Season of Creation

 

In the Catholic Times' View from the Ark column, an emeritus professor begins the article by reminding readers that the Season of Creation begins on September 1st. This is a time for all Christians to remember our ecological issues and respond appropriately in our daily lives.

Pope Francis appeals to us:  1: “Let us listen to the earth's cry. Given the rising temperatures worldwide, we could say that the earth is suffering from a fever. Like anyone sick, the earth now says, ‘It is sick.' But are we listening? 

Concerned about global warming, the Pope asks whether we are listening to the earth's suffering. His heart is filled with regret for our insufficient response. The Pope keenly identifies the reason why we are sensitive to the earth's boiling and warming but insensitive to its suffering, which is linked to the paradigm of technological domination. 

This “isolates us from the world around us and makes us forget that we are a ‘contact zone’ where the whole world meets.” “God has united us with all of his creation. However, technological dominance  can deceive us by isolating us from the world around us and making us forget that the whole world is a ‘contact zone’ where we meet each other.” (Praise God, 66)

The summer heat of 2024 was truly long and severe the professor lives on the first floor of an apartment that was built over 30 years ago, and the temperature in the slightly shaded bedroom rose to 32℃, and in the sunny living room rose to 33℃. When he lived with ventilation and natural breezes, he felt the temperature dropping from 33℃ to 32℃ or from 32℃ to 31℃. When he goes outside, it is hot, but his body notices this every time the wind blows. There is truly no summer without wind or a city without wind.

However, people who lower the temperature from 33℃ to 24℃ or 23℃ with air conditioning generally have less chance of encountering natural breezes. Even when going outside, it is easy to want to quickly go inside a room with air conditioning rather than feel the wind. The paradigm of technological domination is not an abstraction but is deeply embedded in our daily lives through products such as air conditioners. This is how technological domination separates us from nature. This makes us forget nature, which is our ‘contact zone’ when we meet God, all things in nature, and our neighbors, and thus deletes the ‘contact zone,’ ultimately themselves and their descendants.

On the morning of August 30, he took a train to Seoul Station and another train South. While riding public transportation, his body started to stiffen up from being exposed to air conditioning all day, and he was sick all night. His right shoulder was paralyzed, making it difficult to breathe deeply and difficult to raise his hand to make the sign of the cross.

Through the painful process, he realized that “the greater the pain, the less likely he was to move, and the greater his longing for balance,” and while recovering his balance, he realized to cooperate with God’s work, we need an integrated ecological wisdom that knows how to live with the diseases of the times. As the sages said, suffering is a process of learning. It is a time to be drenched in the rain of grace as we learn who we are and how to live together with our neighbors. Amidst all this, a question came up from deep inside. 

In this boiling earth era, the Jeonju Diocese has set the air conditioner temperature to 26~28℃. What temperature would be the most appropriate? How can we reach an agreement on the appropriate temperature? What about our church and society?