by Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro

Introduction

I live in Looc, Sibulan. Looc means “cove.” It is a semi-agricultural area overlooking the sea. The land was barren when we came six years ago. I did not see a single tree standing, not even a single banana tree could survive. I learned that in the past the men, aside from fishing, earned a living by selling firewoo,d. They had cut down all the trees on the hills. The corals in the sea were destroyed by dynamite fishing This is evidenced by the dead corals, the absence of seashells, seaweed, the scarcity of fish in the cove and the presence of several men whose hands or arms had been amputated because of dynamite fishing accidents.

When the hills grew bald and the sea did not give as much fish anymore, the men began to go out of the village. They now earn their living by driving passenger multicabs and some have found employment in the city which is only around seven miles away. The women who carry a threefold burden, just like the men, are left to look for ways to augment the family’s meager income. Some have learned to engage in running a small sari-sari store and carenderia (eatery). But my immediate neighbors which include a widow, a middle-aged single woman, a pre-school teacher, and two other women, went back to the depleted land. They tried to make it productive again. I realized there is one thread that kept us connected. We took care of the land around us, which a few years ago looked like a desert Today, banana trees and other fruit trees are growing, even in the sandy area very close to the seashore. The hills are gradually becoming verdant as I literally crawl over the hillsides to plant trees. And when we have the chance, we discuss, under the shade of the tree, little things like the variety of trees we planted and the seeds we collected, like getting rid of pests by smoking, or the scarcity of water, the muscle pains we feel from carrying pails of water to the thirsty plants. Somehow, the bond of sisterhood among these women is reinforced by each one’s understanding of keeping and healing Creation.

And yet many men thought this was an easy job for women. So the women are left to do all this without help. In fact, it took me years to convince my husband to become a true partner in keeping and healing the land. This should not surprise me, because he was raised in a patriarchal society where men wield so much power. What bothered me was that the church and the nationalist movement he was involved with in those days could not connect the importance of the women’s situation and environmental devastation in the struggle for freedom and democracy.

Environmental Issues And Women

Just as the rights and situation of women were pushed to the periphery in the past, the issue of ecology was also given less attention until the situation became deplorable. The themes of women and the environment have been in the limelight now that many people have realized that planet Earth and the female Homo Sapiens are endangered. And yet, such a realization now has not stopped rich nations and the poor nations’ leaders from plundering the resources of the earth for the benefit of the few. The rich nations’ lust for luxury and affluence led them to take advantage of other poor and developing countries’ resources. And to keep the people of these countries from protesting, the focus of the people’s attention is deflected, and militarization implemented to suppress any movement towards freedom and sell-realization. Human beings’ sinfulness led to destruction of relationships and the degradation of the environment. Many people did not realize that ultimately, by destroying the base of the ecosystem, it is the human being that is truly endangered. And in this situation, women and children suffer three times as much as men.

The destruction of the environment leads us to re-examine who we are, our relationships to each other and the relevance of our Christian faith in the face of wanton ecological destruction.

Partnership In Tilling And Keeping

The Bible as a resource of our faith has much to tell us about our life and plight today as a people. Throughout the Scriptures, we read passages that say something about the issues of partnership and ecology. Various indigenous cultures have their creation stories. The Bible, from the point of view of the Hebrew culture, tells us the story of creation in Genesis 1 and 2. That God created a “garden” and put human beings in the midst of it to “till and keep it” (Gen. 2:15 NRSV). The next chapters of Genesis (chs. 3-11) gives us a view of the writer’s way of explaining the cause and origin of suffering and pain, of how human beings destroyed their relationship with God by disobedience; and the consequence - the destruction of relationships among human beings, which we now call sin.

But God, in spite of all this, established a covenant with human beings -- Noah and his wife, their descendants; and with every creature (Gen.9:9-11). And yet, human beings did not learn their lesson. The chosen people, now called Israel, continued to disobey God so that prophets were raised up to bring them back to God. The eighth century B.C.E. prophet, Hosea, pronounced God’s indictment against the people: “There is no faithfulness or loyalty and no knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore, the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing” (Hosea 4:1-3 NRSV).

But God is a forgiving God. Responding to the prayer of Solomon, God said: “If my people, who are called by my name, humble themselves, pray, seek my face and turn from their
wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (II Chron. 7:14 NRSV).

Paradise In Asia Is Being Lost

In the recent past, we have heard of the accident in Bhopal. We have heard of acid rain, destructive oil spills. We have seen leaking chemical dumpsites of factories and mines that killed rivers and streams and people. We have witnessed the denudation of forests and we have experienced global warming and its greenhouse effect. There is a proliferation of signs of death. The old translation and misinterpretation of the biblical phrase “having dominion over all creation” has been used as an excuse or even a basis and justification for the wanton act of plundering the earth. Policies of governments, especially in Asia and other Third world countries, hardly recognize or practice responsibility for caring for the earth. In Ghana, for example, the fragile state of the cocoa industry was used as an excuse for the government to revive commercial industry with World Bank support. However, this led to a fast deforestation rate of 1.3 to 2.0 per cent a year. The remaining forest in this area is only 25 per cent of the original forest size, and, at this rate, it is expected that by year 2000, all of the trees will be gone. (Bello, 1994, p.61).

The environmental crisis in the Philippines is intensifying due to resource over-exploitation for commercial purposes, both for export and domestic consumption. “The IMF-World Bank pressure on the country to gain foreign exchange in order to service the external debt. . . resulted in the substantial outflow of natural resources . . .“ and the IMF-World Bank discouraged serious government efforts to impose environmental controls on resource use. Forest area declined to 21 per cent in the mid-80s. Coastal fish resources were depleted. Seventy per cent of coral reefs have been destroyed in the last fifteen years and the salinity of inland water has risen. (Bello, pp. 63-65).

Asia has lost a total of 42 per cent of its original rain forests, and Burma alone has lost 680,000 hectares of forest per year. Other Asian countries registered a high percentage of population living within the poverty line - a decline from 60 per cent to 17 per cent in 1987 was, according to Walden Bello (1994), only a statistical phenomenon and never a real one. More than a million people have moved to Borneo due to the denudation and erosion of many areas in Java. (Orteza, 1992, pp. 35, 41) Impoverishment and inequality have caused environmental degradation, and this is the result of industrial growth and the demands of ‘highly wasteful economic strategies of the northern economies” (Bello, 1994, p.8)

In this situation, the most painful burden and suffering falls upon the women and children. Asian women theologians have made a clear stand that there is a definite connection between the hierarchy of men over women and that of human beings over nature. Daniel L. Migliore (1991, p. 81) cited the historian Lynn White Jr. who concluded that Christianity bears a “huge burden of guilt” for the ecological crisis of today. Eco-feminists unite ecology with feminism. Rosemary Radford Reuther (1991) describes ecology as a study that “examines how nature communities function to sustain a healthy web of life and how they
become disrupted, causing death to plants and animal life.” Much of the disturbance of the web of life is caused by human intervention. Reuther proceeds to define feminism in terms of “culture and consciousness, charting the symbolic, psychological and ethical connections between domination of women and male monopolization of resources and controlling power.” This is significant in understanding partnership in the living of these days when the earth is dying and a new global apocalypse emerging.

Theological Implications

From the few texts cited, we find again and again some insights for our life today. First, God gave the human beings the responsibility to “till” the land. This is a call and challenge to be co-cultivators of the land. Among all of God’s creation, only human beings are given the privilege to cultivate the land. This means to work and draw out from the land all its potential to bring about life and sustain it. “Tilling is for human sustenance.., it exemplifies everything we humans do, purposely and consciously, to draw sustenance from nature.” (Presbyterian Eco-Justice Task Force, 1989, p.3). And tilling is an act of self-realization. Work should not be understood as punishment. It should be understood as exercising God’s gift of talent and creativity as well as responsibility in the context of God’s loving act of creating the human beings in the image of the Godself. God works. God creates. The imago dei is given the honor to share that capacity to work and the opportunity to develop the potential of creativity endowed by the Creator.

Secondly, God calls each human being to have a share in the task of “keeping” the earth. To keep means to hold on to and care for it. Again, only the human being is given the privilege to participate, purposely and consciously, in the task of God in “keeping” and “tilling” the earth. This means ensuring that the capacity of creation to provide sustenance for other creatures, especially human beings, is maintained. It means ensuring that the cycles and seasons, the flora and fauna, will continue to work and function as intended by God. (Presbyterian Eco-Justice Task Force, 1989. p.’4)

This is not new to women. Being the first agriculturists, women domesticated animals, cultivated the land and planted a variety of seeds. Women have very close bonds with the earth, so that those who are not blinded totally by patriarchal values, easily understand the pains the earth and her children feel. However, the call to do the task of keeping and tilling was not just to women. It was also a call to men. Therefore, it becomes a call for a partnership among human beings, a partnership of women and men in caring for the earth. Then, we can say that the task of tilling and keeping the earth is a task we do in partnership with one another.

Thirdly, the basis of all partnerships therefore, is the partnership between God and human beings. This is the mystery of God’s love: the Creator takes the Creature as a partner in keeping and tilling the earth! The Hebrew concept of partnership is rooted in the word chalek which literally means “one who has a portion or share.” The Greek Koinonos means “one having in common.” These ancient words help us understand the concept of partner and partnership.

A partner, therefore, is one who has a share or portion of the task of God. The human being is given a common task with the Creator. In such a partnership, the human being shares the responsibility of maintaining the beauty and productivity of the whole of God’s creation.

Fourthly, God calls us to be humble and acknowledge our sinfulness. God made a promise to heal our land. But we need to accept the reality that we have contributed to the wanton destruction of the land and environment directly or indirectly. We need to be humble and turn away from our sins not only in words but also in practice. This means humanity should not only declare its pride and arrogance in taking full control over life - their own and that of the rest of God’s creation entrusted to them -- human beings should also take steps to lead in a new way of living that enhances the life of the community.

Fifth, God calls us to enter into new forms of relationship of commitment, interdependence and partnership for keeping and healing Creation. Partnership, according to Letty Russell (1979) is a “new form of relationship in which there is a continuing commitment and common struggle in interaction with a wider community context.” There are two models of partnership that I would like to look into: the partnership of women and the partnership of women and men.

a) Sisterhood. The issue of keeping and healing creation ultimately points to saving and bringing about life in a dying world. Bonding and solidarity among women has been proven to have worked miracles in sustaining life. Exodus 2:1-10 is a familiar story, but somehow, at first glance, it has no relevance to the issues of environmental degradation and eco-feminism. But then I discovered that the story does give us insights bearing on the issue. The aspects of solidarity and sisterhood in this familiar story are usually not highlighted in Bible studies and sermons in the local churches. In the story, we see Jochebed (Exod. 6:20; Num. 26:59), the mother who would risk anything just to save life - the life of her baby Moses.

In another scene in the story, we see an unnamed daughter of Pharaoh taking the risk of adopting a Hebrew boy with the help of her trusted maids. The girl Miriam served as mediator between the poor Hebrew biological mother and the affluent Egyptian surrogate mother, and she too was equally concerned with her baby brother. Note that the women here transcended racial, cultural and class differences and forged a partnership to rescue and sustain life. But this is not only a story of sisterhood; it is also a story of women asserting and harnessing their power to rise above risks to sustain life and the power to give names. Drorah O’Donnel Setel noted that Moses’ adoptive mother is not named, but ironically, she gave a name to the baby. (Newsom and Ringe, 1992. p.30). The women and a girl-child here are bound by a common struggle against the anti-life decree of the Pharaoh that sought to snuff out the innocent life of a child. The sisterhood should be distinguished from brotherhood or fraternities and sororities. The latter organizations, especially in the Philippines, inflict pain on persons claiming that initiates would be loyal to those senior to them in the organization.

b) Partnership between women and men. The Creation story in Genesis 1:27 tells us of God creating human beings of equal stature though different in biological structure. God intended the woman and man to be partners of equal footing in whatever task done along the line of filling, keeping and tilling the earth. God empowered the two and intended woman and man to share that power. God saw that it was good. How sad it is to note that this intention was destroyed when the men in a patriarchal society wanted to take control of power and wanted to have power over everything, including the women.

This partnership challenges women to reclaim their long-lost power as equal partners with men. This act of reclaiming also calls women and men to live a new kind of lifestyle, with new ethical standards and values that are other-oriented. It is a call to practice the saying:
“Live simply so that others may simply live.” Women and men should take a cue from our cultural roots and Asian spirituality that is very much trusting and creation-oriented.

Conclusion

Human life means working to give protection and care for the earth. There is no other novel way to save human life but to save the earth. The ultimate objective of Bible studies and theological reflections is not primarily to make biblical scholars and professional theologians out of people. The goal is to help people put their learning and reflection into practice. Otherwise, Christians would just sound like clanging cymbals. Let me challenge primarily women to make a difference: to take on a new kind of humility, yet assert her place as an equal in all levels in all kinds of relationships, to put into practice empirical and scientific knowledge about saving the earth and to live a life truly committed to keep and heal the earth.

References:

(1) Bello, W. (1994). Dark Victory. Quezon City, Phils: Freedom from Debt Coalition.

(2) Migliore, D. (1991) Faith Seeking Understanding. Michigan: Win. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

(3) Newsom CA. ad Ringe, S.H. (eds.)(1992). The woman’s Bible Commentary. Kentucky: Westminster Knox Press.

(4) Orteza, E.J. (1992) Forests are Not Forever: A Resource Handbook on the Environment. Washington D.C.: Center of Concern and Quezon City: UCCP.