By Chad Darby

“Immediately the Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness, and he remained there for forty days, and was tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him.”
- Mark 1:12-13

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,…the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”
– Luke 3:1-2

“One of the traits western humans seem to have laid aside somewhere is cooperation for the good of the group- the common good, as some call it…We might be the most individualistic society in the history of the world.”
– Randy Woodley, Becoming Rooted

Tonight I read two scripture passages talking about wilderness from A Grounded Faith. Did you know the translation “wilderness” appears 294 times in the King James Bible? In this season of Lent I am reminded by the Bible that we are a wilderness people. Not just figuratively and metaphorically, but also quite literally. Sure we wander around our whole lives searching for answers to unanswerable questions as if lost in a great wilderness of understanding. But we also, quite literally, live in the wilderness. If you look around and you strip away the paved roads, human-made structures, and modern conveniences, we are in the middle of a beautiful land of wilderness. Fir trees, rivers, mountains, desert….

Just as Jesus, what are we tempted by in the wilderness?

I would posit that it is convenience, comfort, and distraction that tempts us. It’s why we build large houses, fast cars, restaurants, cell phones, video games, and all the other luxuries we call progress. It scares us to realize we live in a world that most of us could not survive without support. Very few of us could start with rocks and trees and figure out how to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves, let alone make a cell phone. So we measure progress in terms of greater convenience and comfort. It insulates us… Giving in to our temptation of progress. It makes us feel that we have a measure of control over our surroundings. Perhaps it also distracts us from those unanswerable questions.

But I would also posit that convenience, comfort, and all our distractions, as we have come to know them, are the exact opposite of progress. Why do I say that? Let me paint an alternate picture of our existence:

If we were on Jupiter looking through a telescope at Earth, what would we see? We’d see a people marooned on a large organic spaceship adrift in space. No propulsion. No supply ship coming. No rescue ship for evacuation. A people that don’t seem to even recognize they are in this situation, marooned on this island.

What if we were stranded on a desert island?

And what have we learned from every stranded survival movie or book ever made? Do we start by consuming all our food before others can get it? Do we start thinking about how to build all the luxuries when we are focused on surviving? No, we ration our food, we look for clean water and protect it as if our life depends on it, and we build shelter out of natural materials. We spend our time thinking about clever ways to make our supplies and the natural materials around us last indefinitely. We measure progress in sustainability.

But what are we really doing?

Randy Woodley said it profoundly: what Western humans seem to have laid aside somewhere is cooperation for the good of the group. We are individualistic, even selfish.

We are literally racing to the bottom to see who can get the most resources first.
When we should be thinking like “Swiss Family Robinson,” in many parts of the world, it’s “Lord of the Flies.”
We are tearing apart the decks of our organic spaceship to consume metals we then throw away.
We cut down trees at record pace without realizing those are the carbon dioxide scrubbers of our spaceship that give us air to breathe.
We burn our fuel indiscriminately to light the ship while we sleep and to get around on it faster.
We have wars over resources.
We don’t think of the common good. We reason in western society that we’ll be fine because WE can afford the dwindling resources.

Why shouldn’t I have the largest SUV while others walk and ride the bus? Or we reason that we won’t run out, because we just don’t think about the fact we’re on a spaceship adrift in space.

Drill, baby, drill, right? I’ve got news…the resources are limited.

It’s not all bleak, however.

We are very, very lucky. By a gracious creator, we have a planet in a stable circular orbit at the perfect distance from the sun to make our spaceship’s temperature habitable. We have sun that provides solar energy and photosynthesis so we can grow food and more scrubbers. We have the Earth’s rotation and the sun so we have wind energy. And we have a moon in a stable orbit so we have tidal energy. These are the inputs we are limited to, but they are enough if we measure progress differently. A self-aware shipwreck victim thinks about progress as achieving long-term sustainability, then comfort. So why don’t we?

I can also say that in my profession as an environmental consultant helping companies develop and grow, that there are thousands or rays of light and hope. But it will take change by us. We have to look at our own choices and behaviors.

Talking about food…

I’m going to switch to a specific area of sustainability that I think a lot about: our food. Here are some interesting facts to think about:

To satisfy a growing population we have also resorted to monoculture farming. We’ve lost almost 90% of our seed varieties since 1900. Seed variety protects us from environmental calamity, such as the Irish potato famine.
In the 1940 we used <1 calorie of fossil fuel for every 2 calories of food energy we produced. The average distance farm to table was 10 miles so it took little energy to get the food from farm to table.
Today it takes 20-30 calories for every 2 calories of food energy when you take into account production and distribution. Fertilizer made from natural gas and long-distance distribution are two huge inputs. The average American meal has ingredients from 5 countries and those ingredients average 1,500 miles from farm to table. (That’s your grocery store averages now). 20 calories of a non-renewable resource for 2 calories of food energy is not sustainable.
Because we ship food so far we have to pick it before it is ripe (at the peak of its nutrient level) and ripen it with ethylene gas and irradiate it so it doesn’t spoil from microorganisms. Some food has to be flown, such as pineapples from Hawaii.
Packaging and processing also robs us of nutrition. I used to think I was getting so much great Vitamin C from eating spinach. But within 24 hours of picking it loses up to 90% of its Vitamin C. So by the time I get it and then eat it (typically 12-16 days), there isn’t much left.
Sugar produced in Hawaii by C&H is shipped to New York for packaging in those little paper packets. Some of those are shipped back to Hawaii for use in coffee shops. Over 10,000 miles of travel for a packet of sugar.
We have some of the cleanest mountain runoff water in the entire world. Yet at New Seasons you can buy water from Iceland, Fiji, Hawaii, Germany, France, Italy, and Wales. Imagine how much that weighs to ship (I did file a complaint).
Some countries import as much milk as they export (UK: 114,000 tons in 1996). Why? Because buying low and selling high is profitable.

Does this sound sustainable?

The interesting thing about being lost in a wilderness with no guidance is that you tend to wander in a wide circle and end up back where you started. How many times in history have we repeated our mistakes and tread the same futile ground in endless cycles?

This Lent I pray that the Spirit will be our compass and lead us on a straighter path forward towards sustainability.

Spiritual Practices:

1. I’m as tempted as the next person by those grapes in February (which are from Chile) or that apple in March (which is likely from New Zealand). Let’s spend the next shopping trip with a pen and paper in hand and look at the foods we are tempted by and write down where they are from. Then ask yourself, do I need that item or is there something this time of the year I could eat that’s closer to home? Now go to a farmer’s market and ask the vendor how far they had to drive to get there. Look at the produce picked at the peak of ripeness when its nutrient levels are at their highest. You pay more, but you get more nutrition as well.

2. Spend some time thinking about yourself as a castaway. What’s necessary in your life? What tempts you as false progress? Make a personal plan to move incrementally toward sustainable living.

3. Longer-term practice: I have some Native American varieties of winter squash. Some of these are so sweet you don’t need sugar to make desert, such as the North Georgia Candy Roaster, which has been saved and protected by the Cherokee. What’s nice about these is that they can store well into the winter and early spring. Need a desert in March and you don’t have berries? Make a squash pie or sweet bread rather than buying berries from other countries. If you’d like to grow one, they are super easy and tolerant of lots of soils. I’ve even grown them in my landscaping between bushes. Come take a seed packet after the service or pick one up next time you’re at church in person..