My invitation to ecological conversion

Columban lay missionary Hyein Anna Noh is ready to join a protest march. - Photo: Hyein Anna Noh

“God always forgives. We humans sometimes forgive. The earth never forgives. There can be no future if we destroy the very environment that sustains us.” (Pope Francis, Our Mother Earth, p.36)

In Quezon City, a poor neighbourhood on the north side of Manila in the Philippines, I found a small room where I could live among the locals. At the time, I was focused on living among the “poorest and most marginalised” because I thought that was the way of a missionary. In the late afternoons, just before sunset, people began to bring bags of garbage they had collected to the entrance of the neighbourhood. By evening, the garbage bags would be piled high like a mountain. All around, people would rummage through the rubbish, collecting anything they could sell, such as scrap metal, plastic, or vinyl. These people were called ‘pickers’. The rubbish they collected was sent to a huge garbage dump in Payatas, about a 30-minute ride by jeepney (local public transportation) from our neighbourhood.

One day, I went inside that village to meet another missionary who lived right across from the dump. Adults and children were picking things out of the garbage heaps, then washing and drying the vinyl and plastic. These local people forage for recyclables, and this is their main livelihood. When my colleague told me they view this rubbish as a gift from God to sustain their lives, I felt a deep connection to them. They would be able to better their lives. In 2019, after ten years of mission in the Philippines, I was assigned to my home country of Korea. I wondered what I could do as an individual and a lay missionary in the Korean church. In 2020, the world was devastated by the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis showed absolutely no sign of improving. I knew I could not just shrug and return to my former way of living, as if nothing was happening. I had to do something. They say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

I happened to hear a lecture on the environment and found out about the Global Catholic Climate Movement’s weekly climate protests on Fridays in the Gwangwhamun district of Seoul. I was not sure what to write on my protest signs at first, and although picketing is not a crime, I felt a bit embarrassed to stand so publicly in front of people while holding a sign. I was afraid someone would recognise me, but with a mask covering half of my face, I had enough courage to safely finish my first protest.

When I go picketing, I think of the pickers who worked for their living at the entrance to my old neighbourhood or in Payatas. It seems to me that they are protecting the earth at the forefront of the climate crisis. It is ironic that the poor, who benefit the least from our planet’s resources, struggle for the good of the earth. They are the most vulnerable to the climate crisis. This is not only true in one geographical area. All around the world, climate change is intensifying droughts, floods, typhoons, heat waves, and severe cold, all of which first harm our world’s poorest people and destroy ecosystems. Sooner or later this will negatively impact on food production, leading to wars over food security. Climate wars will not only be a crisis for all of humankind, but for all of creation. Since “everything is connected” (Laudato Si, 91), we can understand that nothing in this world is unrelated to us.

My temporary comfort today could cause another person on the other side of the world to become a climate refugee or send delicate biodiversity into crisis.

I do not have deep or extensive knowledge like professional climate scientists, but my heart aches as I hear the “cries of the earth and the cries of the poor” (Laudato Si, 49) day and night. I am still at a loss when I hear of the seeming impossibility of achieving climate-neutrality by 2050 and of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Crisis report that we will reach an average global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius even faster than predicted. However small, the act of carrying my picket sign to climate protests at Gwanghwamun changed my life.

Now, I grow plants, ride a bike, use less plastic, and sort my waste more carefully. For several months, I cut high-carbon meats out of my diet, until recently when I began a vegetarian diet.

As the action team leader for Global Catholic Climate Movement Korea, I am inviting more people to get involved, not only through personal practice, but also by standing in solidarity and steadfast support of those raising a united voice to overcome this crisis. If you are wondering what you can do for our planet right now, let me encourage you to start taking action where you are.

As I mentioned at the start, I thought missionary life meant living in poverty among the poor, witnessing to God in daily life. However, it is important for missionaries to pay attention to the demands and needs of our age and generation. I confess to having overlooked this for a long time and reflect on how, even if unconsciously, my consumption is often based on convenience and efficiency.

In my ignorance, God reminded me that not only humans, but also everything that exists on earth - our common home - exists in God’s created order. That reminder brought me to my ecological conversion. Now, whenever I am exhausted and the road ahead seems hard, I like to proceed silently in gratitude to God who waited for me over the last years. “The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures” (Laudato Si, 240).

Columban lay missionary Hyein Anna Noh lives and works in Korea.