After the 1986 meltdown and explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union, a massive effort was made to evacuate the area which was receiving the heaviest doses of radiation. A hundred thousand people were hastily removed, and whole cities were abandoned. The 2600-square-kilometer Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was established, and today access to this region is heavily restricted. Parts of it remain highly radioactive.
Images from the zone are eerie. Children's toys are abandoned in an evacuated kindergarten. The reactor control room is filled with corroded consoles full of shattered instrument dials. Bumper cars rust in an amusement park. A lonely statue of Lenin presides over an overgrown park. It is like those "Life after People" television documentaries.
There are signs, though, of reinvigorated nature. Forests are flourishing, and many wild animals now roam the abandoned cities. Maybe, we might think, there is hope that this area, so damaged by human activity, might eventually return to a natural state. Maybe this region will heal itself in the long run. Maybe it will be OK.
There are scars that will not heal easily. Plants and animals show odd mutations. Pine trees have a peculiar red color to their bark caused by radiation. Birds grow assymetric wing feathers and are unable to fly. Some insects have become extinct. Grass and forest fires spread new blasts of fallout into the atmosphere. The harm done by humankind is still present, and will be for many generations to come. We can see and touch the scars left by human carelessness.
Still, there is hope for the future in the plants and animals that live in this ruined landscape. Wolves, bears, wild horses are found for the first time in generations. Plants find ways to flourish and grow.
The Gospel according to John describes the Risen Christ in strange terms--he seems mysteriously unknown to his closest friends. His body still bears the marks of the murderous torture that killed him, yet he speaks, eats, drinks. He is the same, he is a "normal" human, yet he lives with the signs of what killed him.
I'd like to suggest that the Earth herself bears the scars of what we humans have done to her, yet lives on, not unlike the Johannine image of the resurrected Jesus. Just as the living Christ can show his friends the wounds he has suffered, yet is alive among them. so we can see the scars of what humanity has inflicted on the Earth.
It is not only Chernobyl, of course. We can also look at the wounds of rising sea levels, pollution of air and water, habitat destruction around the globe.
And yet Mother Earth lives, and offers us her promise for the future, despite her signs of our careless selfishness. Just as we of the Body of Christ cherish the One Who Lives among us, just as we see hope in him, just as we rejoice in his transcendent love and presence, so may we care for our Mother the Earth, and do what we can to aid her rebirth, even as we look on the wounds we have inflicted on her.
