Need a Samaritan’s Touch

Heatwaves: Testing our human endurance

India was sweating through heatwaves in the past few months. Temperatures in 37 cities crossed 45ºC and night-time temperatures remained as high as 36 degrees in many locations. These extreme events, increasing in frequency, lasting longer and becoming hotter, are becoming a normal in this age. World Weather Attribution (WWA) published an analysis, which reveals that climate change made the current extreme temperatures in India 45 times more likely than without climate change. India now has 10% chances of being hit by an extreme heatwave in any given year. Added to this, a World Bank report predicts that by 2030, heat stress could lead to a global loss of 80 million jobs due to decreased productivity, with India potentially bearing 34 million of these job losses.  

Not just heatwaves, we are constantly challenged by unexpected, frequent and intense droughts, floods, forest fires, and such calamities. Humanity is facing an unprecedented environmental crisis. Over the past few decades, we have used and abused coal, oil, forest, rivers and seas and now we are paying the brunt of it.  The climate is changed. The wound is deep and the damage looks irreversible. Can we live in a shattered house? Impossible. The wounds need healing and the damages, restoration.

Time to halt, convert and reconcile

“All is not lost,” Pope Francis gives hope believing in the human potential for change, “Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start, despite their mental and social conditioning. We are able to take an honest look at ourselves. An ecological conversion can inspire us to greater creativity and enthusiasm in resolving the world’s problems.”

 Reconciliation is inevitable. Ecological conversion calls for a collective and transformative reconciliation journey. It urges us to address ecological injustices through dialogue, compassion, and restorative action. Just as we seek reconciliation with one another, we must seek reconciliation with the Earth, mending the wounds we have inflicted through unsustainable practices.

Jesus announced God’s reign by initiating a process of healing, both individual and communitarian. His underlying goals were clear: to change perspective, to heal, to reconcile with community and to restore life. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Jesus always wished the sick and the wounded: integral health, complete well-being, happy family and an environment, a fully reconciled life.

Samaritan’s Touch: Ego-driven to Empathy-led

Rereading the parables of Jesus is always a source of inspiration. The Parable of the Good Samaritan revolutionises the concept of ‘neighbour,’ to the quality of relatedness, and in our context, the quality of our bond with nature.  

 Not like robbers and looters, and the ‘indifferent lot’

The man in the parable, who was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, was beaten, stripped, robbed and left half dead. For the robbers whatever belongs to the traveller was theirs’. From the coral reef under the deep sea to the rainforests above the land are stripped, wounded and left half dead now. An ego-driven mindset - ‘all on earth are at my disposal.’ This is the arrogant attitude of many rich, multinational companies and even nations, who exploit mother earth.

The priest and the Levite represent our ‘not-my-business attitude.’ They could have helped the half dead man, but it appears that their purity code ‘what will happen to me if I touch’ blinded them. Helping him does not add anything to their life. The attitude of ‘being indifferent is fine’ or ‘it won’t affect me’ causes the environment, more and continuous damage. Turning a blind eye towards a wounded and speechless natural environment is unchristian and inhuman.

The health of the ecosystems on which we and other species depend is rapidly deteriorating. The very basics of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life are at stake. We need a courageous conversion, a reconciliation that recognises the present strangled relationship with nature and accept full responsibility to restore the original health of the wounded earth. We need a different gaze, a healing touch and responsible stewardship. 

But like Samaritan’s Healing Touch

The Samaritan’s gaze was ‘what will happen to him if I don’t stop and nurse?’ The Samaritan leads to action against the priest’s and Levite’s inaction. The Samaritan felt responsible to care and restore health and dignity of the wounded. In the second half of the story the Samaritan reverses every action that had happened in the first part.  The robber stripped and beat the man, the priest and Levite saw him but passed by. On the contrary, the Samaritan moved with pity. performed a series of action in favour of the half-dead man. He gave back the wounded his health, his life and dignity was restored.

 Moving Forward

 Personal eco-consciousness and leadership

Pope Benedict proposes an examination of oneself, “The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast.” Eco-consciousness fosters to see, appreciate and understand connectedness in God’s creation and stimulates one to acquire knowledge and skill on the issues and solutions on eco-concerns.

Eco-leadership entails a re-evaluation of personal priorities, habits and lifestyle. Conscious choices are made not from dominant human centric mindset but with ecological sensitivity. Simple habits lead to larger best practices, like not throwing plastics on the street avoids ocean dumping.

Community initiatives of restoration

The personal conversion which brings substantial changes in one’s life steers to community conversion, resulting in collective action. Tackling climate change and promoting sustainable development requires the engagement of all people, families, schools, civic clubs, youth movements, gramsabhas, inter-state and international commitments. This conversion results in planting and protecting trees in a small town to the protection of rainforests through international political commitments. The two success stories may help us to understand the value of thinking together and collective action.     

A Bengaluru school teachers and students at Varthur, show us a way. They took up the dying lake near the school. The lake started deteriorating in 1981. The fish of the lake started dying due the incoming sewage waste. The school conducted various studies on water quality and found heavy metals contaminating the bore wells. Pollutants were affecting the food chain as well. They presented the report and pressurised the state government and local bodies to pay attention. Now the inflow of sewage is drastically reduced and waste water treated. The lake started restoring and reviving. There are hundreds of stories like this across India which gives us hope of nature restoration.

Among all forest types on Earth, the greatest diversity of living organisms is found in the tropical rainforest. Western Ghats is one such rich tropical forest region. It has been severely deforested and fragmented over the past two centuries due to the expansion of plantation and commercial crops. The Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), in partnership with the forest department, community organisations and local people, planned to protect and restore rainforests on the Valparai Plateau of the Western Ghats. After 20 years, a scientific evaluation reveals that the forest has denser canopies, greater diversity and more similar species composition to intact rainforests of tree and bird communities, and store over thrice the amount of carbon as forests were left to recover naturally. A beautiful and satisfying story of recovery of functioning of our own lungs.

All these efforts, personal initiatives or community collective-action or large-scale restoration projects, are just drops in the ocean. Any possible sustainable cure must be global in scale to match the disease. Yet remedies can evolve in local contexts as groups in different parts of the planet look for a variety of solutions for diverse environmental problems.

 Samaritan’s touch reverses the irreversible

The earth is, a great gift from God, as a caring mother: feeding us, healing us, sustaining us and making us flourish. Now, we are in an estranged relationship with mother nature and shy away from God in guilt.  John Paul II, felt this in 2001, “If we scan the regions of our planet, we immediately see that humanity has disappointed God’s expectations.”

Now, the only option is ‘the gaze and touch of the Good Samaritan.’ Pope Francis says, “We have to avoid falling into these four perverse attitudes, which certainly do not help honest research and sincere and productive dialogue on building the future of our planet: negation, indifference, resignation and trust in inadequate solutions.” Let’s grow in a relationship of kinship with nature to stop all exploitation, restore dignity, heal the wounds and bring forth life, an abundant life. Caring for our brothers and sisters implies caring for the home we share.

Fr. Ricopar Royan SDB

Courtesy of Magnet. This article first published in its July 2024 issue.