When the lights go out ( Spiritual Reflections on Global Dimming)

A recent BBC documentary on the phenomenon called “global dimming” seemed just the catalyst to get rid of a bad bout of writers block.

Global Dimming, somewhat of antithesis of global warming, is the theory/or evidence that pollutants in the air prevent sunlight from coming through. The phenomenon in itself is a crisis with effects as devastating as droughts and famine. The double whammy of global dimming is that, it is precisely this dirty haze of pollution which is keeping at bay the effects of serious global warming. With all the amazing and depressing news, one is led to consider again the central questions in life. Where do we come from, and to where are we going? What is our duty or reason for existence and how do we make sense of all that is around us in nature and our relationships to each other and to the earth? What is the ethical response and how does our spirituality/theology influence our reflection on such things?

Is such news to remind us of the end of the world? (Will the world even end?)

Is such news “signs of the times”?

What is the difference between being a realist and being a pessimist?

The problem with seeking a spiritual response is that such a question already creates a dichotomy between sacred and secular, or spirituality and the sciences. To separate the two is to deny that human beings by nature are spiritual, the universe and all that exists, everything is spiritual. How then do we begin our dialogue?

Classic Augustinian theology acknowledged that everybody has faith of some kind, the idea was that “faith precedes understanding”. The debate is not whether science or faith provides the better answer but rather “what do you believe?” For someone who believes that the world came into being on purpose the dialogue with the facts will arrive at a point of hope and fulfillment, yet for the person who believes that the world came into being by chance, the dialogue ends in a different manner, perhaps not as filled with hope. Still everyone “faiths” – the atheist has faith that God does not exist, the communist has faith that a certain set of principles are best for society, and the Christian has a faith which is shaped by an engagement with the Scriptures and brought to life through an experience with a relational and incarnational God.

So perhaps the better question is not into which category of knowing the facts fit, but rather what does my faith in God require of me?

Throughout the gospels we are introduced to God’s new world through the parables of Jesus, a new story which invites us to get involved and which calls us to pray “Your kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven” . If we truly believe in and hope for this new world, then such faith should permeate every part of our being and inspire us to engage the ethical concerns for our day. Moreover the responsibility issued to us in the Genesis story, to be the caretakers of our world, should be a concern which we should with passion assume and live out in our practice of Christian faith.

Cycle to church, consume less, find a way to contribute to a healthy society.

Whether or not the research and the facts point toward the reality we suspect it may is irrelevant as we ought to be living responsibly anyway. Whether or not the research and the facts will come true in the way we think it may…is a matter of faith -

A matter of faith which invites us to answer the age old question Jesus asked of his disciples… “who do you say that I am?” - how we engage that question makes all the difference to our outlook on life.


On a lighter note - The Spirituality of Global Dimming

An interesting thing about global dimming is that it is all our junk and pollutants which get caught up in the sky and prevent the light from getting through. I wondered for a moment if that doesn’t reflect a bit of what our relationship with God might be like. All the junk we have which gets in the way of us relating to God, and in some sense that may be true…perhaps our shame and guilt clouds our relationship. Yet I’m also convinced, as the Scriptures teach, that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Another interesting fact about global dimming, is that in the research they discovered that the tiny particles in the air (the pollutants) cause more condensation and water molecules to form, much smaller than what they ordinarily would be and reflecting more light. The key part here is that fewer big molecules reflect much less light than many smaller ones. I wonder what the world would be like if we became us the Bible says, “salt & light” in our community…instead of depending on the bigness of institutions and governments to bring about social change…but rather, each person in the own capacity being a light in a way that only they can. Perhaps we’d see more of the light.