their poetry and music,

- their precious mountain spirit,

- and their deep love for God.[4]

Now, 20 years later, we praise all the wonderful things that so many good folks have done to defend the Appalachian land

as their home. In particular we praise the work of many Catholic sisters, as well as many lay church workers, who heard the call of our first pastoral letter and came to the region

Sustainable Communities

In this letter we wish to explore the new tasks which lie before us, particularly the task of creating or defending what are called "sustainable communities." to learn from the local people and to share their own gifts.

"Four Sisters of Mercy came to a rural Virginia town to work with local people. Soon after they came, the local exhibition coal mine closed. In response, the sisters started working with the local townspeople and with the local Catholic parish. Together they established the Center for Christian Action to revitalize the town. They soon turned the abandoned exhibition mine into a tourist center. They also established a library, a literacy program, a training program for home courses, a craft shop, programs for youth and elderly folks, and began a series of community celebrations on major holidays. When the town's only pharmacy closed, they opened a medical bank. A full-length feature movie and a television commercial were filmed in the town. The local townspeople are still expressing their creative leadership." Carolyn Brink, RSM

We also praise the strong leadership of so many heroic Appalachian people, especially women, who have struggled to defend those precious people and places which they call kin and home.[6] All across the region, so many have worked so hard:

§ community organizers,

§ union members,

§ church ministers and congregations,

§ members of women's groups,

§ local business people,

§ and whole families.

We also wish to thank the Campaign for Human Development, a foundation funded by the U.S. Catholic people. In the past twenty years, this body has contributed more than four million dollars to more than one hundred projects to help Appalachian communities in their struggles to protect their families, their homes, and their land.[7]

"Mountain women are surviving regardless of the tremendous odds stacked against us. We are realizing the importance of an education… to further enhance our job opportunities, for our own personal satisfaction, but most importantly, survival… We felt the pain coming from the women suffering from the abuse of domestic violence and from the wives of alcoholics and from women depressed who feel lost, alone, like no one on this earth cares. Imagine what courage it took to speak up and tell their fears, the strength it takes to continue on." Gayle Combs, from In Praise of Mountain Women[8]

These are communities where people and the rest of nature can live together in harmony and not rob future generations.[9] Creating such communities is important, because it now seems that the industrial age of Appalachia, so marked by coal mines and steel mills, is coming to an end. Many giant industrial corporations have left the region.

As the industrial age ends, a new "post-industrial age" is beginning. This new economic age, caused by the electronic revolution with its computers and satellites and faxes, brings its own new fears. Many thoughtful people worry that in the post-industrial age Appalachia will no longer be sustainable. They fear that Appalachia may become a place only for large scale unemployment, the death of small local business, clear-cutting the forests, destructive strip-mining, dumping out-of-state garbage, even dumping toxic radioactive materials, and warehousing prisoners from the cities.

In this unsustainable path for the future, Appalachia would become a waste-land. If this path were to be followed, the local ecology including the people would be devastated.

Yet on the hopeful side, we have also heard

"One rural Appalachia county was so broke that it faced imminent closure of its entire school system. The county needed $300,000 to keep the schools open. At the same time an out-of-state garbage firm was courting county officials by projecting revenues to the county of $350,000, if they allowed them to haul in garbage from around the country. Local citizens organized, stopped the out-of-state garbage proposal, and managed to convince the state to keep their schools solvent through the year. But they didn't just say no to the dump. Citizens from a grassroots organization in the county led a three-state empowerment zone planning process, and are now building a business incubator focused on food products. Additionally, they've helped two local farmers start subscription organic farms, and are in the process of developing business training materials adapted for lower income rural people."

Anthony Flaccavento[10] many creative Appalachian voices, who have proposed an alternative future for the people and the land.

These creative people speak of

§ sustainable forests,

§ sustainable agriculture,

§ sustainable families,

§ sustainable livelihoods,

§ sustainable spirituality,

§ sustainable communities.

In this alternative and sustainable path, the land and its people flourish together. If this path were to be followed, then God's sacred Appalachia would remain a precious and beautiful home.

A Culture of Death or Life?

The unsustainable and fearful path was well described, we believe, by Pope John Paul II, when he criticized modern Western culture as spawning "a culture of death."[11]

This culture of death sees Appalachia just as a deposit of "resources," to be measured only in terms of money:

§ its mountain forests like lifeless piles of "raw material" to be stripped and shipped off elsewhere to feed the consumer society,

§ its empty coal mines like forgotten and meaningless pits to be filled with endless garbage from the consumer society,

§ its unemployed people available as cheap labor to guard the countless imprisoned people, themselves cast off by the consumer society.

"We are confronted by an even larger reality, which can be described as a veritable structure of sin. This reality is characterized by the emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases takes the form of a veritable culture of death.' This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic, and political currents which encourage the idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency . . . . In this way a kind of conspiracy against life' is unleashed."

Pope John Paul II The Gospel of Life[12]

By contrast, the sustainable and hopeful path sees Appalachia as a community of life, in which people and land are woven together as part of Earth's vibrant creativity, in turn revealing God's own creativity.

In the vision of this path, the mountain forests are sacred cathedrals, the holy dwelling of abundant life-forms which all need each other, including us humans, with all revealing God's awesome majesty and tender embrace;

- empty mines are sacred wombs of Earth, opening pathways to underground rivers and to life-giving aquifers, in turn running beneath many states, and needing to be kept pure and clean as God's holy waters;

- and the people are God's co-creators, called to form sustainable communities, and to develop sustainable livelihoods, all in sacred creative communion with land and forest and water and air, indeed with all Earth's holy creatures.

It is this alternative path, we believe, which John Paul II described as the true path of the future, and rightly called "a culture of life."[13]

Broader Implications

We do not see this conflict between a culture of death and a culture of life as simply an Appalachian crisis. Rather we see the Appalachia crisis as a window into a larger crisis which now threatens the entire society, including the middle class, and indeed the full ecosystem across the entire planet.

The conflict between a culture of death and a culture of life is a profoundly moral crisis. Pope John Paul II warned us of "… a moral and spiritual poverty caused by over development.'" The Pope declared that "… a sense of religion as well as human values are in danger of being overwhelmed by a wave of consumerism."[14]

Further, this same struggle of all society between a culture of death and a culture of life is also played out at the intimate level in personal relationships. Here the culture of death invades our very souls through addictions and co-dependencies, often leading to abuse and violence, especially against women and children.[15]

But the culture of life, rooted in the power of the Spirit of Jesus who "was raised from the dead . . . (so) we too might live in newness of life," [Romans 7:4] also touches our very souls and leads us to new life where despairing persons can begin recovery, wounded relationships can be healed, families can be strengthened, whole communities can be renewed, and the web of life can again flourish.[16]

Natural and Social Ecology

Amidst this whole crisis, we believe it is important to stress both natural ecology and social ecology, that is, a sustainable community which embraces humans and all other creatures.

This way of sustainable community, both for people and the rest of nature, has long been cherished by women and indeed has largely been a gift from women.

Recalling an ancient women's phrase, the US Catholic bishops have recently described this way of community as "the web of life."[18]

We too do not see the crisis of nature as separate from the crisis of the poor, but see both as a single crisis of community. For the land and the poor people are victims together of the same materialistic consumer society, which promotes the culture of death. It does this by undermining all community, by frequently treating people and the rest of nature as if they were useless waste from the throw-away consumer society.

"Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment, people everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in the past… [A] new ecological awareness is beginning to emerge… The ecological crisis is a moral issue." — Pope John Paul II The Ecological Crisis[17]

"Above all, we seek to explore the links between concern for the person and for the earth, between natural and social ecology. The web of life is one." US Catholic Conference — Renewing the Earth[19]

Over against this culture of death, and in the name of the culture of life, we insist that all people and the rest of nature form but a single and precious ecosystem, created by the God in whom "we live and move and have our being." [Acts 17:28]

The Gift of Appalachia

Here the tradition of Appalachia is a gift to us. For, from time immemorial, the original native peoples of Appalachia and later the settlers who learned from them have not been enemies of the land, nor of poor folk.

Rather they have been friends of the web of life,

· who loved the hills and hollows,

· who treaded gently on the soil,

· who cherished clean running streams,

· who breathed deeply fresh mountain air,

· who cared for humble kin and friends,

· and who worshipped the God of creation.

So the humble people of Appalachia are teachers to the rest of us, who see ourselves as technologically efficient, but often know so little about how to be truly at home in God's holy web of life.

In this regard, we remember how Jesus taught us that it is the humble and poor who best understand the word of God. Thus we read in the Epistle of James: "Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?" [James 2:5]

Choose Life

Our reflection will again have three parts:

- the land and its people,

- the Bible and the Church's teachings,

- the present call of the Spirit.

In all of this, we are haunted by the message from God which Moses set before the children of Israel to choose life rather than death:

I have set before you life and death,

the blessing and the curse.

Choose life, then,

that you and your descendants may live.

[Deuteronomy 30:19]

In response to this ancient message, we believe that we are still called

· to defend Earth and the poor together,

· to learn from the wisdom of both,

· to care for God's single web of life.

In these tasks the land and the people of Appalachia are once again a precious gift to us all.

Creation is God's Word

As we seek the path of sustainable community based on the oneness of land and people, it is helpful to remember that all creation is itself creative, for it reveals the creative word of God. It is not itself the incarnate word like Jesus, and it is not itself God. But all creation is nonetheless a revelation of God to us. Thus the Bible declares:

The heavens proclaim your wonders, O Lord,

and your faithfulness,

in the assembly of the holy ones . . . .

Yours are the heavens, and yours is the earth:

the world and its fullness you have founded . . . .

Justice and judgment are

the foundation of your throne;

kindness and truth go before you.

[Psalm 89: 6, 12, 15]

As Chapter 1 of Genesis tells us, God "said" that the water and the land, and the plants and the animals, and finally we humans, should all appear, and so we did.

Thus the water and the land, and the plants and the animals, and we humans too, are all expressions and revelations of God's word of creation. All creation, including ourselves, truly speaks the beauty and goodness of God. All creation truly shows the loving face of the Creator.

Further, within this creation, we humans, both women and men, are a special revelation, for we are created in God's own image.[20] To be created in God's own image means that we are called to care in love for our precious Earth, as if Earth were God's own garden, just as God cares in love for all creation. In seeking a culture of life rather than death, let us take a moment to reflect more on God's revelation in creation. Let us reflect on the story of Appalachia, of its mountains and forests in relation to our own human presence.

Revelation of the Mountains[22]

To say that creation is revelation means that the splendor of the Appalachian mountains,

- their valleys and coves,

- their ridges and hollows,

- their skies and forests,

- their rocks and soils,

- their rivers and streams and springs,

- their plants and animals,

all show us God's glory, all tell us of God's beauteous presence.

"To me the mountains are very beautiful. I just love to climb a mountain and get up there and see the facing, and go over and over again, and every time see something different. It's got a different look, and it's all beautiful except where man has destroyed it."

Piercy Carter, from Mountain Voices

These Appalachian mountains are among the oldest on Earth. They first emerged perhaps a billion years ago, when all the continents were still one, and when Africa was still connected to North America's east coast. Perhaps 600 million years ago, after the continents separated, seas covered much of these mountains. Then some 300 million years ago the mountains again rose to form the present Appalachian Range. Stretching from Newfoundland in Canada to Alabama in the American South, these mountains make up the spiny backbone of the east coast of North America.

Over millions of years, where the Ice Age never reached, winds and rains softened these mountains, made them more round and gentle, and carved within them so many valleys and coves, and ridges and hollows.

To dwell within these mountains is to experience

- in their height, God's majesty,

- in their weight, God's strength,

- in their hollows, God's embrace,

- in their waters, God's cleansing,

- in their haze, God's mystery.

These mountains are truly a holy place.

"I like to get out and walk. I'd prefer walking and going to the mountains. I've been studying strong of goin' back up there on the mountain to Face Rock again; I haven't been up there in years. I really like the mountains myself. And the further back in the mountain I can get to live, the better I like it."

Ruth Settles, from Mountain Voices[23]

Revelation of the Forests[24]

Also beginning millions of years ago, as Earth brought forth mountain forests, God became present in the abundance of life. Particularly in the Southern Appalachian Range, we find great North American hardwoods:

oaks and hickories and maples,

locusts and poplar and cherry,

and once an abundance of chestnut.

Overall there dwell here more than one hundred species of trees.[25]

So too with the other plants of this forest. Here flourishes one of the richest biosystems in the world. Indeed the woods are full of food, medicinal plants and glorious flowers. We recall especially

berries and nuts,

mountain laurel and rhododendron,

azaleas and mountain magnolias,

blossoms on tulip poplars and black locusts,

ginseng and yellow root.

Then there is the boundless animal life. Once these mountains were home to elk and wolf and bison and mountain lion. They are mostly gone now, wiped out by hunting and loss of habitat. Though some species are even now threatened, we still find here

white-tailed deer and black bear,

rabbit and raccoon,

possum and squirrel,

wild turkey and countless song-birds.

"When I was growing up, it seemed to me that the fern on the mountain was there just for that purpose; and the fern was beautiful. And it was there _through the woods,

beautiful woods, big timber over it and undergrowth, big trees everywhere, and this beautiful fern just grew like a paradise, almost, you know, naturally without any help. You couldn't raise anything that beautiful if you undertook it, to save your life you couldn't."

Raymond Presnell, from Mountain Voices

To live in these mountains and forests, and with their trees and plants and animals, is truly to dwell in Earth's community of life, as one of God's awesome cathedrals. In this magnificent work of God's creation,

misty mountain haze is holy incense,

tall tree trunks are temple pillars,

sun-splashed leaves are stained glass,

and song-birds are angelic choirs.

The Native Peoples[27]

We humans too reveal the glory of God.[28] Together with the mountains and forests, and with the plants and animals, we humans join creation's praise of God in the choral song of the web of life.

Perhaps 10,000 years ago, the first humans came to these mountains. These earliest native peoples lived in the flatlands near the mountains, and used the mountains only seasonally for hunting and for gathering. These ancient peoples had a deep spirituality of the web of life.

Perhaps 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, the native peoples developed agriculture. They grew corn and beans and pumpkins and other squash. But they still journeyed to the mountains for hunting and trade.

In the mountains, they also gathered nuts and plants for food and medicine. They quarried stone for tools. They even cleared small meadows, through controlled fires, to create open space for animals and plants. Indeed these native peoples helped nature to flourish even more.[29]

Later great native tribes developed. To the south there dwelt a powerful tribe, the Cherokee. To the east, the Catawba, as well as the Monacans and Manohoacs. And to the north, the Delaware and the Shawnee, and the great Iroquois confederation. Indeed the very name Appalachia is a native word.[30]

The Colonial Settlers

Then, in the modern era, there came Europeans and Africans. After the American Revolutionary War, some former soldiers went to the mountains, where they received land in place of pay. So too did escaping slaves.[32]

Many of the soldiers and freed male slaves married native women. These indigenous women were strong figures. For example, among the Cherokee, women had many rights and great power. This native root is one source of Appalachia's valiant mountain women.

The original European settlers, often Scots-Irish, brought their own gifts to the mountains. Now Talking God… Beauty is before me

And beauty is behind me.

Above and below me

hovers the beautiful.

I am surrounded by it.

I am immersed in it.

In my youth I am aware of it.

And in my old age I shall walk quietly

The beautiful trail.

Native American Prayer, Earth Prayers[31]

The only time I ever remember being alone with Aunt Bertha was the time we squatted together in her strawberry patch, poking through the many green leaves looking for the few red, juicy berries. Her laughter and delight when we found a cluster of berries! I was too much in awe of her square, high-cheeked Indian face so close to mine to pay much attention to the berries.

Patsy L Creech, from

In Praise of Mountain

Women Gathering

We still love their Celtic melodies, as well as folk instruments like the fiddle And we still admire their crafts, particularly their stunning quilts. These early settlers carried an ancient "green" Celtic spirituality, rooted in the living spirit and splendid beauty of God's holy creation.

The freed African slaves also brought their rich spirituality: echoing in the rhythm of the drum the maternal heartbeat of all creation, singing great songs of faith and praise to celebrate the wonder of all creation, sharing also in song their harsh suffering and valiant resistance, and proclaiming in magnificent preaching God's own majestic word.

These Native, Celtic, and African spiritualities are all important roots of mountain religion.

In the 1700s, more colonists came across the mountains or down the valley from Pennsylvania. Often they had roots in the British Isles or in Germany. These settlers brought firearms and steel tools, which they traded with the native peoples.

In the 1800s, with tragic injustice, the federal government drove many of the native peoples westward, often at the cost of their lives. The most infamous story was the Cherokee "Trail of Tears."[35]

Mountain people are religious. This does not necessarily mean that we all go to church regularly, but we are religious in the sense that most of our values and the meaning we see in life spring from religious sources. Formally organized churches that the early settlers were a part of required an educated clergy and centralized organization, impractical requirements in the wilderness, and so autonomous sects sprang up. These individualistic churches stressed the fundamentals of the faith and depended on local resources and leadership.

Loyal Jones, Appalachian Values[34]

At this time, many black and white settlers adopted native babies left with them so the infants would not starve.

Still, the mountain people loved freedom. Indeed the Underground Railroad, the secret route for escaping slaves, ran through these mountains. For everyone knew that in general the mountain people were no friends of tyranny or of slavery.

The mountaineers tried to farm the land, but the soil was thin and erosion heavy. As the soil wore out, they moved higher into the hills. There they lived in great poverty, but also in creative simplicity.

And they lived in isolation from outside society, but they became close to land and kin, and with a strong sense of independence, yet with a rich sense of family and roots.

Possessing seeds, tools, and often a Bible, the women gathered and preserved, the men hunted and timbered,

and both gardened. Though they owned few goods, many were works of art, like lovely quilts, or ever present musical instruments.[36]

They made the most of natural gifts from the material of the forests, and from the fruit of their gardens. They learned well from the native peoples, including the ways of natural medicine.

"Great pride was taken in the past in good craftsmanship in the design, quality and beauty of wood in a chair, the inlay and carving on a rifle, the stitchery, design and variety in a quilt, the vegetable dyes in a woven piece. Much time was put into making household utensils attractive. There was fine exceptional craftsmanship in items which were beyond necessities, such as in the banjos, fiddles, and dulcimers which were played with great skill. Appalachian people have perpetuated or created some of the most beautiful songs in the field of folk music."

Loyal Jones, Appalachian Values[37]

The Industrial Age[38]

In the modern industrial age, beginning in the late 1800s, giant corporations came to the mountains, especially with the railroad. First they came for timber, and then even more for coal.

These corporations recruited outside labor, both from the South and from other countries, especially to work in the mines:

- Italians and Slavs,

- Germans and Irish,

- Lebanese and Hungarians,

- and more African Americans.

Sadly, in rejection of God's teaching that all humans make up only one family, the coal camps were divided, with most white European Americans separated from African and Native Americans, and also with Italian American immigrants initially set apart from both groups.

But together these workers built a new unity in our country's labor movement. In this new industrial age, however, Appalachia lost its economic independence. The land, its timber, and rights to its minerals came under the control of outside corporations.

Late in the industrial age, as the coal mines began to automate, machines replaced human workers, whole coal towns were left without jobs, and the land was often left devastated. Then new industries came to Appalachia in search of cheap labor.

"My dad worked for 42 years for the same coal company…When he retired, they never even said thank you, and then they fought him on his black lung (disease benefits) until he almost had to die to get it… They say, Men in McDowell County don't work, they're unionized, they don't believe in working.' That's not the men I grew up with. They worked day and night. If that mine worked 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, they worked. They went for additional training. They were some of the most highly-skilled industrialized laborers in the world. (Then) they mechanized… The coal mines had destroyed faith. There's no work. There's no safe haven for our families any more because houses are falling apart. Even if they have the skill, they don't have the money to get the materials to repair them."

from hearing sponsored by the

Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston[39]

They brought textile and clothing factories. But the new jobs were not enough. Millions of unemployed people migrated out of Appalachia, especially to cities like Detroit and Chicago, in search of work.

The Post-Industrial Crisis

Starting in the 1960s the industrial age of blue-collar workers, like miners and factory-workers, began to end.

In its place there began to arise a new electronic era, oriented especially to information workers, but also exporting labor-intensive work to distant countries where labor was cheap and often brutally oppressed.

At the same time new developments in communications and transportation began to spread the urban consumer way of life even to remote towns of Appalachia. The federal Appalachian Regional Commission promoted roads and highways to connect the region on the inside and to open it up to the outside.

With the new developments, still more people came to Appalachia:

- older people seeking retirement,

- middle-class managers and professionals,

- Hispanic-American workers,

- Asian-American workers.

These new folks expanded the richness of Appalachia's people. With new highways it was hoped that "development" would come to the region. By and large "development" did not come. And now so many good people found themselves without work. The post-industrial crisis was already starting.[40]

Yet large super-stores did come to Appalachia. They brought new consumer goods, but unfortunately they also often

- undermined local businesses,

- drained capital from the region,

- weakened local government,

- bled resources from smaller rural towns.

They also fostered the modern consumer society, the very opposite of Appalachia's old traditions of artistic simplicity and creative crafts.

At the same time coal companies increased strip-mining, again highly mechanized, and often destructive of natural ecology. Then, too, giant machines began to clear-cut the forests and to send the lumber elsewhere. The new damage was greatest in the precious rural areas.

Meanwhile, in remote rural areas, other outside companies began to try to turn Appalachia into a place to dump out-of-state garbage the waste of the consumer society.[41]

These same remote rural areas have also been identified as places for countless new prisons, where human beings from distant cities, often victims of inner-city unemployment, are being dumped off, as if they were social waste.

Meanwhile local governments, especially in remote rural counties, are being tempted to depend for revenues on the dumping of out-of-state waste, or else on new prisons, as the only way of creating jobs.

In sum, the new economic system appears to be trying to turn Appalachia into a social and natural dumping ground, exploited in a post-industrial way which threatens the very web of life. Such an economic path is not the way of sustainable community.[42]

At a Crossroads

Because across so many Appalachian counties this unsustainable economics threatens the community of life across both natural and social ecology, the region now stands at an historic crossroads.

The very idea that economics should threaten both natural and social ecology is a contradiction.

For the word "economics," comes from the Greek oikos and nomos, which together mean "ordering of the home." Similarly the word "ecology" comes from the Greek oikos and logos, which together mean "logic of the home."

"Our criminal justice system is failing. Too often, it does not offer security to our society, just penalties and rehabilitation to offenders, or respect and restitution to victims. Clearly, those who commit crimes must be swiftly apprehended, justly tried, appropriately punished, and held to proper restitution. However, correctional facilities must do more than confine criminals; they must rehabilitate persons and help rebuild lives. The vast majority of those in prison return to society. We must ensure that incarceration does not simply warehouse those who commit crimes but helps them overcome the behaviors, attitudes, and actions that led to criminal activity. The answer is not simply constructing more and more prisons but also constructing a society where every person has the opportunity to participate in economic and social life with dignity and responsibility."

US Catholic Bishops

Confronting a Culture of

Violence[43]

How can economics and ecology, as the logic and order of the home, be mutually opposed? For the "home" is only one place.

In our regional hearings, we could not help but feel people's deep anxiety, as they face this crossroads.[44]

Countless folks told us about their worries:

- lack of good jobs,

- smaller paychecks in remaining jobs,

- large amounts of unemployment,

- a harder time making ends meet,

- young people having to leave the region,

- people in their prime despairing,

- lack of health care,

- local businesses closing,

- whole towns dying,

- great pressures on families,

- increased drug and alcohol abuse,

- violence against women and children,

- more crime, murder, and suicide,

- abandonment of families,

- the elderly being left alone,

- contamination of the waters,

- clear-cutting of the forests,

- destructive strip-mining,

- pollution in the mountain haze,

- flooding in the hollows after erosion,

- acid rain in the high altitudes,

- and so much more.

And, at the intimate level, tragically those who are so victimized sometimes fall prey to rage and despair, and sometimes wrongly express their anger in crimes against themselves and others, even in violence against women and children.[45]

To all this we add our own worries that, as the social and ecological crises increase, a new selfishness spreads across the land, and not only in Appalachia.

We see this more broadly in

- abandonment of the poor,

- increase of racism and scape-goating,

- demands for more and more guns,

- growing use of the death-penalty,

- campaigns for abortion and euthanasia,

- regional wars across the planet.

One main reason for these worries is that we are now struggling between:

- the death of the modern industrial age, and

- the birth of a postmodern electronic age.[46]

As we enter this dangerous transition, it is now clear that the industrial working class and much of the corporate middle class are, as they say, "downwardly mobile." Jobs are disappearing and income is falling.[47]

It is also clear that in American society, in terms of wealth as well as income, the top has been gaining and the bottom has been losing.[48]

Which Path to Choose?

In this new context is the special place of Appalachia now to be reduced to a dumping ground? Are we to forget and even obliterate: the ancient struggle of Earth to birth these mountains?

The industrial economy can define potentiality, even the potentiality of the living topsoil, only as a fund, and thus it must accept impoverishment as the inescapable condition of abundance. The invariable mode of its relation to nature and to human culture is that of mining: withdrawal of a limited fund until that fund is exhausted. It removes natural fertility and human workmanship from the land, just as it removes nourishment and human workmanship from bread. The land is reduced to abstract

marketable qualities of length and width, and breadth, to merchandise that is high in money value but low in food value.

Wendell Berry, Home Economics[49]

the long evolutionary journey of life which burst forth from them?

- the gifts of the ancient Native Peoples, whose presence still graces this region?

- the simple and spiritual colonial culture which grew out of the meeting here of Native, European, and African peoples?

- the sacrifices and struggles of generations of farming and mining families?

- the gift of God which is this precious region called Appalachia?

Increasingly it seems that the deepest conflict across Appalachia, and indeed around the world, is at every level between those who support sustainable community, and those who undermine it.

In this anxiety-laden moment, we believe that the people of Appalachia, like the whole nation and all the world, now face two alternative paths.

1. In one path, which is not sustainable, Appalachia would be devastated by uprooted outside capital and by uprooted inappropriate technologies, unaccountable to local communities and converting people and the rest of nature into waste from the consumer society.

2. In the other path, which is sustainable, the people and land of Appalachia, using their own rich gifts in social and ecological cooperation, and taking advantage of the new tools of the electronic age, would form authentic local communities rooted in God's sacred web of life.[50]

Standing now at this crossroads, along with the people of Appalachia, we do not immediately turn to action, but first stop to listen to the life-giving Word of God.

Choose Life!

Today, in the face of a culture of death, we search for a path of life. In the face of an unsustainable society, we seek sustainable communities.

To guide us in this search, the Holy Spirit urges us to remember that God gave us two revelations:

- the revelation of creation, expressed in the whole universe; and

- the revelation of redemption, expressed in Jesus and his grace.

But there is only one world, both created and redeemed, and only one God, both Creator and Redeemer.

Those who seek only the God of redemption, and forget the God of creation, are not serving Jesus, the life of the world. Thus the Gospel of John teaches us that

"All things came to be through him and without him nothing came to be… he was in the world, and the world came to be through him."

[John 1:3, 10]

Love for Creation

As the book of Genesis tells us, God made a rainbow covenant not simply with humans, but with all living creatures. In this covenant, we humans are not separate from Earth. "I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings . . . "

[Genesis 9:13 15]

In the book of Genesis the Hebrew word for "Earth" is adamah, while the Hebrew word for "human" is adam. So we humans are Earth-creatures. Thus, using a literal translation, we read in Genesis 2:8 that The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and God planted there the Earth-creature whom God had formed.

So too in English the word "human" is related to the word "humus," and also to the word "humble."

When we humans are humble, we are faithful to who we are, children of our mother Earth. With her we are all creatures of the one Creator and Redeemer.

One Catholic Christian who celebrated God as Creator and Redeemer was the famous Italian, Francis of Assisi, so devoted to the poor, and recently proclaimed by Pope John Paul II as the patron saint of ecology.[51]

Praise be to Thee my Lord

With all thy creatures,

Especially for Master Brother Sun,

Who illuminates the day for us,

And Thee Most High he manifests.

Praise be to Thee my Lord

For Sister Moon and for the Stars.

In Heaven Thou has formed them,

Shining, precious, fair.

Praise be to Thee my Lord for

Brother Wind,

For air and clouds,

Clear sky and all the weathers,

Through which Thou sustainest

All creatures.

Praise be to Thee my Lord for

Sister Water.

She is useful and humble,

Precious and pure.

Praise be to Thee my Lord for

Brother Fire,

Through him our night

Thou dost enlighten,

And he is fair and merry,

Boisterous and strong.

Praise be to Thee my Lord

For our sister Mother Earth,

Who nourishes and sustains us all,

Bringing forth diverse fruits

And many-colored flowers and herbs

Francis of Assisi

Canticles of the Creatures

Another medieval Catholic Christian mystic, Hildegard von Bingen, a Benedictine abbess in Germany, whom Pope John Paul II called "a light to her people and her time (who) shines out more brightly today," also poetically praised the God of creation and redemption[52]

Sin and its Healing

Yet by our sin we humans

have attacked God's beloved creation,

both socially and ecologically.

The evil power of our sins

has spilled over into human institutions,

and has also wounded God's holy creation.[54]

"We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now…"

[Romans 8:22]

Thus, the deep root of the social crisis, that is, the wounding of the poor, and the deep root of the ecological crisis, that is, the wounding of the Earth, can be found in human sin.

For what is the oppression of the poor, or still worse their abandonment, but a rejection of the God of love? And what is the destruction of the Earth but another rejection of the same God of love?

According to the Bible, the breaking of living communion between humans and the land is linked to the sins of idolatry and injustice, which the prophets constantly denounced.[55]

The fire has its flames and Praises God. The wind blows the flame and Praises God. In the voice we hear the word

Which praises God. And the word, when heard, Praises God. So all creation is a song of Praise to God.

Hildegard of Bingen, Letters[53]

The healing of social and ecological sin requires, therefore, both our reconciliation with the land and our reconciliation with the poor. Gratefully this reconciliation is already given to us in the person of Jesus.

Jesus is the healing revelation of God's abiding love for creation. the Gospel of John again teaches us, For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…

[John 3:16]

We will not see the completion of this healing until Jesus comes again in glory. But while we wait, we are called in the power of the Spirit to announce Jesus' coming by working for justice and peace, and for the integrity of creation.[56]

Fortunate are those

who have the spirit of the poor,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven . . . .

Fortunate are the gentle,

they shall own the earth.

Fortunate are those

who hunger and thirst for justice,

for they shall be satisfied.

[Matthew 5:3-657]

Catholic Social Teaching

Just as the God of love is the God of community, so we as a community need to try together to understand God's teaching about how creation should be honored. We try to do this through the tradition called "Catholic social teaching," frequently expressed in papal encyclicals.[58]

In this tradition, asking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and in dialogue with the community of faith, we try to interpret God's word for today's society. This tradition, we believe, is a rich resource for us as we seek to find a path of life based on sustainable communities.

Here we offer a brief summary of the present state of this teaching, in the form of ethical principles, particularly as they apply to Appalachia.

Human Dignity

A first principle is human dignity. This principle reflects the biblical teaching that we humans are made in the image of God.[59]

Human dignity is a key ethical foundation for sustainable community. Because of God's image within us, every human person has the right to all that is needed to guarantee human dignity.

Also all persons have the duty to defend human dignity for themselves and for others, and to bring to fulfillment by their own gifts and efforts all that the image of God implies.

The deepest meaning of the image of God within us is that we are co-creators with God, that we share in God's own creativity.[60]

"The honest acceptance of people is the most durable, the most easily recognized characteristic (of mountain people). I would account for it solely on the basis of Calvinistic theology, which emphasized the good in the presence of the human personality. That had to be respected in the face of the man and in the face of the woman."

Cratis Williams, from Mountain Voices[60]

Yet the consumer society rejects this teaching.[62] It tries to convince us

- that we are what we buy and consume

- that our joy is not from our creative power,

- that we need what others say we need.

The consumer society is a direct attack upon the image of God within us, and an attack on justice, peace, and ecology.

Community

The second principle is community, sometimes referred to as "the common good, "expressed at every level from the family to the whole human race, including Earth's whole community of life.[63]

The principle of community flows from the revelation that God is a community, a Trinity of three persons in one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our human dignity can never be separated from community with our sisters and brothers, nor from our community with the rest of creation. We are never solely individuals, devoted only to competition and selfishness. Rather we are always members of community, truly responsible for our sisters and brothers, and also for God's sacred Earth. Then the righteous will ask him:

"Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?" And the king will say in reply," Amen. I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least of mine… you did for me."

[Matthew 25:37-40]

It is from this principle of community that Catholic social teaching derives its strong support for the rights of workers to form unions and to bargain collectively.[64] The deepest place of this community, and the model for all communities, is the family, the first and fundamental cell of society and church. It is from family that all society grows, and in which all society needs to remain rooted.[65]

Economics

The principles of human dignity and community represent a prophetic challenge to the two modern industrial ideologies: materialistic socialism, and materialistic capitalism. Both tend to substitute economic determinism for human and ecological values, and even for spiritual values.[67]

Catholic social teaching does not reject the important role of business in society. But it does insist on a third principle, individualistic competition should not undermine community solidarity, nor should collectivist bureaucracy smother individual creativity.[68]

Mountain people, you couldn't tell them from lowland people except by their friendliness, their desire to help one another. They're mighty good at that… Neighborliness, I guess you'd call it.

[Horton Cooper, from Mountain Voices[66]

The market needs to be rooted in the creative community of the local web of life. Its rooted place should not be eroded by governmental or corporate bureaucracies. Similarly the market needs to be guided by human dignity and by social and ecological community.[69]

An economy which fails to remain rooted in these values does not reflect the plan of the Creator, who, after all, is the great economist.[70]

Subsidiarity

A fourth principle in Catholic social teaching, is called subsidiarity.[72] The word comes from the Latin subsidium, which means "help." According to this principle, big organizations should help smaller ones and not undermine them.

While this principle has been applied to politics, in the age of giant multinational corporations it also needs to be applied to economics. Just as political bureaucracies should not undermine local government, so business bureaucracies should not undermine local economics.

The role of large organizations should only be to assist the local web of life. If outside giant businesses or large governmental bureaucracies were to undermine the local web of life, they would be like a cancer which invaded its host organism only to drain off the life.

Super-development, which consists in an excessive availability of every kind of material goods for the benefit of certain social groups, easily makes people slaves of "possession" and of immediate gratification… This is the so-called civilization of "consumption" or "consumerism," which involves so much "throwing-away" and "waste."

John Paul II On Social Concern[71]

The region is part of an increased internationalization of the economy. Wood from the Appalachian region is exported overseas, and furniture made from the wood is imported to the United States. Department stores sell…

(Appalachian) boots made in Romania. Pittsburgh banks invest in steel-exporting countries like Brazil and Japan. American coal companies develop the coal reserves of their multinational parent companies in Colombia and China and compete with Appalachian coal for the European steam coal market.

Richard A Couto, An American Challenge[73]

Yet in many counties of Appalachia, financial capital is being drained from rooted communities, while local social and ecological capital is being undermined.[74]

Ownership

A fifth principle, corresponding to human dignity and community, carries two themes, the right to property and the universal destination of all created goods.[75]

Individuals have a right to private property, as usually the best way to do work, to serve oneself and family. But private property also needs to show that it truly serves the community. No one truly owns any part of creation. Rather all creation belongs only to God. We may be assigned to care for parts of it, but only if we serve the needs of others, along with our own needs.

The Lord said to Moses… "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine, and you are but aliens who have become my tenants."

[Leviticus 25:1, 23]

Should property owners become self-centered, and not use God's creation for community then, according to Catholic teaching, its possession can violate God's law. Where that happens there is need for responsible and legal land reform. For the people and the land go together, by the very design of God.[76]

Again, in the message of God to Moses, "In this year of jubilee… when one of your countrymen is reduced to poverty and… does not acquire sufficient means to buy back the land,… it must be released and returned to its original owner."

[Leviticus 25:1, 13, 25, 28]

Ecology

Human dignity and community are linked with the wider dignity and community of nature in the single web of life. We may describe this reality as a sixth principle, the natural order of creation. To follow the natural order of creation, economics should not undermine human dignity and community, nor the dignity and community of nature. It needs to remain rooted in the web of life, according to natural and social ecology.[78]

If we fail to care for our precious Earth, and for the poor, then creation itself will rebel against us.[79]

Further, to undermine nature and the poor is to reject the word of God in creation. Deep within the ecological crisis lies the spiritual error called materialism.

Materialism does not reverence God's creation. Instead it abuses creation in the name of mammon. Cut off from God's presence in creation, the materialistic spirit grows destructive."(Land reform would) free Appalachia from the grip of absentee corporations that own 80% of the land in the coal-producing mountains where a working family cannot find a house site, much less a farm or wood lot to make its own."

Richard Cartwright Austin

Reclaiming America[77]

Catholics look to nature, in natural theology, for indications of God's existence and purpose. In elaborating a natural moral law, we look to natural processes themselves for norms for human behavior. U.S. Catholic Bishops Renewing the Earth[80]

Jesus told us clearly "No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.'

[Luke 16:13]

Sustainability

A seventh principle is sustainability.[81] Our economic life must put back into the social and ecological community as much as it takes out, so that our communities will be sustainable for future generations.[82]

To violate the principle of sustainability is to steal from our own children, and, like an addict to walk slowly down the path of destruction.

Sustainability now becomes a central criterion for all human endeavors. We can no longer take for granted that all technological interventions into nature are signs of true progress.[84]

Government

In the search for a path of life, and for sustainable communities, an eighth principle from Catholic social teaching tells us that it is the role of government to serve the common good.[85]

Government needs to help to create conditions which support human dignity and community, as well as natural dignity and community. The increasing devastation of the world of nature is apparent to all. It results from the behavior of people who show a callous disregard for the hidden, yet _perceivable requirements of the order and harmony which governs nature itself …

It is manifestly unjust that a privileged few should continue to accumulate excess goods, squandering available resources, while masses of people are living in conditions of misery at the very lowest level of subsistence.

Today, the dramatic threat of ecological breakdown is teaching us the extent to which greed and selfishness both individual and collective are contrary to the order of creation, an order which is characterized by mutual interdependence.

John Paul II, The Ecological Crisis[83]

The concepts of an ordered universe and a common heritage both point to the necessity of a more internationally coordinated approach to the management of the earth's goods. In many cases the effects of ecological (and social) problems transcend the borders of individual states; hence their solution cannot be found solely on the national level.

John Paul II, The Ecological Crisis[86]

in service of sustainable communities across the whole web of life. Further, our concern with the common good cannot be limited to our own nation. Rather we need a planetary concern for Earth's whole web of life.

Facing the Future

Now, at the end of the industrial age and at the birth of the electronic age, we need to discern how to follow these principles in the journey before us. Amidst this revolutionary transformation, we need to find a path which reverences God in all of nature and the poor, defends human dignity and community, reroots business in the web of life, respects the principle of subsidiarity, promotes land reform, supports natural and social ecology, recreates sustainable communities, uses government for the common good, and regenerates the web of life.

In sum, we need to find a path out of a culture of death, into a culture of life. It is to such a path that we now turn.

III. The Call of the Spirit

Sustainable Communities

The Spirit of God is always active in history bringing forth from emptiness and chaos ever fresh creativity. Thus we read in the Book of Genesis, In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless waste land and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters.

[Genesis 1:1]

In our present times, we believe, the mighty wind of God's Spirit is stirring up people's imaginations to find new ways of living together, based especially on the full community of all life, including love of all nature, and love of the poor.

We call these new ways the rooted path