Wisdom, Worms, and Welcome Home

The first time I saw José, I nearly ignored him – his dirt-streaked shirt and weathered face blended in with the soil where he crouched. I hurried past him on the sidewalk with a slight wave of acknowledgement, anxious that I would be late to the first day of my internship. However, as he was the only other person in sight, my tardiness forced me to slow my steps and demurely ask him for directions. He pointed me towards the correct door and I thanked him. In most other contexts, we would never have crossed paths again. 

However, in this case two summers ago, my internship was at an urban garden that offers a social-enterprise workshop program for people experiencing homelessness. José, a workshop participant esteemed for always arriving earlier than any staff member, had been pulling weeds outside the garden gates during the cool relief of the early morning. Looking back, I think about my initial transactionary treatment of José with discomfort. Even though I try to console myself with a reminder that I had treated him with courtesy – after all, I said hello and made eye contact with him above our face masks – I am panged by how easily I could have overlooked his presence if he had been sitting on a different street and asking for donations rather than pulling weeds outside the garden. Without ever using the term, José gently taught me about ecological spirituality by showing me how our society often bypasses people experiencing homelessness in the same way that many forget to care for plants, animals, air, water, and other members of creation. 

Listening to José share about his deep relationship with the earth quickly became the richest part of my day. Every morning I would find him amongst his sanctuary of flowers in the garden, and we would ask each other how we were doing. Whenever I would praise him, “Thanks for weeding – you’re awesome!” he would humbly retort, “I’m not awesome, the flowers are. Awesome means ‘inspiring awe.’ Thank the flowers, not me.” 

Paying attention to the beauty of the natural world was not a distraction to him, it was his way of life. He would pause to caress the silky petals of petunias and admire the camaraderie of a clump of asters. He would linger to breathe the fragrance of lavender and savor the spiciness of a nibble of nasturtium. His connection to the Divine through a mature communion with his surroundings reminds me of the first of three “be’s” in Jesuit education: be attentive, be reflective, and be loving.  As he taught me how to care for the worms working hard to make compost, he shared stories about his experiences of abuse and abandonment as a child, injustice and disenfranchisement as a man who was incarcerated, and humiliation and mistrust as a person who is unhoused. That is, be reflective. His resilience in the face of rejection has helped him to be loving towards the worms, the flowers, fellow humans, and other living beings. His practice of compassion towards the small and fragile members of the garden originates from personal empathy. How many times has his hope and dignity been trampled by strangers and loved ones alike, just like the plants underfoot? How many times have generally nice people ignored him because they believed that his existence was not tied up with theirs?

I did not recognize this similarity between encountering people experiencing homelessness and protecting the environment until I helped to plan a conference this past summer on Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si: On Caring for Our Common Home.  Pope Francis teaches that the ecological crisis is “a summons to profound interior conversion” and that “living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork… is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience”. José, I realized, is a perfect example of this interior conversion. José also demonstrates that “we are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis”.  His experiences of homelessness and incarceration partly expose the crises; his collectivity with the land and living beings offers a solution. I do not believe ecological spirituality is an end in itself. However, by recognizing that we are in relationship with the rest of creation, we can fuel the activism necessary to protect the lives of people vulnerable to climate change, air pollution, and other environmental injustices.