Oceans: Science, Eco-theology, and the End Times.
A conversation with seminarian Byron Walker
Byron Walker began conversation at the Climate Cafe Multifaith with an invitation. Currently, Walker is a seminarian at Princeton Seminary. Prior to seminary, Walker’s life took him across the oceans, from Africa to the Pacific Islands. He also earned a degree in ocean science. In moving through seminary, he did not jettison his life experiences, but drew deeply from them. He calls us to look at the scriptures with fresh eyes, asking us to circumnavigate the interpretations of ocean and scriptures of the long-ago, and draw from the well again, for a new now, and a new future to come.
Explains Walker, the ocean as we know it today, is not a biblical concept. Be it the “Hebrew Bible” or “New Testament,'' it is not the ocean that features, but the many smaller seas. For ancient people of the Levant, “the ocean wasn't anywhere close” to them. Perhaps as a result, the ocean—an enormous part of our created world—is almost wholly missing from our text. In the video below, Walker invites us to reflect on that, and “to place ourselves in our memories—and narratives of—what the ocean means to us.”
An old writer’s adage is ‘write what you know.’ As ancient people worked to understand God and the human relationship with both God and creation, the writers and recorders of the bible did not write parables about the oceans. The impact of that seems small, until you think about it a little more. Our holy books illuminate and record the deep abiding work and love of God. Yet not all people experience the same things. Romans, Greeks, Egyptians and Israelites did not write proverbs about icecaps. Or wave curls. Or coral reefs. Even the ‘whale’ who swallows Jonah is simply a ‘big fish.’ Not a whale at all.
Walker invites us to reflect on how the geography of the scriptural stories—the narrative—had a decisive effect on the way ancient people imagined their world and God’s creation. Contrast that view to the cultures of the Pacific Islands, and how stories from oceanic people might (and do) connect with the divine. Walker asserts that whatever one’s culture or proximity to oceans, in studying the scriptures, “narratives that we then inherit and have at our disposal to play with, and be creative with, can be somewhat limiting unless we're intentional about going to find them.”
So then, where and how do we seek God? And where can God be found? It is perhaps true that absent icecaps and coral reefs in our scripture, we are cut off from the robust view of creation that God as the creator has. Our limitedness could lead us to disregard what is important—such as the damage we are doing to our oceans and ocean life right now. Ancient people saw God in the world they knew. It is time for people of faith to see God’s grandeur not just in the mountains and the mustard seed, but in the orca and the octopus, the jet stream and the global seas.
“…in terms of climate care, in terms of activism, we often hear about taking care of the air, taking care of soil degradation, saving mother earth— and yet the sea is the invisible half of what so much of this work looks like.”
—Byron Walker
The world we see, the stories we tell, and the narratives we make around all of this are foundational to how we understand and communicate about God. Faith and experiences of faith are often wilderness-based, heart-felt, and powerful. Ancient people were terrified of the seas they knew, from the Aegean to Galilee. Boats were flimsy, storms were scary, and people drowned. Says Walker, “The dangers of the water made a narrative of boundary, chaos, and the sense of…domination” or “territorial property boundary.”
Even with all our recent scientific achievements, our cameras, diving bells, and submarines, still today the ocean is ‘the deep,’ a mysterious place we don’t know a lot about. Says Walker, “It occurs to me that our sense of ignorance about the depths—of what’s below the surface—is not just an ancient circumstance. With a degree in oceanography, I can tell you one of the things that they constantly told us was this classic phrase, ‘we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean.’”
Popular entertainment can feature sea creatures such as sharks and giant squid battling humans and each other, with a not unfamiliar nod to the Leviathans of old. Yet, with a wider view of God’s creation, Walker cautions that “the metaphors we use, really create our reality” and so also “our response to nature.'“ He explains, “If we envision it as a battle, then it has to be a battle. If we envision it as cooperation, it will be cooperation. And so that's why I'm so invested in ‘what are the narratives that get to take center stage?’”
He notes, for instance, that in contrast to this ancient idea of the sea as “chaotic and dangerous,” that the current western name for the Pacific Ocean comes from the word ‘peaceful.’
“We hear about a new heaven and a new earth. What about a new sea? I want to ask this question, what is the future hydrological layout of our eschatology? Of our end vision of a new creation?”
—Byron Walker
The concept of ‘the deep’ need not put us off with visions of chaos. The ocean is a boundary to be respected, but not necessarily feared. Landscapes change. With the climate crisis, in some places, landscape will and is changing dramatically. Yet, God will not leave us orphaned. Instead, we have our faith to guide us with new stories that explain our new world and new adaptations. God drew from the The Deep, as can we.
In his ministry, Walker finds metaphors of ocean encouraging for personal and spiritual reflection. He shares a sample exchange of questions. When asking someone “How are you doing?” He invites more than the standard “Oh, fine, whatever,” by following up with “‘How are you doing below the surface?’”
We as humans scampering around the land and ocean may be shy about doing the work to understand and re-understand our lives, our earth and our faith. But God has no such qualms. And we, the scamperers, we can take courage from that. Says Walker, “God comes in, who does know how to draw things up from the deep, and who created this stuff—even below our level of perception, even today.” What can be ‘drawn up’ are models for renewal, repair, and resurrection. Contemplating the ocean also, then, invites us to a good dose of humility—as Walker reminds us, “we still don't know everything that there is to know.”
There may be nothing new under the sun. But there is also nothing the same under the sun, either. Life is always in motion, and ocean tides are a constant reminder of that. The ocean calls our attention to the paradox of constancy where the only constant is change, sometimes tidal change. And we must not be afraid. Says Walker, “are we supposed to be afraid of these things that we don't know? I hope not.”
According to Walker, acknowledging our ‘ignorance’ of the richness of life under the waters of the ocean is not a problem so much as it is an invitation. Ignorance cannot be allowed to “become something that facilitates abuse, either of ourselves, or of our environment, or other people.” Instead it is an opportunity to yet again rest in faith, and in the stories of a God who created us, and the entire ocean, too.
Wrapping up, Walker invites us to explore our faith, experiences, the science, and different ways of knowing for new stories and narratives rising from the deep. He invites us to “alternative models of viewing the ocean.” For some, the ocean can be peaceful. A sunrise on the beach is often a spiritual type of encounter. Yet there is so much more to see. If we look below the surface of the water, even for a long moment—holding our breath—we might discover so much more than our ancestors, our stories, and we ourselves have previously known and imagined.
“Maybe the ocean as mystery, as abundance provider, is not something to be dominated, but to be respected and protected,” says Walker. In his view, “the ocean is the perfect paradigm of interconnectedness.” Be it history, biology, physics, economics, faith—“Everything touches everything else in the ocean.”
In our conversation, two poems came up that expressed some measure of the deep conversation we shared. I want to encourage you to read, reflect, and be enlivened. I go down to the shore, by Mary Oliver and The Marshes of Glynn by Sidney Lanier
Byron Walker, is currently a third-year seminarian at Princeton Theological Seminary studying youth ministry, queer theology, and eco theology. His background is as a fourth generation missionary kid from the Middle East and Pacific Islands with significant roots in Central East Africa. In University, Byron earned dual degrees in ocean science and theatre performance, so he considers building bridges across difference and cooperative communication to be core values. Currently he is on the board of Circle Faith Future and on the advising board of Q7 Christian, as well as the theologian in residence for Affirming Youth Ministries. Byron's religious background is bi-ecclesial as both Presbyterian PC(USA) and Eastern Orthodox. All things are connected in God and in the Ocean, so let's share our wonder, questions, thoughts, wisdom, and experiences as we discuss and ponder the question of the ocean, climate, and faith.
Originally posted to Faiths4Future.org Find more articles and video at the intersection of faith, climate change and climate justice on the Faiths4Future blog.
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is here for the friendship and conversations about climate, community, and connection. She organizes the Climate Cafe Multifaith as a co-leader of Faiths4Future. Find her in real life in Southern Oregon, working as Steward of Climate with the nonprofit Circle Faith Future.