Hawaii Interfaith Power and Light

2025 Issues

Issue 31: May-August 2025

Tenth Anniversary of Laudato Sí

This year is the tenth anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si, the encyclical written by Pope Francis. The great wisdom of this encyclical is the interdependence of the health and well-being of society and natural ecosystems, called “integral ecology” (aka “mutual flourishing” for those familiar with Deep Ecology). The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor are one, as the encyclical emphasizes, meaning that our efforts to heal and uplift the earth must embrace efforts to uplift the poor, and vice versa. As we have written in past issues of Ka Mana, this means that our deepest religious, spiritual, and secular values and beliefs must be ever-present when we hear these cries and respond to them. Our decisions and actions must flow up from these foundations and guide the practical work we undertake.

Care for Creation in Our Religious Lives

Pope Leo XIV has created a new missal called the Mass for the Care of Creation celebrated on July 09. It is based on the wisdom and exhortations of Laudato Sí, and it serves as a template for use throughout the Roman Catholic church. Many of the world’s major religions have special services, liturgical seasons of the year, and activities to remember and celebrate our care for Creation (see our HIPL Inspiration & Worship webpage). The Vatican notes in announcing this new missal that care for the poor and Creation are already part of the traditions of the church; thus, the missal is not something truly new but rather emphasizes this aspect of the Catholic faith and religious life. The special celebrations, observances, and activities in other religions should be viewed similarly. They should remind us of the integral nature of our faith while emphasizing our connections to and the sacredness of the earth and all of Creation.

This integration in our religious life should extend beyond worship services. Many churches have mission teams that put faith into action in their communities and around the world. HIPL promotes “green teams”, of course, but embracing integral ecology means that missions to care for Creation should seek through their efforts to meet the needs of the poor in body and spirit. Nature-based therapies to help those suffering mental illness or family strife or trauma are well-established. Re-establishing and enhancing connections with Creation are essential for restoring and strengthening cultural and Indigenous identity, relationships, wisdom, and practice.

Advocating for Integration as Change

If we embrace and internalize this integration in our lives and the life of our religious communities, then we can faithfully and effectively advocate for this change in society at large. Giving voice to the needs of Creation and advocating for change in society should emphasize our connections to each other and the natural world. Neglect and degradation of Creation not only affects people and societies directly, this attitude typically extends to neglect or dehumanization of other peoples, cultures, and religions.

As we seek to respond as people of faith to the climate crisis, we feel the need to promote policies, regulations, actions, and investments to reduce our use of energy, overall, and fossil fuels to generate energy, in particular. But the core of our advocacy should be the adoption of an integral ecology grounded in the values of our religions, showing how they apply all of Creation, including us. This frees us from delving into debates about climate science, finance and economics, or government policy. Instead, we should exhort policy and decision-makers to adopt the same orientation toward connecting with and caring for all of Creation, especially the poor and other members of Creation who suffer, especially due to our misguided and selfish decisions and actions. An integral ecology recognizes these moral and religious connections, as well as the practical interdependencies of abundant natural and human systems.

Connecting Creation and Humanity

Religious writings and sermons often include stories to share and embody the meaning of their values, beliefs, and teachings. These stories personalize our connections to Creation and the effects on our lives and well-being. We can and should share stories that emphasize these connections, moving beyond perspectives limited to economic goods and services, e.g. the affordability, availability, and convenience of housing, electricity, food, fuel, and everyday conveniences. While these are certainly major causes of stress for the poor and under-resourced, these are symptoms not of sub-optimal economic and social conditions but rather of a misguided worldview and weakened and broken relationships among Creation, humanity, and their Creator. The balancing and tradeoffs of environmental and social conditions, of people and nature, is a false choice, a dichotomy that does not exist and is not part of our religious stories of Creation, of the harmonious and righteous society and communities of faith. We need to re-tell these stories with an emphasis on the deeper meaning of integral ecology as the worldview needed to achieve sustainability as well as right relationships and right living, not simply as visions of a utopian past or hoped for future.

Sharing These Stories as “Evangelists”

In Christianity, “evangelism” is the act of sharing the good news of Jesus to others and the world. But how this message is shared is recognized as critical to its success in touching people’s hearts and minds and inspiring them to be open to new truths and ways of life. It is widely recognized that people are seeking (“hungering after”) truth and guidance that goes beyond the messages given to them by others promoting a system that has failed them. The stories must speak to their experiences, and they must reflect our own experiences and actions we have taken in our own lives. People intuitively know that things are connected, if only from their own personal lives and well-being, so a message of integral ecology, in which a coherent vision, unified worldview, and core set of beliefs and principles, is likely to appeal to them. While this is often done from the grounding of a single faith or tradition, as interfaith advocates, there is so much we share across cultures, places, and religions that can and should be adapted to place and people without compromising the message or action. We exhort you to share the good news of the promise and possibilities of a more just, equitable, and sustainable future grounded in an integral approach to care for all of Creation!

Issue 30: January-April 2025

Printable copy (pdf) of Issue 30

A Season of Reflection and Promise

As people of the Abrahamic faiths complete the seasons of Ramadan, Easter, and Passover, and we all celebrate Earth Day and Earth month, it is appropriate to reflect on who we are and the world we live in from the perspective of our core values and beliefs. We are all imperfect, and the world always has needs and troubles, so this is a continuous journey. But these liturgical seasons call our attention to the fundamental challenges we face personally and collectively so that we can dedicate ourselves to work together toward the promises given to us by our Creator and our traditions.

Commodifying Our World

What we have been emphasizing in recent issues of Ka Mana as our fundamental challenge is to fully realize and reflect on a dominant economic and social system that makes everything a commodity, i.e. something that can be priced and exchanged in a marketplace. This system focuses on, promotes, and worries about productivity for its own sake. We are encouraged to internalize this mindset and make the goals of this system our own. Consumption is equated with meeting our needs, and the security of our future rises and falls with the stock market. It should be no surprise, then, that decisions about if or how to address wicked problems like the climate catastrophe inevitably come back to costs and benefits in terms of prices, jobs, and economic productivity, regardless of the inevitable consequences for us as living beings.

Rejection of Materialism

The major religions of the world, of course, do not hold with this orientation and system of values. This is our interpretation of the rejection of “materialism”: treating created beings and complex systems primarily as material for economic gain. Religious founders and leaders, such as Moses, Siddartha Gautama, and Muhammad, came from royalty, wealth, and/or privilege. After their own deep reflection and revelation, they gave up that life to focus on what really matters and to help those who were oppressed, exploited, or forgotten by the de-humanizing social and economic systems they lived in.

We must hold the values and commitments they embodied and promoted close to our hearts and minds as we seek to address the wicked problems of the modern world. We must even be vigilant about the language we use. For example, many express their concern for those in need with phrases such as “the cost of living”, “making ends meet”, “living wages”, and even “affordable housing”. We speak of preparing students for “workforce readiness” and the “jobs of the future” to maintain support for public education.

This mindset and language extends even to the natural world. “Payments for ecosystem services”, “carbon markets”, and “natural capital” are just a few of the terms that reconceptualize Creation to align it with a system devoted to perpetual growth. While there is nothing inherently wrong about using the gifts of Creation to sustain ourselves or even to transform our surroundings, the way we relate to, think about, and interact with each other and the rest of Creation should be grounded in our core values and traditions.

Re-Humanizing Our Lives and Efforts

Previous issues of Ka Mana have spoken to the roles of community, the processes of the commons, and the religious significance of sacred grounds as alternatives to the system we have actively created or passively accepted. One goal of these explanations and exhortations is for us to re-humanize our lives and re-embody the spirit of our Creator in all of Creation. How might this apply to our efforts to promote sustainable development and the transition to sustainability?

One approach is known as “human-scale development”, as described in a report from the Dag Hammarskjӧld Foundation. Human needs are defined not in terms of economic goods and services but rather as value-laden aspects of “the good life”: sustenance, personal and cultural identity, community engagement, creativity, and freedom, among others. These needs are shared across time and cultures. The “satisfiers” of these needs are historically and culturally based and so keep us connected to our shared traditions and values. The purpose of our economy is to produce goods and services that serve as satisfiers of these basic needs. The more needs a product or service can satisfy, the greater its value for human development. For example, producing food through the commons satisfies the basic need for sustenance, but it also contributes to creation, understanding, participation, identity, and freedom. Its contribution to gross domestic product is irrelevant from this mindset.

Reorienting the System

If we have faith and stay committed to our principles and purpose, we believe we can transform ourselves and change the world. Influential thinkers outside of religion have endorsed this, as well. Donella Meadows, a member of the original Club of Rome that wrote The Limits to Growth over 50 years ago, proposed a hierarchy of leverage points to change a system. At the foundation of these was the ability to change the mindset or paradigm that gives rise to the goals, rules, and culture of the system. Flows of material and information were moderately effective. The least effective leverage points were things like standards, subsidies, and taxes.

Unfortunately, a lot of attention and effort to combat climate change is on new technologies, policies, regulations, and incentives, leverage points in the lower half of the hierarchy of effectiveness. If our mindset, core values, and goals in life do not already align with these practical but sometimes significant changes in our habits and decisions, then our efforts will be frustrated or vulnerable to changing winds of opinion (or political administrations). Policy changes and needed technologies, like economic goods and services, should flow from our core values and contribute to the satisfaction of multiple goals and needs we have. Those are the changes that are likely to be embraced and withstand challenges or opposition because they support who we are and what we truly believe in those moments of deep reflection.

That is how we can liberate ourselves from this system, move mountains, and achieve an enlightened and sustainable future for all.

2024 Issues

Issue 29: October-December 2024

Printable copy (pdf) of Issue 29

Sacred Grounds

The term “sacred grounds” has been used in a variety of contexts and purposes, but generally it refers to a place that holds special religious, spiritual, and/or cultural meaning to people and communities. Identifying and treating a place as sacred provides a tangible connection to deep and embodied meaning and significance in our lives and how we relate to each other and the world. These places often serve as a refuge and provide space to reconnect and realign ourselves to our most fundamental values, beliefs, and practices. They can also serve as a model for how we want to live in our everyday lives and how to care for all of Creation.

Cultivating the Sacred

As members of cultural and spiritual communities that recognize and cherish these places, it is our shared responsibility to cultivate and care for them. This strengthens not only our spiritual connections, it also gives us embodied knowledge of their own being, broadening and deepening our relationships with them and each other. Whether hill or valley, lake or forest, hidden cove or glorious overlook, there is usually a distinct combination of earth, air, water, and life – a living, sustaining system – that we seek to nurture and maintain. And this can involve various levels of our own intervention, modification, and even use of these places that reflect our culture, history, religion, values, goals, and our own identities. Our active engagement can be (and increasingly must be) a part of what makes these places special, so while the natural integrity and beauty of these places can call for us to tread lightly in some places, what is sacred about other places reflects how we have shaped and maintained them.

Sacred Grounds and the Climate

The extraction, exploitation, degradation, and transformation of places near and far to us as part of modern life is anathema to care for Creation, much less cultivating and honoring the sacred. These self-centered values and practices reflect an attitude and (lack of) relationship that are the true cause of our entwined climate, biodiversity, and health crises in the world. In seeking a better quantity of life, we have sacrificed the quality of our lives and defiled the many sacred grounds we once shared and cultivated. To feed our insatiable appetites, we have upset the balance of life, death, healing, and self-renewal of places that sustain us.

Much as Hawaiians and most cultures abhor the disturbance and desecration of the bones of our ancestors, so too is the Earth unleashing its wrath as we dig up and burn the bones of millions of years of life. We may benefit from transforming this mana of our ancient ancestors into energy that accelerates our economy, but it has become all too apparent now that in doing so, we are accelerating the demise of ourselves and much of the beauty and diversity of Creation, literally creating a Hell on Earth.

By reorienting our attention and renewing our relationship to the most sacred places that we still remember, recognize, and hold dear, we can relearn the lessons of humility, gratitude, and compassion for all of Creation. No technological or policy breakthroughs can substitute for this transformation of our hearts and minds; nothing else will save us from our own damnation or liberate us from this downward karmic cycle.

Indigenous Culture and the Sacred

There is much knowledge and wisdom we can seek and receive from our Indigenous brothers and sisters. In Hawaiʻi, the Kumulipo story of Creation is filled both with calls to recognize and cultivate the sacred. The places, plants, animals, and ecosystems that fill this story of the origins of these islands and people are often places where we live, plants and animals that we harvest and cultivate for nourishment, that feed us in different ways, i.e. the ʻāina is sacred.

The story of kalo itself is a moving tale of the sacredness of this plant and its relationship to humanity. The plant known as the elder sibling of humanity sprung from the ground where the stillborn fetus of the child of Hawaiian deities was buried. This plant became a staple food of Hawaiians and other Pacific Island cultures.

Numerous rituals and protocols – such as offering a chant to the inhabitants of a place to ask permission to enter – recognize the sacredness of everyday places and their relationship to the people who live there, in the fullness of that word. How much more meaningful and sustainable would our ways of life be if we honored and embraced these traditions and practices?

Sacred Grounds in Our Congregations

While there are undoubtedly special places in our own congregations, Interfaith Power and Light encourage us to cultivate “sacred grounds” to recognize, honor, and restore the natural and managed ecosystems that sustain us and support a healthy climate and livable planet. The Cool Congregations program has an annual challenge to religious communities to save energy, be a role model of renewable energy use, inspire community action, and to cultivate sacred grounds. This last category includes native landscaping, organic gardening, water conservation, promoting pedal-powered transportation, and recycling and composting the resources and food we consume every day.

While these practices are encouraged by many groups working to combat climate change and promote sustainability, their grounding in the sacred is what sets them apart for IPL and religious communities. Of course, cultivating a culture of the sacred is not the exclusive domain of religion, but it is definitely something congregations should embrace as central to and a natural outgrowth of their faith. Cool Congregations provides incentives and resources to begin this journey and to recognize the efforts of faithful communities. Hawaiʻi Interfaith Power and Light, admittedly, has some work to do to seek, share, and develop resources locally to support these efforts, but with our partners, we promise to help you cultivate sacred grounds here in our ʻāina.

Issue 28: July-September 2024

Printable copy (pdf) of Issue 28

Connectivity ≠ Community

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shut-down of schools, churches, and places of business led to greater emphasis on remote “connectivity,” i.e. technologies and the accompanying capacity and infrastructure to connect with each other remotely. The term “virtual” became popularized to distinguish remote from in-person connections, and it is appropriate in the sense that “virtual” is contrasted with “reality”. But it became clear within a year or so that these virtual connections did not provide the same kinds of experiences as being together in-person. People felt isolated and craved true social connections, even if less “convenient” than virtual ones.

Social Isolation Amid Constant Connectivity

A related problem growing before the pandemic was the reduction in meaningful social connections, especially for young people, due to almost constant connectivity to entertainment, news, social media, and online distractions. As much as schools have struggled to combat “cyber-bullying”, the real challenge for young people is a crisis of isolation and social anxiety, even though they have near-constant access to the opinions, reflections, and experiences of others.

Back to the Basics for Community

Higher education and workplaces will likely continue to embrace virtual connectivity to accommodate diverse and scattered students, employees, customers, and clients; however, churches, schools, and place-based communities have renewed in person connections to restore the living and vibrant social experiences that create healthy relationships, a sense of belonging and the social processes essential for “the commons”. Virtual connectivity should always be seen as a supplement to reinforce these foundational processes.

From Consumers to Community Members

Our dominant socioeconomic system – market-driven capitalism – thrives on individual and self-interested decision-making. Through the marketing of products and services and the way we structure our lives around them, our very culture is shaped by this isolating system. Just look around you in commuter traffic next time to see how many one-ton automobiles are transporting one person, plus all their “stuff”. We are, in this system, encouraged to be “consumers”, not community members.

This individualized orientation extends to politics and governance. We are exhorted to be voters and to make a choice among two or at most three serious candidates in winner-take-all elections.

Rethinking how we meet our needs and govern our shared places and resources within the framework of what we hold in common can transform this orientation. To make this work, we have to connect and communicate with each other in real ways. We must strive to understand each other, meet each others’ needs to meet our own, and actively participate in meaningful social processes. This requires that we find shared purpose, shared values, shared goals, and shared processes to achieve them. We do not need compromise or competition to be successful. Instead, we must become fully vested members of a community, exerting our personal agency but with the full knowledge of what we all need and want to accomplish.

Applying the Commons to Energy Systems

This approach to building and strengthening community and the commons can be applied to energy systems. In Hawaiʻi, you may have heard of the community based renewable energy (CBRE) program. While the name sounds great, the language on the webpage describes a “subscriber organization” as the developer of a renewable energy project that solicits customers who buy into the project. In reaching out to “subscribers”, developers tout the lower cost of electricity and the company’s ability to take care of all the work. Just sign up and save (money, as well as the planet)! This is not intended to build or strengthen communities in any meaningful way.

Fortunately, there are true community-based alternatives. Several affiliates of Interfaith Power and Light are working to promote and support true community-based energy projects. For example, in Minnesota, Cooperative Energy Futures (CEF) helps communities develop and install CBRE projects. Their vision is people in every community working to produce, manage, and wisely use the energy they need to thrive. Their projects ensure community ownership, participation by households of all incomes, and pathways into the solar workforce for local community members. The Center for Rural Affairs started the Nebraska Solar For All program that leverages grant funds to support community, multi-family, and household renewable energy projects in low-income and tribal areas. These projects treat energy as a commons and communities as essential, using the latest technologies to support this traditional approach to meet common needs.

In Hawaiʻi, the Hoʻahu Energy Cooperative Molokaʻi is a real community-based CBRE intended to serve the electricity needs of the entire island. They formed in response to Hawaiian Electric sending out a call for CBRE projects on the island. Shockingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, Hawaiian Electric considered submitting its own development proposal, but ultimately Hoʻahu was awarded two projects.

Roles for Religious Communities

While religious communities are often synonymous with “congregations”, the work of the organizations summarized above show other important ways congregations can build and support larger communities. These projects help under-served communities meet their own needs in ways that strengthen their social relationships and connections. In supporting this work, churches can serve as places to gather, learn, share, celebrate (and worship), as well as advocate on behalf of these efforts.

With open eyes and ears, congregations can pray, study, and reflect on what makes for a strong religious community – recognizing, nurturing, and celebrating what we hold in common – and use that as the foundation to help create and support these personal and social values and processes in our larger communities to meet our basic but most important needs. That is an essential component of the commons and of a just, sustainable, and renewable future for all, including energy, food, other material needs and real and meaningful social connections.

Issue 27: April-June 2024

Printable copy (pdf) of Issue 27

What We Hold in Common

Our recent issues of Ka Mana have emphasized the importance of community for true sustainability. But what do we mean by “community” within the context of sustainability? That, like a lot of seemingly simple questions, does not have a definitive or universal answer. But “It depends” is not satisfactory, either. If we look at the word itself, “community” assumes we have important things in common with each other, and it is what we hold in common that defines what we mean by “community”. And so, as we reflect on the importance of community for sustainability, we must ask ourselves what we hold in common that we wish (and need) to sustain to ensure a healthy, abundant, and meaningful life for all.

Common Ground

The documentary film being promoted by Interfaith Power and Light during Faith Climate Action Week – the time around Earth Day (April 22) – this year is “Common Ground”, which tells hopeful stories of farmers, foresters, ranchers, artisans, and communities renewing our soils through regenerative agriculture and land management to address climate change; biodiversity; food security; the physical and financial health of farm family and communities; even racial, indigenous, and economic justice, i.e. the interconnected and interdependent aspects of sustainability. While the “producers” highlighted in this film are tending and renewing their own plots of land, they have a much larger perspective of caring for and renewing parts of this Earth, of Creation, that we all need and depend upon. Farmers speak of their responsibility toward and love of future generations: their kids, grandkids, and those not yet born. As producers, they help provide for our basic needs, which has always been an immense source of pride but also a sacred duty they feel called to fulfill. While the documentary focuses on soils as something we hold in common, it serves as a metaphor for the complex earth systems we depend upon and have a responsibility to manage sustainably.

The complexity of the soil itself is a theme of the film, representing the larger natural and social systems we must nurture and renew to live sustainably. The Hawaiian word for “land”, ʻāina, translates directly as “that which feeds”. This is not a utilitarian interpretation of land but rather a deep and complex understanding and relationship to what sustains us biologically, socially, culturally, and spiritually and therefore what we have a responsibility to steward and celebrate. This is integral knowledge and “ancient wisdom” for indigenous societies and even for most of the world’s religions; thus, it is also something we hold in common and should sustain.

Grounding Community in the Commons

Recognizing that what we mean by community depends upon what we hold in common AND that what we hold in common is complex and reaches across times, places, and cultures, what emerges is a broader, deeper, and more complex sense of community. Cliches such as “We are all God’s children” should not be spoken lightly but with a deep sense of reverence and connection. That we are a part of Creation should also bring forth a deep sense of interdependence and responsibility to care for all of the Earth as a manifestation of our Creator’s design and desire. Scientists have discovered for themselves the inter- connectedness of systems, from the universal influence of gravity across the universe; the idea of Earth as Gaia, a self-regulating and abundance-generating super-organism; to the complex microbiome of the soil and even our own digestive systems. It is complexity and things we hold in common all the way down.

Even those we disagree with and treat as enemies are part of this community. We seek to suppress and destroy them at our own peril, as they are connected to the systems that we also depend upon. If climate change has taught us anything, it is that unsustainability anywhere affects sustainability everywhere. There is no 100% local self-reliance, independence, or security. Again, the Hawaiians understood this well. While they were able to support hundreds of thousands of people in these islands with no daily imports of food, fuel, or manufactured items, they depended upon the seas and skies and lands far away to enrich and sustain the abundance of the islands. They traveled widely and welcomed visitors, recognizing our interdependence, vulnerability, and reliance upon hospitality and care for that (and those) which feed us. They readily learned from others and adopted technologies, practices, and traditions that could support the thriving of the Hawaiian people and the ʻāina. We speak of this in the past tense, but it is part of a living culture and traditions that can guide our return to sustainability.

Community is an essential part of this return. It is essential not just for survival, it is how we thrive and sustain ourselves, each other, and what we hold in common, cherish, and celebrate. As we learn and reflect on the existential crises we face, let us do so in the context of the deepest values and traditions of our respective cultures and religions. We will find we hold much in common, which makes us part of diverse communities. It can guide us and support us in developing renewed and mutually supportive interactions with each other and all of Creation and help create and sustain an abundant ʻāina for ourselves and future generations.

For Earth Day this year, we encourage you to consider screening the film Common Ground (HIPL has DVD copies and can assist you in a screening event) and making what we hold in common the ground of our efforts to build communities whose goals align with a just, abundant, and sustainable future for all.

Issue 26: January-March 2024

Printable copy (pdf) of Issue 26

Sustainability & Wicked Problems

Sustainability is a way of orienting our values, priorities, decisions, and actions toward the social and ecological systems we have co-created and live in, from local communities to global networks. The linked crises and challenges that threaten the sustainability of these systems and thus ourselves - climate change, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, the cross-over and spread of novel human diseases like COVID19, to name a few - can seem complex and overwhelming, resulting in what are sometimes called “wicked problems” with no easy or straight-forward solutions.

What makes many of these problems wicked is not that we do not know what to do or what can work; rather it is that we are often not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to implement them. In too many instances, we want to do the right thing but complain it is “too expensive” or there are not enough resources. In economic terms we are not “willing to pay” the price to avoid or address these systemic problems. The real costs to the environment and human society of not being willing to make these sacrifices are, of course, much larger than the price of doing what is right, as we are becoming painfully aware these days, but somehow that knowledge or awareness never seems to be convincing.

The term “wicked problem” is perhaps appropriate, since it suggests the kinds of solutions that are needed: moral, religious, cultural, transformational, but also visionary and unifying. Getting prices low enough, developing the next breakthrough technology, or figuring out various “life hacks” are not solutions in themselves, but they can support the more fundamental changes that are needed. And much like the religious and cultural diversity around the world and in our own islands of Hawaiʻi, these necessary changes are not exactly the same for everyone. But at the core of the worldʻs major religions, and what we most cherish in our own cultures and communities, are shared values, virtues, and orientations that are meant to permeate our lives and form the basis of how we make decisions and relate to one another and the world at large. “Aloha”, “shalom”, “compassion”, and “grace” are just a few of the names we give to these shared values that are meant to guide our lives and how we live together.

Spiritual and Religious Transformation

Drawing upon these core values and beliefs is essential when we face the wicked problems that confront us. And much like the Hawaiian proverb Ka wa ma mua, ka wa ma hope (look to the past for a guide to the future) our cultural and religious traditions tell us that todayʻs problems (and solutions) are not really new. They are related to decisions we have made (or that have been made for us) and continue to be made, which reflect as much the systems we live in as our personal preferences or values.

To truly solve these wicked problems, we have to think, relate, decide, and act in radically different ways. We need salvation, conversion, transformation, call it what you will. To achieve that, we have to embrace not new ideas, necessarily, but rather the core values and beliefs of our deepest traditions. It will take vision and dedication and working together, but that is what religion, culture, and community are all about.

Working in Community

These changes are not merely personal, but they also are not things we should just expect government or industry to do for us. In Hawaiʻi, we are slowly but increasingly embracing community-driven approaches to these wicked problems. Family Promise of Hawaiʻi is an example of churches working together to provide temporary housing and support for working families. Puʻuhonua O Waiʻanae is a self-organized village of houseless individuals and families who have created a community and are now seeking land to grow food to feed body and spirit. Community-Based Sustainable Fishing Areas, drawing on the knowledge and experience of Native Hawaiian culture and communities, are becoming a reality on Kauaʻi, Molokaʻi and Maui, with broader interest across the islands. The community of

Hāʻena, on Kauai’s north shore, has shown tremendous resilience after the climate change-fueled rain bomb in 2018. They also continue to show leadership in managing tourism in this area to the benefit of residents, tourists, and the ʻāina. The Hawaiʻi Food Hub Hui is a network helping local farmers work together to store, process, and distribute locally produced food for local consumption, with help now from the state. Community-based nonprofits are at work across the islands to protect, conserve, and restore natural and cultural resources on public and private lands, involving youth, families, and even visitors to our islands in their efforts. Efforts to document and map these stewardship groups has been undertaken on Oʻahu and Hawaiʻi islands. Community-based renewable energy projects are slowly rolling out in Hawaiʻi, but they are primarily driven by development companies, not communities themselves. This is most likely because they were introduced by the state with rules strongly influenced by the electric utility, meaning we need to re-envision and redesign this to emphasize the priorities and needs of targeted communities.

With the right institutional support and enabling rules and regulations, these religious, cultural, and community-driven approaches can help renew the sustainability of the places we live, work, and call home. Because they are grounded in religion, culture, and community and reflect the core values we profess and hold dear, these approaches are more flexible, adaptable, and resilient; more just, equitable, and diverse; and thus more sustainable as we work to address yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s wicked problems. We do not need government, business, or educational institutions to lead these efforts: we need them to recognize and support what our innovative spiritual, cultural, and stewardship communities are already doing. They cost little in money but provide truly valuable benefits and models of transformational sustainability.

2023 Issues

Issue 25: April-June 2023

Printable copy (pdf) of Issue 25

Climate Change & Communities

Climate change is what some people (at least people some of us know) would call a “glocal” issue, one that happens at a global scale but has local impacts. And in responding to the climate crisis, we are urged to take both individual and collective actions, e.g. drive less and support zero-emission vehicles. But as our last issue of Ka Mana emphasized, climate justice from a religious perspective has a lot to do with repairing and developing right relations within our communities, ecological and social. For this reason, we promote responses at the community level as part of rebuilding just and sustainable relationships.

Mutual Flourishing in Community

An essential outcome of building sustainable communities is mutual flourishing. While open to interpretation, the idea is that meeting basic needs and fulfilling goals in life should be a consequence of our relating and working together. Our success should not come at the expense or exclusion of others. A drive to succeed in competition can isolate us from others who are part of our community. From the perspective of climate change, we fail, ignore, or refuse to see the connections among the causes and consequences of extracting, exploiting, using, disposing of, and failing to renew or regenerate key parts of our local to global communities. Our focus instead is on meeting our needs and ensuring our own success. That, ultimately, is not sustainable and will lead to catastrophic consequences.

Rethinking Price & Reliability

A recent report from Hawaiian Electric stated that a survey of their electricity customers showed that “price and reliability” of electricity were their top priorities. While the opposite of those are certainly not desirable, their high priority reflects an individual-minded perspective of customers, not community members. Our relationship to those who meet our basic needs should not be primarily transactional. Unfortunately, discussions about a renewable and sustainable (energy) future too often focus on price and availability as overriding other considerations.

The ahupuaʻa as an example
The ahupuaʻa tradition in Hawaiʻi provides a different and real example of how communities can work toward mutual flourishing. First, the real needs of the community of people are the basis of the geography of the ahupuaʻa. Communities actively modify their place and cultivate what they need, but they work within the flow and processes of natural systems. They work with the potential and limits of their place to ensure sustained abundance. In this way they take ownership of their efforts to provide for their needs and develop deep and reciprocal relationships with others in the community to ensure sustainable and mutual flourishing.

Fostering Climate Communities

So how does that affect us now in trying to address the climate crisis? Can we build “climate communities” in which we define and build relationships with the communities that help us meet our needs but have real impacts on the climate? There are many possible answers to this question we admittedly pose to ourselves as well as to you. The first perhaps is to reflect on how we meet our own needs, the sources and locations of the products and services we use every day and consume on a regular basis. Is our relationship primarily that of consumer or customer? What do we expect or demand of these products and services and how they are provided? Do our expectations and our relationships support the mutual flourishing of a living community and not just the financial bottom line of company and customer? Price absolutely is a constraint to our choices and actions, but if we find it keeps us from pursuing what we feel or know is sustainable or promotes mutual flourishing, that is a strong signal that we need to reshape and retake control – as a community – over how we meet our needs. Relying on “government”, “corporate responsibility”, or “consumer demands” to change the system ignores the need for right relations within communities that flourish together. If we look around us at the beauty, power, and potential of the places we live, the communities we are a part of, can we find, develop, and sustain what we need to flourish together? That is the discussion we need to have before we get into details of policies, prices, or preferences.

Going “Glocal”

Getting back to that term, fostering communities that can meet our needs while promoting a livable and sustainable climate requires a lot of work and relationship-building at the local level. Our efforts in Hawaiʻi to achieve 100% renewable energy and increase local food production both speak to that. But the consequences can have radiating and global effects. We become not just a model for others to emulate; the communities we foster have connections at larger scales. Our relationships within these networks change and promote mutual flourishing for other local communities. And when we experience what works, we can advocate for it and defend it against entrenched systems that seek to perpetuate an individualistic focus on meeting needs based mostly only on price and reliability. Those objectives need to be met within more locally developed and managed systems whose primary goal is mutual flourishing.

Religious Climate Communities

That takes us to our last point, which is how important religious congregations and communities are for this effort. Despite our highly individualized socioeconomic systems, religious communities maintain the power to bring people together around shared core beliefs, values, and goals in life that rise above individual success and seek a better future for all of Creation. The changes we need are transformational in action, thought, and belief. They ask us to have faith in the power of our beliefs and actions to effect large and lasting changes for the good of all. And religious communities are a place for us to gather to learn, be inspired, minister to and support each other in a shared journey, and to form communities that promote mutual flourishing. Thus, religious congregations and communities are the ideal place for climate communities to gather and develop. Responding to the climate crisis requires nothing less.

Issue 24: January-March 2023

Printable (pdf) copy of Issue 24

Justice for People of Faith

Justice is a term that is used in a lot of contexts, and that certainly includes issues of faith and religion. From this (admittedly diverse) perspective, justice is seen as an essential part of the nature and actions of divine beings. It relates to the basic worth and dignity of all people (and all of Creation), to the rights and responsibilities we have as humans in relation to both divine beings and the rest of Creation, and to the rewards and punishments for our actions and attitudes both here on Earth and in the spiritual realm.

Justice is something that is revealed to us in sacreds words, rituals, and traditions; in prayer and meditation; in everyday and divine revelations; and in our growing and developing relationships with the divine and all of Creation.

Right Relations, not Equal Conditions

Justice does not demand that everyone live the same way, enjoy (and suffer) the same things, or think and believe the same things. That said, justice does recognize that we all have the same inherent worth and dignity in the eyes of the divine; thus, we should see and relate to each other as equally valuable and worthy, as we are all part of Creation. Our basic needs to live a fulfilling life should be protected, respected, and promoted. When those relations are broken and the basic needs of others are denied or disrupted because of our own interests, that is what needs to be mended. Punishment of the guilty or reparations to the afflicted may be deserved, but absent right relations, true justice has not been restored.

Extending Justice to All of Creation

As we look around the world today, we can see too many enduring examples of brokenness among people. How much more, then, is there brokenness and injustice between people and the greater world of Creation, especially as we experience the unfolding of the climate crisis? Giving legal rights for plant and animal species and imposing responsibilities to conserve, protect or restore parts of the natural world that we have harmed are a good start. But we are in an era of global human-induced change that affects living beings; our supporting environment; and the very bowels of the earth, depths of the oceans, and the outer reaches of the atmosphere. To achieve justice at this scale requires a transformation of our core values, beliefs, choices, and actions, i.e. a religious response to climate change and other issues.

Roles & Responsibilities

Our freedom to make willful and intentional choices that affect the world around us is also a responsibility to care for Creation not just for our own ends but also to allow the natural world to express the beauty and diversity intended by its Creator. Similarly, we must be careful not to try to remake the world in our own image or for our own purposes. This assumes we know better than the Creator or that the gifts of Creation are insufficient to meet our needs.

Energy Justice

How do we think about and promote “justice” for people and our planet in terms of energy generation and use? Our state Public Utilities Commission is considering the issue of energy equity for Hawaiʻi and asking for public input. The goal is to ensure the benefits and burdens of energy generation and distribution, price and reliability are not just equally shared but also address differences in needs and abilities and even remediate past inequities in our energy systems. To learn more about this effort and how you can participate, visit their website: https://puc.hawaii.gov/energy/equity/

Climate Justice

For HIPL and those who care for Creation, the relevant issue is climate justice, since the benefits and burdens go well beyond people powering homes, vehicles, buildings, industries, and infrastructure. We transform the world with our actions, so we need to think deeply and broadly about those actions and how we use energy to make those changes. In a world aligned to our religious and moral beliefs and values, our actions would promote mutual flourishing of all people and the environment. We recognize that there is no “free lunch” and that tradeoffs are inevitable in our decisions. But those decisions should consider not just costs and benefits to ourselves and others but also the relationships we cultivate and promote through our plans, decisions, and actions.

What does this mean for specific religions? How do we implement this in our personal, congregational, and social and political lives and decision-making? Those are questions we invite you to to explore, but here are just a few suggestions:

Make everyday changes that align with what our religions tell us are just
Think about what right relations means in the context of climate change and energy
Care for those affected by consequences of climate change and ensure they have what they need to make just choices and pursue right relations from their own traditions
Dedicate ourselves to promoting mutual flourishing and the expression of the Creator’s divine beauty and abundance.

To help you get started, we recommend the Resources webpage at Interfaith Power and Light or our own HIPL Resources page. You can find religious statements on climate change, educational and worship information and examples, recommended books and videos, and more. We also recommend our Cool Congregations webpage to learn how you and your congregation can start to reflect, plan, and take action to achieve energy and climate justice for all of Creation. Or contact us to learn more! As with our journey of faith, this is a lifelong endeavor. Climate change and its impacts will be with us for generations, but the sooner we make necessary changes, the better. As the old saying goes, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”