By Federica Ammaturo
There is a time for work and a time for rest. In the Bible, starting with Genesis 1, rest is often described as the culmination of a journey towards salvation and fulfilment in life — a place where we can recharge and find peace. If rest is a place, we might ask ourselves where we can find it on this earth. Do we allow the Earth to regenerate itself and us?
“A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you; in it you shall neither sow, nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines” (Leviticus 25:11).
What seems to be a request for sacrifice — giving up the harvest of one’s land and leaving it uncultivated and abandoned — is not at all what it seems. God changes our perspective on creation, showing us that we are part of it and therefore have a responsibility towards the Earth and all its creatures.
The Jubilee gives us the opportunity to reconsider our approach to “managing our home”, our resources and our economy. Although this conflicts with the economic rules and lifestyles of our societies, it reveals itself to be a step towards the realization that we must first and foremost recognise the Earth as a place of generativity, hope and meaning in ecological terms.
The Earth is not a resource to be exploited unconditionally nor an object at our service, but rather a living organism that nourishes and transforms alongside us.
How can this awareness change the way we approach the economy?
We could try to apply the concept of rest to the economic and ecological spheres and allow it to guide our individual actions and collective endeavours.
Regenerating soil, water and air
Just as we think of rest as a mechanism that promotes cell regeneration in our bodies, we should allow the Earth to do the same. This not only involves promoting traditional practices such as leaving land fallow, crop rotation and resting pastures, but also rethinking the way we cultivate and produce things from a regenerative perspective. Rather than hiding behind certifications and slogans, we should work to diversify crops, drastically reduce our use of pollutants and consider production cycles that replenish natural resources rather than depleting them. Starting with regenerative agricultural practices to make urban soils permeable or promote sustainable transport networks, we must learn to do things differently, or refrain from doing them at all, to allow the Earth to regenerate.
Slow down production and reduce consumption
Imagine a natural landscape covered in waste. This image of accumulation, waste and pollution symbolises man’s failure in his greatest gift: the ability to create. It is the key to a necessary change. Resting means slowing down production and reducing our consumption of objects that exploit precious resources and turn them into waste, which pollutes the Earth and makes it inhospitable to all creatures, violating its sacredness and purity. So let us conceive of business decelerators and spaces for sharing goods as the new norm in our societies.
Recharging the energy
The Earth provides us with so much, yet we often fail to embrace and nurture this abundance. At the same time, we can measure our need for energy in a different way, considering how we exploit non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels or water. Motivated by sobriety, we can reduce unnecessary consumption by paying attention to how we use resource-intensive technologies, for example. We can also devise new ways to recharge the Earth by storing available energy and not wasting it. Consider how much water is wasted due to inefficient human infrastructure designed for indiscriminate, continuous and individualistic use of this resource.
Reflecting on our communities and healing wounds
A Jubilee Year of Rest for the Earth also marks a break for humanity from excessive work and productivity, as well as from the obsession with doing and having. It is an invitation to take time to reflect on how we inhabit the world, and to find shared, humane solutions. The Holy Scriptures inspire us to make collective use of common goods, which can drive the healing of social wounds linked to inequalities in access to land and food.
“The sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you” (Leviticus 25:6). It is not a barren and arid Earth that lies at rest, but a fertile place of rebirth and transformation. – Vatican News
