Sunshine

Copenhagen, Denmark

December 13, 2009

Today when I woke up, the sun was shining. This is the first time I have seen sunshine since Paris over a week ago. Walking outside, the morning is fresh and crisp and pure as a Christmas apple, with spiderwebs of frost veining the parked cars along the street. My breath steams and rises in front of me as I walk, rises straight up undisturbed by wind until I can’t see where I’m going. So I breathe from my nose instead, the mist now falling behind me in twin streams on each side of my face, like the wake from the bow of a ship. The city is still and silent at 9:30 on Sunday morning. I tie my scarf around my neck as I wait for the bus to arrive.

Nobody else is waiting at this stop – there is no reason to. The temperature is precisely freezing. There are no meetings on Sunday, no work to be done. COP 15 resumes tomorrow morning. In the distance, church bells ring. This is a morning to enjoy from a chair behind a big window, with a newspaper and a cup of hot coffee. This is a morning like art – much nicer to observe than to be a part of. All is quiet, all is rest.

Four hours later, I find myself in line stretching for blocks and blocks outside the largest cathedral in Copenhagen. The Ecumenical Celebration for Creation has announced that there will be a few hundred seats open for this afternoon’s service, presided over by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. Slowly, the line enters the church. I am seated in the very, very back of the very, very top of the highest balcony. From there, I can see nothing without standing on my tiptoes. I can only hear, but hearing was enough. Prayers were made as bleached coral from a dying reef the Pacific Ocean, shriveled corn from a failed crop in Africa, and smooth rocks from under a retreating glacier in Greenland were sanctified and placed upon the altar. Scriptures were read about creation, about oneness, about healing. Hymns were lifted up in English, Danish, Zulu, and Greenlandic. And the Archbishop of Canterbury stood up to deliver the sermon.

Fear, he said, is not what is needed today. Even though there is much to be afraid of. Even though, sometimes, we harshly say to ourselves that people are not yet afraid enough. Our actions in this process of deliberation must not be driven by fear. Instead, he said, in each action we take, we must be motivated by love. Everything we do, everything we say, everything we buy, everything we consume, we must ask ourselves – does this express the love I have for creation? Does this express the love I have for my fellow man?

And his words are true. This entire conference has been steeped in fear for our planet and fear for our future. A vague and unmentionable dread walks the halls of the Bella Center. What if nothing is decided? What if it is too late? But this morning, I didn’t go to the Center. No one did. We rested. We walked in the sunshine. We drank coffee. Today is a breath after coming up from dark waters. Today is a gap in grey clouds. Today is about love, and warmth, and peace. And maybe tomorrow will be more of the same.

-Josh