I watched a gaggle of curious preschool-age children walk down the street, holding hands. I love observing children’s willingness to be openly affectionate. To be smitten by the flight of a bird. To take delight in an inchworm. To notice the countless wonders of life we adults can grow immune to.
But what, I wondered, will life on Earth be like for those children in twenty years, when they’re the age of my twenty-something sons, let alone when they’re my age?
Many of us worry about the future. It’s almost intolerable, however, to linger over those worries for long. We want to run from thoughts about climate change and its implications—not only because it’s frightening, but also because most of us don’t know what to do about it.
What’s the task? What’s the work to be done?
It’s unclear. And even if we have a good answer, we often question whether our actions will make a difference. As we encounter the enormity of the climate crisis—like poor Vasilisa in the Russian folktale, who is tasked by the sorceress Baba Yaga with separating grains of poppy seeds from dirt—we are faced with an endeavor that is so much bigger than us.
I have been concerned about climate change since becoming a mother. For a long time, I thought my job as a parent was to help address it, for the sake of my children and all young people. Of course, this is no easy task.
The complexities are great, as are the number of ways in which people are working to address them today: by developing solar and wind energy, transitioning to electric vehicles, investing in conservation and reforestation, creating plant-based meats, advancing energy efficiency, and developing strategies to boost resilience and lessen the risk of climate-driven extreme weather events.
All of these things and more are important. And over the years, I’ve tried to play a tiny part in several of these efforts, both personally and professionally. But when facing challenges bigger than us, I’ve learned that it is important to identify that one contribution that most calls to us. For me, that has been trying to understand how we can more helpfully relate to our changing world. I have sought to understand how we can find a wise middle ground where we don’t feel like our only options are to be freaked out or to try to detach from engaging altogether. And then I have sought to understand how, from that calmer middle ground, we can find enduring ways to contribute, if not to the world’s healing, at least to the welfare of the people in our immediate lives.
From conversations with hundreds of people, I’ve learned countless helpful things. One above all, however, stands out.
It was an especially challenging moment in my life. My mother was dying of Alzheimer’s. My marriage was falling apart. And what I was learning about climate change weighed heavily on me.
I went to the Zen center in my neighborhood where John Tarrant, author most recently of The Story of the Buddha, was teaching. In a simple room above a bead shop, a group of us sat together with a koan I no longer recall.
When John invited conversation, I shared what was in my heart with no small measure of desperation—my worries about my children’s future, my feelings of powerlessness. What, I asked him, could I do?
John listened and said, “None of us can bear the burden of something like global warming, and we shouldn’t try. It’s too big—beyond human scale.”
He continued, “Someday, a child might come to you sad or scared about what is happening in the world. You might say, ‘I understand. Here, have a cup of tea.’ And that will be enough.”
At the moment, his answer unsettled me. I wanted something more concrete. I wanted assurance I could keep my children safe. I wanted climate change to go away.
A cup of tea seemed impossibly, ridiculously, infuriatingly inadequate.
But now, as the KT Tunstall song goes, “Suddenly I see,” and what I see is the wisdom in sometimes simply offering a cup of tea. It’s about giving what Thich Nhat Hanh called the greatest gift we can give to those we love: our presence.
Only when we are present can we see what is most needed. Only when we are present can we create the conditions for a child, a partner, a friend, or a neighbor to feel safe to share what is on their mind and in their heart, giving it air to breathe and space to heal.
And only then do we have access to our childlike sense of wonder and awe, and the love that, as Norman Fischer writes in The World Could Be Otherwise, makes effort effortless. Like the magic doll who helps Vasilisa accomplish her daunting tasks, becoming present may help us recognize capabilities and possibilities we could not have imagined before.
None of this is easy. Or magical. We still need to take concrete action in order to have the possibility of creating a healthy future for all sentient beings. And I still try to do my part.
But knowing that doing my part may sometimes be as simple as offering a cup of tea allows me to carry on with a little more ease.
