Wangari Muta Maathai (1940 – 2011)
A life witness to the morality of environmental care and the cumulative effect of doing one good thing at a time.
The 2004 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her conservation efforts and founder of the Green Belt Movement, Professor Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman, died on 25th September, 2011. She will be remembered for her determination “to make the world a more peaceful, healthier, and better place.”
Wangari Maathai stated publicly that her belief in God’s omnipresence grounded in her moral fiber the understanding that doing the right thing was being faithful to God’s Word. Her political activism and her work on behalf of the environment was inspired by the prophet Hosea 4:6 – My people are ruined for lack of knowledge! Through the planting of trees, the Green Belt Movement not only provides income and sustenance to millions of people in Kenya, but it also conducts educational campaigns to raise awareness of women’s rights, civic empowerment, and the environment throughout Kenya and Africa.
The faith passion of Wangari’s life was making learning links between the teachings in the Bible, teachings that often tell us what to do although they don’t tell us the why. The natural wisdom we learn from observing and analyzing the local conflicts over limited resources and struggles to share them brings ecological factors to our reality. To acquire the knowledge needed to keep us from ruin, we need to make the links and respect the links. When we do this, the rituals and human wisdom we share can teach us how to live peacefully and responsibly within our environment.
Influences from childhood can profoundly affect our life/faith passions. Wangari has shared that, as a child, she often collected firewood for her mother. Her mother told her never to take the wood of the Fig tree as this was the “tree of God”: its wood was never to be cut, to be burned, or to be used. This tree was to be left to stand and to fall on its own, and to send its roots deep into the earth. No further explanation was given. Simply respect this tree.
Returning to Kenya after a time away, Wangari found that deforestation was a new reality and a government policy for her homeland. She observed that it was not until these trees were cut down that their link to the physical sustainability of the environment was recognized. The Fig Tree, so huge and never cut, had provided stabilization of the land. Because the roots went deep down into underground rock, they physically protected the land from mudslides and brought the subterranean water system up nearer to the surface. Her mother’s wisdom reflected how people learned to live in their environment. Their respectful attitude of living with all other living things had provided knowledge that had kept them from physical ruin.
When I first heard of Wangari Maathai, what most impressed me was her attitude of service. It was developed as a young girl in a Catholic school at a time when Wangari feels the missionary Church was serious about teaching the virtue of service. She learned that service benefits us - it benefits the world we live in. This is particularly true if we have acquired “spiritual values for healing ourselves and the world”. When we experience that God is omnipresent – God is not in a place, but in ourselves, in others, and in all nature, we have respect that empowers our choices to live as stewards of creation.
Let us pray: May our belief that God is present in all creation empower us to care for the gift we have received.
