Great in All the Earth

During this month of prayer for creation, here is the testimony of a little sister who shares with us a rather unique volunteer experience… This work, very different from anything she has done before, is a hymn to creation.

When I started looking for a couple of volunteer jobs here in Baltimore, my first idea was to join the program at the National Aquarium, about a half hour’s walk from home. I’ve always loved aquariums. I’d maintained a small one at home until I left to join the Fraternity.

I also love Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si—On Care for our Common Home.” I have been sad to see that it has received so little attention within our American Catholic Church.  In fact, in the ten years since it was promulgated, I have never heard a sermon preached on its themes at any parish Mass. It is said that its message about social justice and care for the earth has been more appreciated outside the Church than in it.

“Your glory is praised from (…) savage beasts, birds of the air, and fish that make their way through the waters.” (Psalm 8)

I knew the National Aquarium put a lot of emphasis on conservation, preservation of species, and restoring the Baltimore Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay. The Aquarium specializes in building environmental awareness, particularly for children. With encouragement from a neighbor, I put in an application. The first person who called to interview me was the “aviculturist,” the keeper of birds, in the Australia section.

The Aquarium is built around a central core that has various different exhibits. For example, one shows local Maryland landscapes, from the sources of streams in the western mountains down to the ocean depths beyond the continental shelf. Another shows a large coral reef. And in the very center is a huge wraparound tank that allows one to walk down several stories surrounded by large deep-sea creatures.           
The building has two wings that re-create on one side a part of the Amazon rainforest, and on the other an ancient river gorge in northern Australia, two unique, fragile, and very different ecosystems.

I passed the intake interview and was assigned one morning a week cleaning the ledges in the river gorge, wiping the glass on the fish and turtle tanks, chopping vegetables and fruit for feeding the birds, and washing their dishes. The best part of the job is holding a hose on the highest ledge to create a brief rain shower the birds can come and bathe in just a few feet in front of me.

Later I go back onto that ledge and hide in the leaves a bit to try to help count birds for the daily census. Up there I can look down on the exhibit guides explaining to visitors, very commonly large groups of students and children, the various animals they’re looking at. Besides birds there are snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and yes, fish.

“You have given humanity power over the works of Your hands, and put all things under our feet.” (Psalm 8)

Much emphasis is put on the environments that sustain the animals, and how endangered nearly all of them are. The magnitude of human impact is everywhere. And, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. The exhibits and the guides that lead people through them try to teach the kids especially—often in entertaining ways—to love the creatures and preserve their environments.

I’m also glad that, unlike the Smithsonian National Museums in Washington, the Aquarium is not dependent on funding from the Federal Government and so can speak freely about the findings of science and the role of climate change.

Except for the horticulturalist who cares for the plants, all the animal caretakers and other volunteers “in Australia” are quite a bit younger than me. This is kind of nice when you live in a “senior building” like I do.  Also, people who enjoy handling the kinds of animals we’re dealing with (including all the insects and rodents that must be kept for feeding them) are not necessarily the most conventional types—my co-workers are quite interesting, at once passionate and down-to-earth.

Finally, it’s a totally different type of work from anything I have ever done before, with my past experiences in nursing homes, restaurants, factories, stores, and a hospital parking garage. But as in every one of those other places, here too, among the tree branches or in the kitchen, I ask the Lord to inhabit me and touch others through me. And I hope that all the people who pass through can find the presence of God in the great diversity they see in these glimpses of the natural world they would likely otherwise never experience.

“How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth! On the lips of children and of babies you have found praise!” (Psalm 8)

Lsr Anne Beth