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brown pelican

Message from Pastor Peter Marty

Requiem for the birds

By Pastor Peter Marty

There is a disaster of epic proportions shaping up in the Gulf of Mexico. It may be that a future reader of a column like this will judge these words to be hyperbole. But, I don’t think so. When someone termed the BP oil rig collapse of last week, and the resultant gusher of an oil spill, “America’s Chernobyl,” they weren’t kidding. Nobody seems to have the faintest idea how to stem the flow of oil from the ocean floor one mile down — at least not anytime soon.

The havoc of this spill is only beginning to display its complete vulgarity. Fishermen may not only be out of a job; their whole way of life may be evaporating before their eyes. The coastal economies of our southernmost states are quaking at the prospect of the oil coming ashore. And then there are the birds in those endless salt marshes of Louisiana. Oh, the birds.

The breeding season for Brown Pelicans has just begun, and they have relatively low reproductive rates to begin with. Piping Plovers that feed on small invertebrates along the beach are already an endangered species. Wading bird species like Reddish Egrets, White Ibis, and Great Herons nest in the marshlands and feed on fish. Then there are nesting Terns with their penguin-colored bodies and brilliant yellow beaks, beaks the hue of a yellow highlighter pen.

If a bird ingests oil, scientists will give it — catch this — Pepto-Bismol in a desperate attempt to try and save it. A solution of one part Dawn dishwashing soap and 99 parts warm water becomes the cleaner of choice for feathers. Sometimes 10 to 15 baths per bird are required. No detail within the process of trying to save an oil-soaked bird is pretty. It’s all uphill.

The late naturalist, Rachel Carson, once reflected on what it was like for her to stand at the edge of the sea and feel the mist of the great salt marsh upon her face. “To watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years,” she said, “is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” Suddenly, we find ourselves revisiting that Rachel Carson phrase, “nearly eternal.” These birds are in a fight for their lives.

I find myself wanting to redefine the term carbon footprint — not that I have any power to do so. I know the term has to do with greenhouse gases and the sum of our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. But the word carbon suggests to me something darker like charcoal. It is the soot that spews into the air when coal is burned. It is the thin paper that once left black residue on a typist’s hands before the invention of photocopiers. Carbon feels as ugly as oil stuck to a defenseless bird.

If carbon footprint is not in the running for redefinition, maybe we should start speaking instead of our moral footprint. This environmental crisis is a moral issue. It is time that we acquire a bit more humility and quit acting like we own this planet. Our habitat is on loan, for goodness sakes. We have all but lost our sense of courtesy toward this earth. On most days, gratitude for its sacred realities runs in desperately short supply.

Someone once said, “We will never save that which we do not love.” So, as the BP drilling experts work feverishly to shut down the gusher on the ocean floor, and whole communities of people and government do their thing to coordinate clean-up efforts, this is a good time for us to do something else. It is time for us to fall in love with those salt marsh birds, whose number we cannot know, but who each possess a name and place in the heart of God. We need what ecologist Thomas Berry calls “a deep psychic change” so that the natural world will become less a commodity to be used and more a sacred reality to be cherished.

Such a change in perspective could well resemble a moral footprint of Godly proportions.

Pastor Peter Marty,

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