For Pope Francis, the ecological crisis is not separate from the struggle for justice, peace and quality of life for human beings. To address the crisis we must remember that we too are God’s creatures, part of God’s creation, and intimately linked to every part of it, even through the composition of our bodies – we are dust of the earth. We cannot live outside God’s creation.
Do we think of ourselves as somehow separate from creation, or do we understand ourselves to be part of it?
How might we shift our consciousness from concern for our environment, as our life support system, to care for God’s creation, of which we are a part and in which we participate?