The Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity got me to stop idling.
They didn't accomplish it with guilt, browbeating or a ruler. The good sisters did it with a song.
Idling, in and of itself, is not inherently a bad thing. For the rejuvenation of the body and spirit, for instance, a good portion of restful idle time is a necessity.
But idling in my car in the parking lot while I reapply lip gloss, or on the street while I wait to pick up my husband after work, or stuck in no-go bumper-to-bumper traffic, spewing harmful emissions into the atmosphere is wrong.
Actually, I'm beginning to think it's downright sinful.
Such an epiphany is probably not what the Franciscan Sisters had in mind when they posted a free download of a 35-year-old song by Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn on their Web site for women discerning whether they have a call to religious life. But that was one of the ways in which their groovy Web site --each month they post audio and visual meditative aids-- brought about change in my life. And hopefully, in some small way, the world.
The nuns chose Cockburn's song, "God Bless the Children," because it is, in their words, "a stark reflection on salvation ... and hope in the wake of Easter."
The song, which first appeared on Cockburn's 1973 album "Night Vision," and again a few years later on his live album, "Circles in the Stream," has long been a favorite of mine. Its haunting lyrics are the kind that get stuck in the subconscious, resurfacing in moments when, for me, I'm gobsmacked by natural beauty and its fragility in the face of our manhandling.
"With rain the world grows us older, Lord let us not be lost; God bless the children with knowledge of the cost," Cockburn sings in "God Bless the Children." "With pain the world paves us over, Lord let us not betray; God bless the children with visions of the Day."
I know what those lyrics mean to me: Don't forget the indelible imprint we leave on the Earth -- for better or for worse -- and be a good steward of God's creation until the day when all is made new and perfect again, like Eden.
But, songs being what they are (works of art open to interpretation), I wondered what Cockburn had in mind when he penned those lyrics in 1972.
So I asked him.
"It was about hope," Cockburn told me recently by phone from New York City where he was taking a break between legs of a tour in support of his latest album, "Life Short Call Now." "I'm slightly projecting here because I don't really know what state of mind I was in at the time. But knowing me, I was probably looking around at the adult world and going, 'We're fucked,' and thinking that if there's hope, it lies with the young people, with kids.
"And I still feel this way," the 61-year-old troubadour said. "If there's hope for the world it lies in a fresh vision of things. And so, 'God bless the children with visions of the Day,' is really about being able to envision heaven and also about being able to envision running the world right in some way -- a healthier relationship with the planet."
Cockburn describes himself as a Christian, although he wouldn't have when he wrote "God Bless the Children." That song predated his "personal relationship" with Jesus, he says.
"A lot of what I used to hear when I was first learning what it meant to be a Christian was, 'Well, we're supposed to be stewards of the planet.' A lot of people said that in response to the traditional view, as perceived, that man is somehow separate from the planet and God gave us the planet and we can trash it as much as we want," he said.
Yeah, planet Earth as unlimited-miles, collision-and-damage-covered cosmic rental car. I'm sadly familiar with that particular strain of Christian theology.
"It's not an accident that Easter happens in spring," Cockburn says. "It's part of the human consciousness about how life functions on the planet. It's one of the rare instances left in the world, I suppose, of us having a sense of connectedness with the planet."
We agreed it's heartening to see many more Americans who describe themselves as Christians, too, turning their attention to environmental concerns. Finally.
Earlier this year, a group of evangelical Christian leaders called for global warming to be added to the short list of moral crises facing the world today. And they were promptly backhanded by other evangelical leaders who say global warming can't compare to abortion or gay marriage on the list of "sanctity of life" issues.
I beg to differ.
I recently heard a rabbi deliver a Shabbat sermon about the 10 biblical plagues -- frogs, locusts, rivers of blood, etc. ----and their modern equivalents, each a result of global warming. It is our moral duty, according to the Jewish tradition, he explained, to save the planet. "Tikkun olam," heal the planet, is what the Hebrew says.
The physical health of the planet -- this blue-and-green marble on which the born and yet-to-be-born will be passing their mortal lives -- is as intrinsic to the sanctity of life as the air we breathe.
And that's no idle threat.