A reflection on ‘Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves’

Our interim communications officer, Jon Chew, reflects on our recent multi-faith eco-summit on 23 February, 2025.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.” – Jalaluddin Rumi

As Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers, a trustee of Faith for the Climate, led us in ‘Hinei Ma Tov’ – a Jewish hymn sung at Shabbat feasts – I was reminded of the field the Sufi poet Rumi speaks of. While evocative, this translation by Coleman Barks has been accused of de-Islamifying Rumi a bit too much. 

There is another translation by the British scholar A.J. Arberry that is closer to the original meaning of the Persian: 

“Beyond Islam and unbelief there is a ‘desert plain.’ For us, there is a ‘passion’ in the midst of that expanse. The knower [of God] who reaches there will prostrate [in prayer], (for) there is neither Islam nor unbelief, nor any ‘where’ (in) that place.”

In this rendering, the middle ground between belief and unbelief feels like a blank canvas, a place that may be too scary for some to enter. But here, a worshipper of God finds a unique passion, where your heart and devotion to truth and healing fills the expanse. A passion that is no less devoted, that causes us to prostrate in prayer, but maybe, a place where fellow pilgrims are feasting with each other. A place where we are bound not by the ferocity of our arguments, but by our need to find kinship.

Hinei mah tov umah na’im / Shevet achim gam yachad. Behold how good and pleasing it is, for people to sit together in unity.

An act of gathering can be a provocation for our times, because these are the times we live in. On February 23, around 150 of us spent an afternoon at Friends House in London for our ‘Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves’ summit. Co-organised with Christian Climate Action and Quakers in Britain, we came together in The Light Auditorium, where a vaulted roof stretched with holy hands to the skylight above, almost in recognition that the sacred provides safety for the extra-ordinary. 

The word “inter” kept springing to mind, the original word in Latin meaning “in between”. An invitation that we walk to the middle, in between political hellfire and partisan demons, to see if our gods, our beliefs and our questions about the world and how best to heal her could sit well together. For a day, it felt like they all could. That we found true light at this underexplored intersection of faith and love. So many varied groups, from Muslims to Baha’is, from Hindu Climate Action to Green Christian, from individual activists to even student volunteers, came to lend their hearts and heads for our event. 

In his welcome speech, Shanon, our director, put forward an audacious ask: that we would find hope together today, even while the planet burns. That truly set the tone for the upcoming panel discussions, breakout workshops, meditation sessions and the little in-between gaps around coffee, pastry and the numerous faith stalls around the corner. 

Hope could be found in the eager listening of participants on how to persuade our MPs to take action on the climate crisis. Hope could be seen as people stood up on an imaginary line, offering clarity and courage on how different faiths could work together effectively. Hope was present while we shared our new learnings with the stranger-becomes-ally next to us. Hope was in the smiles. Hope was in the prayers and reflections. 

In the breakout workshop “Healing the Earth: Starting with our Local Environment”, Jo Hindley from Retrofit Balsall Heath offered this startling reminder from Theodore Roosevelt: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. She brought up the twin ideas of microcosm and macrocosm, how the little we do ourselves exists within the larger context of our community. That the little we do doesn’t just heal the world but – as our event title suggests – that in doing so, we heal ourselves. 

Sensory stations were set up to remind us that, by engaging our smell and taste and hearing, we should never lose sight of the beauty of the creation around us. Even as it rained outside, guides brought out attendees to admire the olive tree and rosemary herbs growing outside Friends House. That even in a storm, what grows around us can survive, maybe even one day thrive, because of what is growing within us.

The day ended with a beautiful meditative presentation by MTO Zendeh Delan, a music ensemble made up of students of Sufism. Musicians played four songs in a medley with the traditional Persian santoor and daf, while two students turned around in ancient motions known as sama. 

In one movement, a student stretched out her hands in front of her, before taking those same hands to embrace herself. What a transcendent act of worship, that as we learn to cradle the world, we are simultaneously learning to hold ourselves as tenderly as a newborn. A fitting coda to a day to remember, that as we leave this field to our fields of work, we stand together because we once sat together. Hope is the help we find in a time like this. – 4 March, 2025