Dancing with Crickets:
Francis of Assisi’s Spirituality of Nature
Joseph Stoutzenberger
The following articles are excerpts from a manuscript written by Joe Stoutzenberger tentatively titled:
"Dancing with Crickets: Reflections on Francis of Assisi’s Spirituality and Nature."
Paintings will accompany the text.
The manuscript has been accepted for publication by Tau Publications, Phoenix, AZ. Look for it in print this fall. .
Can Francis Be a Model for Today?
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing (Revelation 5:13), quoted in Francis’ “Later Admonitions to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance.”
Sixty years ago no one would have thought to connect care for the environment with the message of the gospels. Yes, Jesus spoke about sheep, wheat and weeds, and the birds of the air. But Jesus referenced them to convey a message about how to view our fellow human beings, not our non-human fellow travelers on this earth. Since then, care for the environment has become a central message of the Catholic Church. In 1990 Pope John Paul II pointed out that “respect for life” extends to respect for all creation. In 2008 Pope Benedict took steps to make the Vatican “the greenest state in the world” by installing an extensive system of solar panels and making other environmentally-friendly innovations. And Pope Francis, from his inaugural Mass onward, has made care for the environment a pivotal theme of his papacy. In his homily during his first Mass on March 19, 2013, Pope Francis used the feast of St. Joseph to encourage us all to be “protectors of the most vulnerable.” He had in mind all those elements of nature that we are responsible for and need our support.
Whom do Catholics look to for inspiration regarding our relationship with nature? Of course, St. Francis of Assisi stands out. He is the premier patron saint of animals, the environment, ecologists and other lovers of nature.
Perhaps the most popular saint of all time, he inspires not only Catholics but people of all faiths and no faith. His “Canticle of the Creatures,” the first poem written in Italian, is actually a song that Francis and his companions often sang as they traveled through beautiful Italian countryside. A question for us is: Can Francis be both an inspiration as well as a guide for how we treat all elements of the earth? Can Francis serve as more than a garden statue or a figure in a bird bath? The earth and all that makes up the environment deserve—indeed, demand—our attention today. If climate scientists are correct, we are actually teetering on a precipice when it comes to what our future and the future of life on earth will be. If Francis is relevant for today, he must offer both comfort and hope as well as a challenge for us that is a call to action.
Ecology, for whom Francis serves as a worthy patron saint, means “the study of our home.” We have no other place to live than the lovely and intricately designed earth that is our home. It’s no wonder that the bible begins with the refrain “It is good” as every member of the family of creation comes into being. Do we really want to
depend on colonizing the barren planet of Mars when the earth is so rich and beautiful and successful in the mind- boggling interplay of elements that makes it work so wonderfully? Nonetheless, our house is creaking and our
home is groaning. Pope Francis, a scientist as well as pope, offers an insightful explication of environmental problems and the need for all people to become engaged in preserving the earth. Not surprisingly, he named his 2015 encyclical on the environment after the first words of Francis of Assisi’s song of the creatures, Laudato Si. The English title is: “On Concern for Our Common Home.”
Science is good at describing the problem, pointing out steps needing to be done, and—alas—predicting the dire consequences if insufficient actions aren’t taken. However, as Pope Francis reminds us, care for our common home is not simply a scientific dilemma calling for scientific solutions. It requires a transformation in our spirituality—meaning our lifestyle, our worldview, and the way we see our relationship with God and all other creatures. Numerous books, conferences, and organizations have proposed what a spirituality would be that focuses on the extended family that includes our earthly sisters and brothers as well as the entire cosmos. What, in particular, does Francis offer us?
A few stories from his first biographer, Thomas of Celano, indicate how Francis looked upon the rest of nature. While walking along a road one day, Francis comes upon a flock of birds chirping away. He walks into the field where they are, and a surprising thing happens. The birds don’t fly away. In another incident, when Francis asks birds to cease their chatter for a bit so that Francis can also praise God in song, the birds actually comply! The incidents suggest two important elements of an eco-friendly spirituality. Francis recognizes the birds not as “other” but as companions. Lording it over these feathered friends is totally foreign to his understanding of God and of the human and nonhuman relationship with God. Jesus used images from nature to make a point about God and humans. In the story of the birds Francis isn’t using them to speak about what human beings should aspire to be. Rather, he is simply experiencing the birds as fellow creatures who praise God, as we are all called to do with our lives. In another story Francis pauses to listen to crickets chirping outside his window in the evening. He decides to join his evening prayer with theirs, singing along in creature to creature harmony. We live in harmony with the rest of nature or we perish together.
The “book” Francis read the most was nature itself. His Canticle of the Creatures reveals how intimately he entered into the reading of that book. It never took him away from feeling intimacy with God and Jesus; he was no dualist. For Francis, Incarnation didn’t cease when Jesus ascended into heaven. God was present all around him. God for Francis was not hidden but radiantly present in people, animals, plants, sun, moon, and stars. In God’s bounty, all creatures are a grace. We are indebted to all other creatures, as we are indebted to God, the Creator.
The Universe Groaning
Let the heavens and the earth rejoice. Let the sea and its fullness resound. Let the fields and all that is in them be joyful.
The above words, part of the evening song Francis sang each night, speaks of how all creation sings out in joyful praise of God. If rivers and seas, fields and mountains, can be joyful, perhaps they can be sad as well. As the universe expands, one of its gems, the earth, is crying out. The fullness of the sea is diminishing. Fields cannot be joyful when they turn to desert due to the warming of the atmosphere they depend on. Polluted streams are tearful. Members of complex, colorful species of all stripes mourn as they cease to exist. The world in flames sings a desperate, sad song. The crisis is global and requires a global solution. We need to pressure world leaders to work together to address the problem. The crisis is also local. Even little steps we take make a difference. Plant a tree. Reduce fossil fuel consumption. Reduce your use of plastic. And don’t forget to recycle!
Francis knew the psalms as the song book of the Church. He loved to sing them, and so many of them invite us humans to join with all manner of creation in the song they sing. Can we be deaf to the song being sung by the trees in tropical rain forests as they are cut down to clear land for grazing? What song does air sing when it is poisoned to the point of toxicity? Deer and bear find less and less space in which to frolic or even to make their way safely to water sources. In late 2019 a sperm whale washed ashore on a Scottish beach. In its stomach was
220 pounds of plastic and other trash. The prophet Isaiah gave voice to what could be a song sung by all creatures today: “I hear singing from all corners of the earth…But I said, ‘I am wasting away! I am wasting away! Woe is me!’” (Isaiah 24:16). We can’t sing the psalms nowadays without singing the blues.
All creation is groaning in labor pains… (Romans 8:22). In the daily psalms we sing, we rejoice in the
gifts you have showered upon us, O Lord, but we also mourn the damage we have inflicted upon them. May our evening song of praise to you be a constant reminder that we can be instruments to help the heavens and earth once again rejoice, the seas resound, and fields and forests exalt you. Amen.
Be praised, my Lord, for our Sister, Mother Earth,/ Who nourishes and governs us,/ And produces various fruits, many-colored flowers and herbs.
Francis chooses unusual wording to describe Mother Earth. He says that she not only nourishes us but also “governs us.” Shouldn’t he have said that we humans govern the earth? According to the Book of Genesis, isn’t that what God had in mind for us? We are to “have dominion over” all the rest of creation. Recent biblical scholarship has warned that we have for too long misinterpreted what the Bible is saying here. They say that the real meaning of “dominion over” is “stewardship.” God expects us to be stewards, meaning “caretakers,” of the earth and our fellow creatures. Francis is taking that notion one step further. In large part, “the earth” shapes who and what we are. In the words of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, we don’t just “be,” we
“interbe.” Interbeing means we can never separate ourselves from other elements of the earth around us and within us. We wouldn’t even gain the nourishment we need to survive if it wasn’t for foreign creatures in our gut helping to break down the food we eat. There’s a reason probiotic foods and supplements have become so
popular. We need “good bacteria” in us at all times. We are at the mercy of Mother Earth for what we eat and what we digest to sustain our bodies. Francis seems to be acknowledging our Interbeing with the rest of nature that Buddhists are also aware of. We live dangerously if we think that the laws of nature don’t apply to us.
Some years ago a commercial ran on tv depicting margarine passing itself off as being as tasty as butter. Mother Nature appears in the commercial fuming: “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,” and lightning and storms follow.
Francis knew that we can’t really fool Mother Nature. It would mean fooling ourselves. May we, with Francis, acknowledge our debt to our sister, Mother Earth, for kindly caring for us and bringing forth good foods, tasty herbs, and colorful flowers.
In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose
Romans 8:28. You have designed your earth to work together for good, O Lord, and for us to take our place in fulfilling your purpose. We thank you, Lord, for the gifts of the earth. May we in turn be gift to them. Amen.
Be praised, my Lord, for those who pardon out of love for you/ And endure infirmity and tribulation.
Francis added this verse to the Canticle when he heard that two leaders of Assisi were quarreling with each other. He knew that hatred led to dire consequences. He had had a brief taste of warfare and wanted none of it for anyone. Besides its immediate- human cost, wars also have a devastating effect on the environment. Images of cities and countries before and after battles are stark reminders of how all living things suffer because of war.
Expanding deserts in Africa can’t be separated from wars being waged between quarreling factions. Plant and animal communities are the silent victims of war. A world at war is an environmental disaster. Even preparing for war harms the environment and takes away from concentrating on the bigger problem facing the entire world
community. On the other hand, a world at peace provides opportunities for the human family to work together to solve the problems resulting from sloppy or misguided environmental practices.
Today we face one pressing environmental crisis resulting from wars, namely the mass migration of people. People forced from their homeland under the threat of violence aren’t thinking that cutting down trees along the way for warmth or temporary shelter has a long-term negative impact on the environment. They aren’t engaging in thoughtful crop management They are just trying to survive here and now and save their children from starvation and death. Over-crowded conditions endured by refugees places a great strain on local resources. Warfare has become an abomination that our fragile earth’s environment can no longer afford.
May we cultivate pardon and love among peoples so that, in peace, we can address the ecological problems faced by the entire world community.
God will settle disputes among peoples; they will turn their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks (Isaiah 2:4). O Lord, make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon. And may I serve as an advocate of hospitality for those driven from their homelands due to the threat of violence. Amen.
Francis’s Spirituality of Nature:
Savor and Love, Protect and Preserve God’s Family
A number of stories are told related to the death of Francis. One story has a flock of larks flying overhead in the shape of a cross as Francis lay dying. Stories associating saints with miraculous happenings such as this were not uncommon in the Middle Ages. This particular story is quite appropriate for Francis. It combines the image of Christ on the cross with nature, as Francis did in his unique brand of spirituality. Francis is sometimes called a “nature mystic,” as if he experienced God exclusively in nature. The historical record shows this to be entirely inaccurate. Francis experienced God in contemplating the sufferings of Christ, in the Eucharist, in Scripture, in churches, and in the people he met. Francis also experienced God’s presence in nature. Separating “religion” from a deep appreciation for the holiness of the natural world is totally foreign to Francis. All the stories of Francis and other creatures indicate that he treasured both the books of scripture as well as the “book of creation.”
In this regard Francis stands out as a saint for today. So many young people are saying that they have a spiritual experience not in church but while hiking in the woods, on a beach, or gazing at a sunset. Francis would be right there with them. However, he also saw the psalms, the story of Jesus, and the prayers and liturgical celebrations of the Church as leading people to an experience of the glories of all creation. Finding a church building to be a sacred place but a park or a beach not holy is not the vision of creation we read about at the beginning of Genesis. Francis did not veer off from Christianity in his “nature mysticism;” he brought it home from which it had strayed.
Francis is also a saint for today because we need his inspiration to tackle the environmental crisis we face.
Perhaps we should say “crises” to separate out different problems so that they can be addressed in manageable ways. Francis loved nature and looked upon God as a loving creator of our world. It would be hard for any self- conscious earth creature not to share those sentiments. Who doesn’t “love nature”? Francis showed that love in the many ways he treated all creatures, especially creatures who were vulnerable or hurting, such as the rabbits whom he rescued from traps that afterwards didn’t want to leave his side. We can name many elements of nature that are hurting today. The voice of Christ calling us to repair God’s house isn’t coming from a crucifix in a rundown chapel. It is coming from silent streams, bee-less gardens, warming oceans, melting glaciers, burning forests, and expanding deserts. Francis can serve as a model, an inspiration, and—if we believe in the communion of saints, a companion as we dedicate ourselves to actions that flow from a love of nature.
Many organizations exist today dedicated to protecting and preserving the environment, and new ones are emerging regularly as more and more people seek creative ways to make a difference. There are organizations that focus on one aspect of our environmental crisis, such as “Preserve,” which seeks to cut down on the amount of plastic that ends up in the oceans. The ones listed here address the problem from a religious perspective. They can provide additional information, including suggestions for nature-related prayer experiences. They also describe actions that can be taken individually and also actions that can be taken to change laws and societal practices. Quite likely there already is a group organized in your parish or local community dedicated to making a difference. Joining with others provides encouragement, energy, mutual support, and creativity multiplied. Also, it is the Franciscan way!
Catholic Climate Covenant: Formed with the help of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
EarthBeat: Stories of climate crisis, faith and action, published by the National Catholic Reporter
newspaper
Franciscan Action Network: Encourages and assists local groups to address environmental problems in the spirit of Saint Francis
Global Catholic Climate Movement: Formed in response to Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment
Interfaith Power & Light: Aimed at inspiring and mobilizing people of all faiths to address environmental problems
