“We once had roots. We knew our ancestors and the cyclical line that was the future. But colonialism came and we were uprooted. We lost our past and had to invent a future that never existed. If we want to make an inventory of our time and understand ourselves in this timeless present, we must start thinking about how colonization has been the vicious historical process of cutting off our roots, an uprooting of ourselves as part of a larger world where animals have the same body but a different name, as the Indigenous people Tucanos from Brazil teach us. We no longer listen to the birds and hear our own singing, God’s own voice.“ – Cláudio Carvalhaes

I’ve got a few really good books going at the moment and the above passage comes from one of them: Cláudio Carvalhaes’s wonderful book, How Do We Become Green People and Earth Communities? Inventory, Metamorphoses, and Emergenc(i)s, which was based on three lectures he gave. I really love the animistic vision here that Cláudio begins to lay out. The ‘Animated Everything,’ to use a term from another book I’m currently reading—Sophie Strand’s The Flowering Wand—is no doubt present in Cláudio’s thought.

Profoundly, as I read the passage above by Cláudio regarding how we no longer listen to the birds I recalled Sophie’s passage below that I read in my book group just yesterday. Sophie is resurfacing the myth of Orpheus to help us regenerate masculinity. She writes:

“I think Orpheus offers us (men, women, nonbinary lichenized beings that we all are) a novel opportunity. He shows us that we need not immediately speak. First, we should listen. We should listen with our feet, our ears, our minds, and our desires…look up the last recorded song of the Kauai O’o bird species. It is singing to a mate that will never arrive. Listen to the plaintive lilt and questioning descent of the song. Attune your ear to the void space that shows you the shape of the lover that no longer sings a reply. Feel the vibration in the bones of your face, in the wave of your mind, and then, let a hunger bloom in your body for the missing song.“

Sophie’s writing is poignant and speaks in parallel to what I think Cláudio is also helping us to understand; that we must listen and hunger for that missing song. Sticking with the musical theme, toward the end of the chapter Sophie writes:

“Orpheus is famous for having made even the stones dance with his music. The secret to this, I think, is that he knew the stones were alive.”

I liked these lines quite a bit because it reminded me of another figure who famously mentioned stones singing or crying out. In the Gospels Jesus is asked by the Pharisees to rebuke his disciples who were praising him as he entered Jerusalem by saying things like, “The King who comes in the name of the Eternal One is blessed!“ and “Peace in heaven! Glory in the highest!.“ Jesus tells the Pharisees that if his disciples—who were at the time under Roman occupation—were silenced then the very stones would cry out. Jesus is paraphrasing the writing of the prophet Habakkuk who wrote during a time of great distress in Israel’s history. The Assyrians were destroying city after city, and the people lived in fear. Habakkuk cries out to God, “How long? How long will we cry for help, God, and you won’t listen?” Habakkuk waits for God’s answer. When God answers God makes it clear that every injustice the people have suffered at the hands of enemies – God has seen. God promises that their deliverance is coming. They have to wait, but deliverance is coming, and God sees all that is happening. It is God who says to Habakkuk, “The very stones will cry out from the wall, and the plaster will respond from the woodwork.” God says that even these seemingly inanimate objects are crying out at the injustice and pain and hardship that has been visited on God’s people.

Liberation theologians pick up on this theme found throughout the Bible, God’s preferential option for the poor and oppressed. Leonardo Boff, who’s book Cry of The Earth, Cry of The Poor is referenced quite a bit in Carvalhaes’s book proclaims “The Earth is also crying out. The logic that exploits classes and subjects people to the interests of a few rich and powerful countries is the same as the logic that devastates the Earth and plunders its wealth, showing no solidarity with the rest of humankind and future generations.“ Channeling Boff and beginning with the notion that Humans literally grew from the Earth, Carvalhaes reflects:

“It took me so long to realize that what we do to the poor is what we do to nature, that when we imprison people we imprison animals, when we extract everything from the earth we also extract everything from people…I am learning that my world is composed of many, many beings that live around me to whom I never pay attention. And I live as if they don’t exist, as if they simply do not matter.“

May heed this wisdom. And may we again listen to the birds and hear our own singing, and find God in the rocks. Amen.

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Painting above by Christian Ruiz Berman, Acrylic on panel

Tags:animismCláudio Carvalhaeseco-theologyLeonardo BoffLiberation TheologypanentheismSophie Strandtheology