After years of being a full-time mom, I added a new part-time job last year: executive director of Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light ( www.paipl.org), an organization that helps individuals and congregations respond to climate change. I took this job because faith communities do more than worship. They gather, support one another through crises and grapple with big moral questions. As a person of faith, I want to love my neighbor, improve the lives of the most vulnerable and care for this extraordinary jewel of an Earth God created, and I want to nurture these instincts in my children.
It’s hard to integrate practical life and worship life: The world’s problems are so huge that manageable gestures can feel insignificant. By focusing on energy and climate I’m able to work at a family scale (which feels manageable) and a global scale (which feels needed). By joining a statewide organization, my small acts are multiplied by those of hundreds of others across Pennsylvania.
My family is not alone in choosing to walk or bike to get places. These walks benefit our health and our bank account, but they also benefit creation by lowering our climate impact, and they benefit the world’s vulnerable people — families whose food comes from climate-dependent subsistence farming.
Over the years, we’ve learned from others about how to reduce our fuel use and our energy bills. In the summer, we dry our laundry on racks outside. In the winter, we set them up
indoors. We insulated our hot water pipes and outside walls, switched to an efficient refrigerator and caulked our windows. And our home is more comfortable for it.
Like many others, we eat several vegetarian meals a week, reducing the impact of our diet on the climate. Our local organic farm membership has a smaller climate benefit than our vegetarian meals, but it connects us more deeply with the bounty of the earth. We sing grace every night but, with local veggies on our plates, we are more aware of the hands beyond our walls that make our meals possible.
By initiating conversations about daily energy choices, faith communities can help people make changes in their own lives, connect with others and expand conversations about faith and ritual outside of the worship hour.
Pennsylvania IPL helps its members do exactly that. Low-cost energy audits help congregations reduce their energy use. Connecting to holy days and seasons (like a “carbon fast” in Lent, or Cool Harvest kits in connection with Sukkot) enrich existing traditions. We learn from each other’s success stories, share tested resources and connect our work with our faith practices.
Almost every faith group supports a relief agency in another part of the world. Ask yours to share stories about the impact of the shifting climate on the lives of people there. Scientists have shown us the facts; the human story and the moral responses are up to us.
Faith communities must lead the way.
Cricket Eccleston-Hunter is the executive director of Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light. Readers may write to her at at chunter@paipl.org.
