The Allure of Alaska

By Wanda Copeland

With several other members of our diocesan environmental stewardship commission, I took my first trip to Alaska a few years ago. We traveled there at the behest of Mark MacDonald, the Episcopal Bishop of Alaska, to learn about the effects of global warming, especially as they are impacting Native peoples.

I was awestruck by the expansiveness of Alaska's majesty. Mountains, sky and undeveloped land seem to go on forever. The sheer size of Alaska has been described by many people in many circles for decades and centuries. One still gets that intense “frontier” feeling in most of the state. We visited the domesticated city of Anchorage with its proper streets, occasional skyscraper. chain stores, and manicured lawns. We visited Fairbanks with its paved-becoming-gravel-roads, native people who come in for six months from the village, and grand murals depicting recent Alaskan history – all giving it an “edge of the world” feel. We visited Denali as it was beginning to clothe itself in new snow for the winter. We visited Native villages rife with uncertainty about who and what they are now, and how to prepare their children for the future. And we visited the 48-inch-round Alaskan oil pipeline, which incessantly pumps the juice of our 21 st century addiction across mile and acre of otherwise unspoiled territory.

Alaska has an almost-intoxicating allure for me (and clearly thousands of others). It titillates the senses with its incredible natural beauty. Its proximity to vast expanses of wilderness beckons anyone intrigued with proving their own existence. In all of Alaska's complex nature, it plays into the human hunger to tame the natural world. It also invites us to discover what it means to humbly co-exist as one small part of the fabric of the land, the sea and the sky. And, I believe, it is that dichotomy which confounds our modern world.

I am encouraged by external and internal forces to use all resources necessary to drive faster, consume more, perfect my physical body, fully express my individuality, and establish by personal safety and demand all that is rightfully mine (especially my tax money). I can protest all I want, but the images . . . strike a fundamental chord within my human breast.

The world I live in is torn by competing values and images. I am encouraged by external and internal forces to use all resources necessary to drive faster, consume more, perfect my physical body, fully express my individuality, and establish by personal safety and demand all that is rightfully mine (especially my tax money). I can protest all I want, but the images around me would not have such appeal if they did not strike a fundamental chord within my human breast.

Sure I want to have a nice library filled with great books, and a yard that is appealing to humans and birds, and clothes that don't cost an arm and a leg. It's true that I can't grow and process all my own food and hope to have time for a personal career. I also find I love to travel the world, and that takes money, fuel, and spending of “excess” resources.

But, fueled by my mother's passion for reducing, and reusing, our house now has space for recycling in six kinds. I have increasingly discovered hidden parts of my soul while wilderness canoe camping. Meals eaten at home are constantly interrupted to watch birds at our feeders, deer in the back, ducks on the creek, fresh snow falling, or the gathering gloom of storm clouds. I pout when my day off consists of errands in the city or funeral services rather than watching bluebirds build nests. And I fear for what kind of world I am leaving for my grandchildren.

I grew up co-existing with a natural world. I was always aware of weather, seasons and the majesty of all God had created. My first and strongest image of God is as creator. Just yesterday, my mother, on touring a neighborhood greenhouse full of blooming pansies said, “And people say there is no God. I just don't get it.” God has always been the one who is most vividly experienced in fresh spring rain, a train of ants headed toward their hill, or in a sunset. How can there not be a God who orders all of this?

And yet, as the psalmist says, “What is man that you [God] should be mindful of him?” Are we the crowning achievement of creation, or an exhausted God's afterthought? Or are we just one of many delightfully loved beings? Perhaps our ability to ponder sets us apart. But, unless we ponder more often and more convincingly, what allows us to remain a part of ?

Now, at Earth Day 2004, I must confess to frustrated anxiety and disillusionment. So much that has been painstakingly gained over 50 to 100 years (by people much more articulate and committed than I) seems to be drifting through our hands like sand. Water, land and air protections are being eroded almost as fast as the tropical rainforest. Automobile CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards are laughable, and the amount of single-occupancy vehicles is almost 100% in my neighborhood. Recycling stands at approximately 15% here, and roadsides are filled with more trash than I have seen in over 30 years.

Yet, there are now groups of people volunteering to pick up the roadside trash. Our community has a wind generator, even if it will take 200 years to pay for itself. And our schools are committed to teaching young people about caring for the earth. We do live in a world of competing interests. We do find ourselves wrestling with the value of forests, the need for songbirds, and whence greenspaces. But our big-box grocery is stocking natural foods and cleaning products. Even Ford Motor recently announced a higher-efficiency SUV.

Thomas Merton said,

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.”

Merton had it right. God, I also believe, is pleased by our honest desires to improve ourselves, and our world. Are we getting it right? Sometimes. Are we doing enough to be content with our environmental successes? I pray the answer is no: that we hunger to do more. Are we doing enough right now to stop the massive destruction of our earth through global warming? I have to say, emphatically, “NO!”

Upon reflection, it seems to me that Alaska is truly our canary in the coalmine. As Alaska goes, so goes the long-term future of our world. Our desire to preserve the Chugatch National Forests and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not an issue of being Pollyanna-ish. It is our honest wrestling with ourselves about the integral value of God's Creation.

Upon reflection, it seems to me that Alaska is truly our canary in the coalmine. As Alaska goes, so goes the long-term future of our world. Our desire to preserve the Chugatch National Forests and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not an issue of being Pollyanna-ish. It is our honest wrestling with ourselves about the integral value of God's Creation. It is an issue of the depth and breadth of our faith, of our love for God. At some point we have to force ourselves to look beyond instant gratification and make sacrifices, the cost of which we cannot count. We have to be willing to set aside what I want for what we all need . I have always described true faith as being a combination of the vertical nature of my direct relationship to a living God tempered with the horizontal nature of care for the salvation of my fellow beings. Nowhere is this more true than in our current environmental crisis.

However, we cannot depend on “activist” judges or well-crafted legislation alone to do our work. We, as people of faith, must continually re-invigorate a “coalition of the willing” to move our issues forward. As people of faith, we must share the stories of our religious heritage with children wherever we go. God must not only be in our hands and feet, but also in our mouths, in our pulpits, in our church education. Let us proclaim our Creator God from the pinnacles of our churches everywhere.

The Rev. Wanda Copeland convenes the national Episcopal Ecological Network (EEN) and also serves as rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Elk River, Minn. She works with other EEN members to support ecological sustainability, environmental justice, organic food production, Creation-centered theology, and other environmental ministries. Wanda may be reached by email at wcopetjohn@worldnet.att.net .