If you are able to read this reflection, consider yourself blessed. I mean it. You are among the billions who have lived to see another day. Moreover, you are blessed to live in this beautiful land. Indeed, you are among a small minority of the world’s population that enjoys most of the world’s resources. It is a great blessing.
Yet, most of the time, we are weighed down by the cares of the world. We worry so much about small things that do not even matter: gas prices, the cost of eggs, ice cream, and even things we can live without. We are conditioned to think that without some of these things, life comes to an end. It is the curse of capitalism usually called marketing. It is a system that makes us want more and more–materialism. So we are conditioned to live to buy. If we stop spending, we are made to believe, the economy will collapse, and somehow we will collapse with it.
Yet it is the poor who spend the most, while the rich spend less. We spend every dollar trying to live like rich people. In doing so, we spend much of our lives isolated and anxious, always afraid of what the future may hold.
But as children of God, we are spiritual beings invited into a sacred relationship with God. Trusting in God gives us the inner strength to withstand such fears. It invites us to see life as greater than our wants. It gives us the grace to appreciate who we are, what we have, and above all, how God sees us.
The world will not collapse because we do not have our favorite ice cream. Rather, the world suffers because our relationships are broken. We are ecological beings—interconnected with everything around us, both big and small.
Ecological spirituality offers new insights into how we can negotiate our anxieties within this interconnectedness. It reminds us that we are never alone; we are always in the divine company of creation. Even when the world is shaken, we remain secure because God is the solid ground upon which we stand.
May God give us the grace to trust, even in life’s darkest moments.
From the E-Crier of May 28, 2026. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter.