Letter from 2050

My kids marvel at the stories I tell of growing up in the countryside of Central Texas, and at times look at me like I grew up on another world. Their eyebrows furl as I try to illustrate how to use the rotary phone we had on the kitchen wall. They roll on the ground laughing when I tell the story (for the 1000th time) of how my elementary playground was covered in used car tires to play with, tires we would “drive” around to the various areas of play. So, as I begin this blog on falling in love with my creation neighbor as a way to deepen the practice of loving my human neighbor, I want to begin with a letter from the future that captures my vision and hope for this world I so love…a letter sharing with my grandkids of a world transformed by love. (its a little longer than a normal post)

Dear grand-kiddos, today is the day! Today is the day the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere began to decrease. Climate scientists were all over the news, excitedly thanking the world and encouraging everyone to keep doing what they are doing…to put even more hands on the ball rolling down the hill. It is making a difference not just for today, but for you and all generations to come. Did I ever tell you the story of how my first vehicle was a truck that would go 8 miles for every gallon of fossil fuels it would burn? The vehicles you see today are all battery and solar powered…and quiet! You never have to “stop at a gas station” or keep an eye on the fuel level. Solar was 20% efficient when I was your age, and when it crossed the 30% mark, that is when fossil fuel companies quit exploring and drilling for more…it just wasn’t worth doing anymore and they started to step full steam into a new vision for energy. Today solar is up to 50% efficient at a fraction of the cost. Solar and batteries are now in everything, from clothing, to standard building code, to the mass transit systems which retired the need for most personal vehicles (I see a lot more people on e-bikes and electric public transit today than ever!) You can’t believe how many parking lots and roads have been transformed into parks, and forests, and pollinator way-stations in the past decades! Can you imagine, sea after sea of concrete with little to no shade, just so everyone could park their car and go shopping. During early experimentation in transforming parking lots into green spaces, many folks were upset because they thought they were loosing something. Yet, as the air became cleaner, as traffic disappeared, as more people had easy access to the outdoors and the 15 minute city model spread…anxiety and depression plummeted, and people would say quite frequently that they “just felt better.” I didn’t realize that having everything you really needed within a short walking distance would begin to also shift how people saw and treated each other. This shift got everyone talking about how many things we thought we needed…things we were coached to buy…things we really didn’t need. People began to be less afraid of each other, and trusted each other more, maybe because they walked by and talked to each other more often.

I noticed how such resilient communities were anchored by churches seeing neighbor in ancient and fresh ways…forming communities not just of people…but of people with nature…people with creation…people who saw the sacred in the land and flowers and trees and faces of all in their neighborhoods…and that community was community at its best when all creation sings. We are part of a web of kith and kin that indigenous teachers have lovingly helped us see and know and be. When church figured out how their local endowments could work together, and national churches became more bold with assets, billions of dollars in very low interest eco-loans and underutilized land opened new possibilities to churches, communities, schools, and underserved neighborhoods. I always wondered what a city on a hill looked like…you know, the one Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount…and maybe what the church did here for a world in urgent need of hope and transition is as best an image as I have ever seen.

You probably didn’t notice it, but a number of years ago, economists began talking more about focusing on thriving than growing. This made us look with new eyes at the systems that led to the have and have-nots we built societies on, and the world somehow came to an open-eyed consensus that we don’t live on an infinite planet with infinite resources. Infinite economic growth was a fantasy. I think we knew it and put our heads in the sand. I’m sorry humanity is so stubborn when change is hard and a fresh way at coming at things is needed. Today’s “donut” / circular economics defines progress not as an ever increasing line of growth, but as living in a sweet-spot for humanity between a sustainable floor and ceiling with the earth as our loving partner, not as a resource to exploit. This economics gave us the courage to experiment with something that could work for all, not just for some, enabling the world to address the gap between the infinitely rich and the infinitely poor in a way that all felt part of something bigger and generative.

Did you know that our economic model just a few decades ago was to dig stuff up, make stuff, consume stuff, then throw it away? I cringe at all the one use items that passed through my hands over the years. I was glad when they replaced the triangle recycle symbol, which often times was on things that were not recyclable, with the international sustainability circle symbol, which noted how this product could be part of the new circular economy…getting fully repurposed again and again. I still can’t believe you have never had to take out the trash! Yes, I know you help take out the compost, but the fact that we have nearly eliminated the need for city dumps still blows my mind.

This sustainable revolution created way more jobs than anyone every imagined, and a byproduct of this was that people felt increasing goodwill WITH and FOR others, because they saw how what they were part of was caring for our planet…which daily gave them life lessons and encouragement that shaped how they cared for their neighbor.

I make it sound like all this transition in such a short time came easy. It didn’t. There were lots of tears along the way, three steps forward and two steps back, but all along the way we learned something about how to love each other better…how to be who God created us all to be. And, there is still work before us. A decreasing concentration of carbon in the atmosphere cannot be taken for granted…nor is it cause for us to get lax in our focus and vision for the future. Hunger, poverty, and violence are still around, but decreasing over more years than increasing. The world is not a utopia, nor will it likely ever be…but we hand your generation the baton, after giving our all for the life of the world we so love during the lap we have been graced to run. Yet, today is a day to remember and look backwards with gratitude and forward with hope…yes…hope…for hope inspires love…and love is why I write this letter to you. Today is the day! Let us rejoice and be glad in it! Your loving Grandpa.

** a note about this story – the transition references are not fiction, but based on actual things happening around our world, from technologies that are here now, as well as up and coming, to how we do transportation, cities, and use spaces in-between, to sustainable economic models that very smart people talk about on TED.com all the time and are being experimented with all over the world. The story is one of hope happening NOW in this present moment…but also an opportunity to skip forward and glance back to offer a vision of where hope and love and faith can lead us.

Peace, Harold