*4.3. Imagining*

Responding to crises also requires imagination, the capacity to discern opportunities and alternate futures. Imagination is grounded in the world that people know through life encounters and study. At the same time, imagination transcends the "known" world and soars into a world of possibility, offering a potential antidote to human despair and passivity, anger and blame, and life-defying ideas about God and the earth. Consider the ways ecological despair permeates the lives of individuals and communities, perpetuating a sense that no action can ever make a difference. Consider the patterns of blame that block people from considering new information and new possibilities. Consider the sense of hopelessness that is reinforced by theologies centered on original sin or on popular beliefs that humans are autonomous, self-serving beings.

One practice vital to imagination is storytelling. Kendra Pierre-Louis has focused on the problems and possibilities of narratives in telling ecological stories and spinning tales of new possibilities. She argues that some stories create problems for ecological responses, actively "hurting us" (Pierre-Louis 2020, p. 175). She offers an alternate story of the Wakanda, a fictional, roughly historical country in Africa that uses technology to maintain ecological health. She encourages readers to search for and create stories that narrate climate change as an opportunity (p. 179), seeking new and ancient stories; stories in sacred texts and traditions; and stories in our daily lives. The possibilities for stirring imagination through stories are boundless.

## *4.4. Communal Living and Acting*

If we are to respond to the climate crisis with more full-bodied practical wisdom and robust action, we need to begin with community, embracing historical, contemporary, and ecological communities. Individualism is widely credited as a major factor in climate crisis and ecological destruction. The practical wisdom sought in this essay is accessible only through community, particular and global, human and nonhuman. When I wrote *Ministering with the Earth* (Moore 1998), I already knew that hope for the earth depended on an interdependent, intersubjective relationship between the human family and the rest of creation, hence ministering *with* the earth. I have come to see far more complexity in that

relationship and the urgency of radically reshaping practical wisdom and relationships if we are to practice "with." Responding to the climate crisis requires far-reaching changes in the ways we relate to and conceptualize the world, ways we live and act in community. Where do we begin?

I propose three paths of practice for communal living and acting. First is to remember the communities from which we come, the peoples and lands that have made us who we are and depend on us for their well-being. The memories may be sweet or harsh or bland, but they are part of the universe with which we are related. Many of the authors in this article share memories of people and lands that have formed them (Mitchell 2018; Kimmerer 2013), recognizing the formative and transformative power of memory. Memory could be included much more actively in practical theological research and action, searching the memories revealed in communities (human and nonhuman), habitats, religious practices, and literature and folklore.

If we are to respond to a weeping planet, a second path is to *draw upon the legacies of people and waters and lands to guide environmental action*. Those legacies will be mixed in their values, but critical awareness of multiple legacies is vital if we are to uncover fresh perspectives on climate protection and regeneration in a time of extreme urgency. Many of the human legacies will be offered by peoples whose ancestries or ways of living in the world are non-dominant. Tara Houska is one who awakened me when she highlighted the difference between life with her people (Zhaabowekwe, Couchiching First Nation) and the practices of environmental protection in corporate boardrooms, in which metrics and campaign outcomes dominate (Houska 2020, pp. 257–59). How might ecological leaders and practical theologians reshape environmental action and climate crisis if we reshaped standard boardroom procedure to account for the legacies of people who live close to the earth? Might board members spend more time walking the land, observing the life patterns of plants and animals, listening to people's stories, observing the geological and climatological patterns, and seeking truly radical approaches to the climate crisis?

Many people have drawn their ecological inspiration from the legacies of human and earth communities. Rachel Carson ([1962] 2002) lived closely with the legacies of oceans and farmlands as she reshaped scientific communication and farming practices. Heather Toney (2020) turned to her African American community and the eco-system to guide her in leading environmental organizations and serving as Mayor of Greenville, Mississippi. Her community legacy fed her, and she laments that communities are usually ignored in facing ecological issues, even though they are "vital for identifying real solutions" (p. 102).

A third path of practice is to *create new experiments and patterns of living in and with communities, local and global.* Practical theologians focus on many areas of life, so the potential actions are many. Leah Penniman (2018) draws upon the wisdom of her African American ancestors to create Soul Fire Farm and to practice farming in a way that is sustainable and life-giving today, guided by their wisdom. Chet Bowers (2001) proposes new approaches to teaching that will reshape cultures and foster community, rather than reinforce individualism and separation from the nonhuman natural world. Networks of women across the world have shared ecological wisdom to change the way human beings conceptualize and live in the world (Johnson and Wilkinson 2020; Gebara 1999, 2003; Ruether 2006; Halkes 1989). Further, many environmental leaders have sought to build coalitions based on common concerns for moms, food justice, water or land protection, justice for communities of color, and so forth. These efforts all focus on community.

I have erred on the side of sharing many narratives because practical theologians need the wisdom of many persons, communities, creatures, and habitats if we are to respond to the weeping planet. We can no longer prevent climate crisis; the crisis is here. We *can* still respond to the crisis with a full range of proactive, anticipatory, and reactive responses. All are needed to prevent further destruction and to help regenerate that which can be regenerated. Can you imagine a community of practical theologians who accept responsibility to act with and for the good of our planetary community? We could become a network of scholars and activists who learn from the wisdom of diverse peoples and forests and deserts, seeking together to halt global warming and heal the earth.

**Funding:** This project received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
