Earth Day and Wooden Rings

Solidarity 4

A Brazilian friend told me, as the Diocese of California was moving towards its new Companion Diocese relationship with Curitiba, in the southern Brazilian state of Parana, that many Brazilian Christians wear a dark-colored wooden ring on the ring finger of their right hands.  

The practice, he told me, was initiated by a Roman Catholic bishop, who took off his golden episcopal ring and put on the wooden ring instead, the same kind of ring worn by the poor of Brazil as wedding rings, because they cannot afford rings made of silver or gold. 

While Sheila and I were in Curitiba two weeks ago we were deeply impressed by the great commitment of our Companion Diocese’s bishop, Naudal Gomes, to the poor, and the equal commitment of the clergy and lay people of the diocese. Bishop Naudal wears one of the wooden rings, a small sign of this central commitment of his Christian ministry.  

Wooden_ring

I was privileged to be invited to attend the Brazilian House of Bishops, meeting in Curitiba, while we were there. I saw that most of the Brazilian bishops also wore these wooden rings. And I came to see, over the several days of the meeting, that this was no mere affect – the engagement of justice for the poor was central to their conversations.  

There is another Brazilian friend of ours here in San Francisco who has the dark ring tattooed on his finger. When I talked with him about it, and mentioned the context in which it had been introduced to me – solidarity with the poor – he replied simply, “Solidarity with all sentient beings.” 

Today is Earth Day. It is helpful for me to remember the lessons that have become more and more deeply seated in environmental work – justice for the poor means justice for the earth, and indeed justice for all. We are truly held in a nearly infinite web of interconnected lives and relationships. It is our vocation to consciously and compassionately inhabit this nexus of relationships, living in solidarity with all God has made.