Get Praying and campaigning with environmental christians: green religion and the climate movement 1
Praying and Campaigning with Environmental Christians:
Green Religion and the Climate Movement 1st Edition Maria Nita (Auth.)
Visit to download the full and correct content document: https://textbookfull.com/product/praying-and-campaigning-with-environmental-christia ns-green-religion-and-the-climate-movement-1st-edition-maria-nita-auth/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...
The Zapatista Movement and Mexico’s Democratic Transition: Mobilization, Success, and Survival Maria Inclan
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Nature America Inc. New York
For Owain and Marinca
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The completion of this book would not have been possible without the contribution of the participants in my study, particularly the Green Christian network, to whom I am immensely grateful. I am also particularly indebted to Dr Marion Bowman, Prof Graham Harvey, Dr Dominic Corrywright, Dr Paul-Francois Tremlett, Dr Philip Sarre and Sue DennisJones for their insightful comments and suggestions. I owe a special thanks to my loving and supportive family, Alexandra and Christiaan Baaij, Octavian and Lucian Nita, Adi, Dan and Jana Calina, and particularly to my mother, Marinca Nita, and son, Owain Dennis-Jones, to whom this book is dedicated. Last but not least I would like to thank Phil Getz and Alexis Nelson of Palgrave Macmillan for their generous help and support.
Relating to the Planet: Green Prayer and Fasting for the Planet
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 5.1 Marching in ‘the Wave’, Global Day of Action, London 2009 99
Fig. 5.2 Religion affiliation among activists, London and Welsh climate camps 2009 104
Fig. 6.1 Christian climate activists marching, Kent 2008 121
Fig. 6.2 CEL members, praying through painting, Suffolk 2009 128
Fig. 7.1 Planet in a greenhouse, Global Day of Action, London 2009 144
Fig. 7.2 Two of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, G20 protest, London 2009 145
Fig. 7.3 Prayer tree at CEL conference on transition towns, Devon 2009
155
Fig. 7.4 Prayer tree with roots in the earth, Greenbelt festival, Cheltenham 2009 156
Fig. 7.5 ‘Space for Life’ tree with roots in the planet, transition towns festival, Wells 2010
Fig. 9.2 On the way to the power station, Kingsnorth 2008 192
Fig. 9.3 Activists singing at climate camp, Kingsnorth 2008 193
Fig. 9.4 Christians praying at the gates of Kingsnorth power station, Kingsnorth 2008 194
Fig. 9.5 Altar from Christian Ecology Link annual retreat, Suffolk 2012
203
Fig. 10.1 Penguins prodding the gates of Kingsnorth power station, Kingsnorth 2008 222
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
CHRISTIANS, CLIMATE CHANGE AND SYSTEM CONTRADICTIONS
As I am preparing this manuscript for submission in December 2015, the Paris climate talks are making headlines across the globe. There is an enthusiasm in the voices reporting on climate change that is replacing the despair and resignation which followed ‘the Copenhagen defeat’ of 2009, when the participating countries could not agree on a carbon descent plan. Thus, this book aims to tell the story of environmental Christians at an important and eventful time. As an ethnographic account of environmental Christian organisations, the present study sets out to chronicle, analyse and interpret the ways in which green Christian activists campaign, live and ritualise their identities. Christian environmentalism, I will show here, is quickly losing its once marginal status in the green movement and becoming a leading voice in the climate chorus. Even more surprising, the climate movement as a whole is also gaining momentum and beginning to impact the public sphere.
It is only during the past decade that climate change discourse, the tip of the environmental discourse, has finally become available and visible to the great general public. A polite conversation about the weather with a stranger can no longer mean what it would have meant ten years ago, even if (on a cold day) they may say: ‘So much for that global warming, it isn’t coming here, is it?’ Although society seems (on most days) to get on with
its business, the social implications of global warming will perhaps become discernible as society gets some distance on this historic process: the realisation that human activities have caused a new geological era for the earth, an era geoscientists now refer to as the Anthropocene (see Archean 2011).
Climate change specifically and the environmental crisis more generally are highly politicised issues. Climate change challenges the world’s governments, and particularly First World governments where carbon emissions are highest, to think and act globally, in a common interest. This is a challenge that excites many, because it has the potential to become a platform for unity in a divided world. However, political analysts and commentators warn that policy-makers attempt to tackle the environmental crisis superficially, without addressing core ‘systemic difficulties’ or ‘structural resistances’, and hence perpetuating problems or circumventing real solutions (Rustin 2007).
We are faced with such systemic difficulties or ‘system contradictions’ whenever our values and norms are in a state of conflict (Lockwood 1964). In his editorial introduction to Environment and Society, the environmental geographer Philip Sarre points to the disparity between environmentalism and policy-making. On the one hand, environmentalist attitudes rarely produce clear policy proposals. On the other, the policies of governments and corporations react to environmental views symptomatically and without any significant change ‘to underlying attitudes and goals’ (Sarre 1996: 2). These underlying attitudes and goals may in turn have been developed ‘when society was dependent upon the local environment but had small impact upon it’ (ibid.: 1). Thus, the biblical dictum ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (Genesis 1:28) carries with it, according to Sarre, an assumption that ‘domination and exploitation would not destroy the environments people depended on’(ibid.).
The question arising from this last is: are these ethical values that shape human and non-human interaction derived from religious traditions and more importantly are they to blame for the environmental crisis? In a lecture given in 1966 entitled ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’ the historian Lynn White Jr argued that the ecological crisis was a result of our inculcated Judeo-Christian beliefs and values, mainly the belief in a transcendent God whose most valued creation (and the only one created in God’s own image), ‘Man’, was given dominion over the rest, and was thus separated from it (White 1967). The Lynn White critique could be considered a sine qua non, albeit obsolete, of scholarly writing about Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and environmentalism. White
was not the first to have made such a claim. Aldo Leopold had already suggested that ‘conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land’ (1989 [1949]: viii). Yet White made an extremely important claim that was going to be addressed by many ecocritics and eco-theologians who engaged with this issue:
Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny—that is, by religion [and since] the roots of our troubles are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not (White 1967: 1207).
White’s accusation produced a massive response as the debate he ignited involved historians, environmentalists, philosophers, theologians and many others, preoccupied with either identifying the implications of this new original sin or attempting to show that Christianity in fact had an environmental ethos in the application of stewardship or social justice. Paradoxically, in their attempt to exonerate Christianity, some theologians who argued with White became eco-theologians, and therefore much as White had proposed, tried to make Christianity part of the solution rather than the problem (ibid.).
AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF CHRISTIAN ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM
This book is therefore preoccupied with the tangible results of these efforts. Although in this book I will speak of ‘green Christianity’ and ‘environmental Christians’ as well as ‘the Christian tradition’, more generally, I am using this as a convenient shorthand and I am always referring to a plurality of manifestations rather than implying a monolithic formation. As a religious studies scholar I am well aware of the problems of defining ‘religion’ and the current debates generated by this problem, some of which I will address in Chaps. 3 and 4, concerned with methods and models for investigating green Christianity.
As I will discuss in great depth throughout this book, I should state from the very start that I recognise that religious identity is complex, overlapping and multi-layered (see Tweed 1997; Wuthnow 2005: 276–278; Nita 2014). My original academic training is that of a linguist and philologist and as such I am in fact interested in the coming together of two distinct discourses or bodies of language: ‘green’ on the one hand and
‘Christian’ on the other, and the ways in which my informants negotiated these mergers and cross-fertilisations in the context of their campaigning activities and in response to their different audiences. Moreover, I am interested in the role language plays in both expressing and changing values and behaviours, since talking about climate change is clearly not enough and campaigners are politically involved through symbolic and direct action1 as I will show in future chapters.
To look at these developments I will be using my own ethnographical data gathered in the UK between 2007 and 2013 and I will also draw on secondary sources to show how my own research is contrasted by similar research around the globe. For example, in a recent study entitled Between God and Green: How Evangelicals are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change, Katherine Wilkinson (2012) shows that evangelicals in the USA who are also climate change activists need to frame their ‘creation care’ campaign in a particular way that responds to (and overcomes) local politics and the American public sphere more generally, concerning association between ‘green’ and ‘secular’, ‘humanist’, ‘liberal’ and so on. Both green campaigns and religious organisations are often specifically situated within a local and national political arena, and generalising about green Christians, globally, is not always possible. With this disclaimer in mind, environmental Christianity no longer represents a fringe movement within the Christian tradition, as in the last three or four decades green Christian initiatives have continued to grow and manifest through a wide-ranging diversity of denominations, networks and organisations, from Christian anarchists in the UK or Australia who are heavily involved in protest against their governments to evangelical Republican Christian groups in the USA.
My research suggests that green or environmental Christianity is growing particularly in the Anglophone world, in the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia. Although some new Christian developments inside this movement may be somewhat removed from the wider tradition, like for example the new Forest Church movement also known as the Communities of Mystic Christ in the UK, it is likely that many green Christians will share a sense of ecumenical belonging and this may be illustrated by the wide endorsement from many non-Catholic Christian organisations of the recent and much anticipated papal encyclical Laudato Si: On the Care for Our Common Home (June 2015), in which Pope Francis called on global action against climate change. The recent encyclical marks yet another
important shift from periphery to the centre: green Christianity is no longer a fringe movement inside the green movement, and my research will clearly document this shift, showing a progression from a more marginal status back in 2005 when the climate movement started to today, in 2015, when Pope Francis is considered to be one of the most outspoken public voices globally on climate change.
As a social scientist I was not particularly interested in Christian ecotheology or official ecclesiastical statements on the environment, although I did look at some of these developments and I will be discussing the relationship between text, church and people in this book, since connections are many and fruitful and relevant to our discussion. Eco-theologians are not just writing in their ivory towers and eco-theology, I was pleased to find, is on the street and at green festivals, where writers, vicars and activists meet and discuss practical issues as well as loftier ideas and ideals. However, my research attempted to understand ‘the bottom-up’ greening of the Christian tradition, focusing on the voices of the people who make up these green networks rather than the public and official voices in green Christianity. First I wanted to know if this bottom-up greening was happening and, second—if it was indeed happening—I wanted to look at how it actually worked and what were its inner mechanisms? Therefore, when I started my research in 2007 I wished to find grassroots Christian organisations and look at what they were doing and saying, at what exactly they were attempting to change.
The book provides a wealth of evidence that challenges the view that Christianity, like the other two Abrahamic traditions, Judaism and Islam, is maladaptive and cannot produce an adequate environmental response, given the urgency of the ecological crisis, a view endorsed by the environmental anthropologist Roy Rappaport (1999), and further explored by Bron Taylor in his article ‘Earth Religion and Radical Religious Reformation’ (Taylor 2010b). Examining the view that the major religious traditions may only be capable of changing in incremental and thus insufficient ways, Taylor contends that
[L]ongstanding religions have more historical and conceptual obstacles to overcome than do post-Darwinian forms of nature spirituality, and this is why very little of the energy expended by participants in the world’s religions is currently going toward the protection and restoration of the world’s ecosystems. Conversely, participants in nature spiritualities steeped in an evolutionary-ecological worldview appear to be more likely to work ardently
in environmental causes than those in religious traditions with longer pedigrees. (Taylor 2010b: 6)
My data indicates that Christian activists adapted their religious beliefs and practices to various, sometimes extreme, degrees in their encounter with the nature spirituality of the green movement, or the climate and transition towns movements which represent current crystallisations of the green movement as I will show in future chapters. Furthermore, my data attests to the high degree of plasticity and adaptability the Christian tradition has at its disposal. Despite the profound changes they underwent, most activists retained their primary Christian identities in the climate movement and thus reported that they were motivated to act on climate change by their faith rather than any other political or secular concern. The hybrid results of these intersections need to be carefully examined if we are to understand the very mechanisms of this adaptation, and this is one of the main aims of the present study.
Two major movements have been at the forefront of the green movement during the time I collected my data and they remain so today, in 2015: the climate movement and the transition towns movement. transition towns is a movement of intentional communities that strongly intersects the climate movement. Both movements started in Britain in 2005 and have since achieved international representation. As I will show in future chapters, the transition network is predicated on lifestyle rather than protest and has genealogical and physical links to many alternative networks and hubs in Britain. The transition network proved very rapidly to become a network more able to aggregate different groups, communities and individuals due to its strategic organisation and ability to bridge alternative and mainstream factions.
My research shows that many of the non-religious activists reject traditional or institutionalised religion or self-identify as ‘spiritual but not religious’. Moreover, environmentalism is considered by some scholars to have a spiritual dimension (Oelschlaeger 1996; Kearns and Keller 2007) or even to represent a religion in its own right (Taylor 2010a). Therefore, a distinction between religious and non-religious activists does not follow from an unproblematic ‘religious versus secular divide’, in itself an area of much debate among scholars of religion (Fitzgerald 2000). The contacts between mainstream institutions, such as the Christian churches that opened their doors to Christian eco-activists, and the more alternative ‘spiritual but not religious’ activists that have gone through these doors
to educate congregations on carbon economy (such as the transition network), promises to further contribute to academic debates on mainstream versus alternative culture and network theory, and the present study will look at how green Christian networks function and organise within the wider climate web.
THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK
The book is structured around four key questions: (1) How do environmental Christians campaign inside the climate and transition movements? (2) What sort of practices do environmental Christians engage in/with? (3) How do they understand their participation in the green movement and their identity as ‘green Christians’? And finally (4) How do they perform and ritualise their identities?
In Chap. 2 I begin my investigation by attempting to map the field of developments that fall under the banner of green Christianity alongside developments inside the green movement. Historically during the last three or four decades the green movement underwent several important shifts that changed the focus and ethos of the movement. Climate change, I will argue here, has produced a new kind of environmental activism. I will discuss three main areas that provide an important background for my analysis and will help frame future discussion: eco-theology, green Christianity and Christian activism.
In Chaps. 3 and 4 I will discuss the methods and models used in this study. I explore the research field and its boundaries from an Actor–Network–Theory standpoint and outline my approach to collecting and interpreting data. I will end with some ethical reflections that arose from my fieldwork, addressing the insider–outsider polarity for both researcher and participants. I adopt Bruno Latour’s (2005: 37) concept of ‘antigroups’, namely groups that are competing ideologically, politically and materially over the same resources and audiences. In this instance, the anti-groups were represented by other green networks in the climate and transition movements and I will attempt to offer an analysis of the movements in Chap. 5. Considering Latour’s argument (ibid.), it is these ‘antigroups’ that will shape the Christian groups I am studying, because my informants will have to demarcate and define themselves in conjunction with the other groups and because these other groups and individuals will provide the necessary contrast for me to observe and find the very boundary of the group. I should stress that the ‘anti-group’ model will
not prevent me from recognising the cooperation, exchanges and crossfertilisation taking place between self-identified Christians and nonChristians in this context.
Chapters 5 and 6 will profile the green networks in my study, beginning with the larger climate and transition networks or webs that represent the macro level of my research, before moving on to the three Christian networks that participated in my research: Isaiah 58, GreenSpirit and Christian Ecology Link/Green Christian. This double-lens analysis will help me identify and consider two important practices, consensus decision-making and permaculture design, which represent shared standards in the field, and I will examine how in this form they may help extend the networks.
In Chap. 7 I will look specifically at ‘identity,’ and, using my theoretical models, I will attempt to identify the processes that enable green Christians to retain and valorise their Christian identity in the green movement, despite ideological conflicts and political differences. I will investigate the mechanisms involved in these negotiations of identity, mechanisms and processes that are both reflected in and help create syncretic green Christian practices. I will look at some specific examples from my data, such as the use of prayer trees to promote environmental awareness and affective engagement with climate change.
Chapters 8, 9 and 10 are all ethnographic chapters concerned with practice and ritual in this field. In Chap. 8 I discuss green spirituality, models of community as well as community building practices in this field. I argue here that green spirituality has a dual role: on the one hand it aims to become a common currency inside a heterogeneous web of networks that can help calibrate these networks and on the other hand it allows groups to assimilate and adapt these practices, thus maintaining their distinctive character. In Chap. 9 I discuss green rituals, looking at both ecological rituals that were specifically created to express green values, such as the Moving Mountains ritual, as well as rituals that represent an adaptation of Christian worship occasions, such as the green Eucharist. I will follow with an analysis of green prayer and fasting in Chap. 10 and end with a discussion of ecological protest rituals which will lead me to a concluding discussion.
NOTE
1. Direct action referred mostly to non-violent protest activities that were not legally permitted. Climate activists would most commonly be involved in both legal actions, such as the annual ‘Global Day of Action’ and a whole
spectrum of other forms of protest, from taking part in the workshops offered at protest camps to, more extremely, standing in the way of coal diggers or sabotaging mining equipment. In so-called ‘fluffy’ actions, activists will express themselves through symbolic means whilst ‘spiky’ activities could involve the destruction of property or aiming to close down a power station for example.
REFERENCES
Archean. 2011. Archean to Anthropocene: The past is the key to the future. The Geological Society of America annual meeting, Minneapolis, 9–12 Oct 2011 [online]. http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2011/. Accessed 12 Mar 2011.
Fitzgerald, Timothy. 2000. The ideology of religious studies. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kearns, Laurel, and Catherine Keller (eds.). 2007. Ecospirit: Religions and philosophies for the earth. New York: Fordham University Press.
Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Leopold, Aldo. 1989 [1949]. A Sand County almanac: And sketches here and there. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lockwood, David. 1964. Social integration and system integration. In Exploration in social change, ed. George K. Zollschan and Walter Hirsch. London: Routledge.
Nita, Maria. 2014. Christian and Muslim climate activists fasting and praying for the planet: Emotional translation of “dark green” activism and green-faith identities. In How the world’s religions are responding to climate change social scientific investigation, ed. Globus-Veldman Robin, Szasz Andrew, and Rudolph Haluza-DeLay, 229–244. New York: Routledge.
Oelschlaeger, Max. 1996. Caring for creation: An ecumenical approach to the environmental crisis. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Rappaport, Roy A. 1999. Ritual and religion in the making of humanity Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rustin, Michael. 2007. New labour and the theory of globalisation. Soundings Website [online]. http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/contents. html. Accessed 11 Apr 2008.
Sarre, Philip. 1996. Introduction. In Environment and society, ed. Phillip Sarre and Alan Reddish. London: Hodder and Stroughton with the Open University. Taylor, Bron. 2010a. Dark green religion: Nature, spirituality, and the planetary future. Berkley: University of California Press.
Taylor, Bron. 2010b. Earth religion and radical religious reformation. In Moral ground: Ethical action for a planet in peril, ed. Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson, 379–382. San Antonio: Trinity University Press.
Tweed, Thomas A. 1997. Our lady of the exile: Diasporic religion at a Cuban Catholic shrine in Miami. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
White Jr., Thousand L. 1967. The historical roots of our ecological crisis. Science 155(3767): 1203–1207.
Wilkinson, Katherine. 2012. Between God and green: How evangelicals are cultivating a middle ground on climate change. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wuthnow, Robert. 2005. America and the challenges of religious diversity. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
CHAPTER 2
Christian Environmentalism: Mapping the Field of Green Christianity
I attempt here to map the field of green Christianity by looking at the larger field of the green movement and progressively narrow the focus to Christian environmentalism, thus providing a solid background for future discussions. The present chapter will thus take turns to examine ecology and the environmental movement, the climate movement, eco-theology and, finally, Christian environmental activism. I will endeavour to show that if we wish to understand Christian environmentalism we must see it in its context the environmental movement, the more recent climate movement and the eco-theological tradition. I will show that Christian environmentalists are facing distinct audiences: politicians who are indifferent to the ecological crisis, the unengaged general public and their own churches. In later chapters it will be important to distinguish who Christian activists are actually addressing during their symbolic and dramatic activities to be able to locate the origin of activist practices and ecological, as well as theological, discourse.
ECOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT
In the West, ecology started establishing itself as a philosophy in the 1960s through the ethical questions it posed to the dialectic of Modernity. In his critique of the Modern understanding of Modernity, We Have Never Been Modern, Bruno Latour (1993) shows how the Modern task, the Modern constitution, that of separating/purifying nature and society, or human
and nonhuman culture, began to fail with the proliferation of the very hybrids it itself created and could no further classify, like global warming or the hole in the ozone layer. ‘Where are we to put these hybrids? Are they human? Human because they are our work. Are they natural? Natural because they are not our doing?’ (1993: 50). Hence the Modern project, by which scientific progress was to lead humanity to emancipation and plenitude, becomes aware of its heresy: ‘[t]he destiny of the starving multitudes and the fate of our poor planet are connected by the same Gordian Knot that no Alexander will ever again manage to sever’ (ibid.).
Many authors convene on Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1989 [1949]) and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) as keystones for today’s environmental movement and contemporary ecological critique. Naturally Leopold and Carson are not without predecessors in their concerns—John Muir (1867) or George Perkins Marsh (1884) probably deserve credit for more than just ‘making the first stumbling steps away from an ethic (or moral community) that began and ended with human beings’ (Nash 1987:69). Aldo Leopold is a pioneer for first attempting to sketch a ‘land ethic’ (1989 [1949]), ‘that has become a modern classic and may be treated as the standard example, the paradigm case […] of what an environmental ethic is’ (Callicott 1989:15). Although unacquainted with philosophical methods, Leopold very eloquently stated that humans need an ecological education so that they can come to find intrinsic value (not practical value) and beauty in the land. A decade or so later, Rachel Carson persuasively documented the damage caused by the pesticide industry (to both humans and nonhumans), and its supportive, authoritative, scientific discourse. Silent Spring raised unprecedented public concern which led to the ban on DDT ten years later and, indirectly, to The Environmental Health Act (Lutts 1985). This represented a first victory for the environmental corner although according to her posterity, Carson’s envisaged revolution never materialised.
Hence in his article ‘Rachel Carson—Silent Spring: A Brief History of Ecology as a Subversive Subject’, Gary Kroll (2006) succinctly chronicles the great hopes 1960s and 1970s critics had for this emergent revolutionary ecology. Kroll refers principally to The Subversive Science, a timely collection of visionary essays from such influential contributors as Edith Cobb, Paul B. Sears, Allan W. Watts and Lynn White Jr, edited and introduced by Paul Shepard (Shepard and McKinley 1969). Here Shepard invested ecology with the ideological status of a resistance movement, and contended that ecology was more important for humanity for its holistic perspective
than as a scientific discipline, as in fact the ecological crisis itself could not be remedied scientifically or technologically but through ‘invoking an element of humility which is foreign to our thought which moves us to silent wander and glad affirmation’ (ibid.: 1–10). For many critics today it is still this new relationship between ‘humans’ and ‘nature’ that represents the revolutionary, subversive element of the ecological critique that was prefigured in the 1960s. Yet Gary Kroll aims to demonstrate that ecology’s subversive edge was lost by the first Earth Day in 1970 (and thereafter), when popular environmentalism succumbed to professionals and, as Herbert Marcuse first lamented in his essay ‘Ecology and Revolution’ (1972), ecology itself was co-opted by commercial capitalism. What Kroll seems to be referring to is the light green environmentalism that began to emerge under the banner of sustainability—or how can humans use nonhumans more efficiently, and conservation—preoccupied with what we need to preserve/reserve/conserve for human aesthetic pleasure.1
Although such anthropocentric attitudes are well established and therefore mainly inform policy-makers, to say that ecology lost its subversive edge after the first Earth Day (1970) means to discard some major ecological critiques that followed. To the contrary, it might be that only now ecology and environmentalism become truly subversive, as they can be defined as radical against the norm. Hence in a lecture given in 1972 Arne Naess first distinguishes between shallow and deep ecology. Deep ecology, or ecosophy, as Naess called this emergent philosophy, was concerned with fundamental questions about how humans needed to interact with and relate to everything around them. It did not seek to incrementally extend existing precepts to new issues, but in a way wipe the ethical tabula clean and allow for a complete new understanding to emerge (Callicott 1995:1–6). Many ecological critics and environmental activists begin to demand and anticipate a radical transformation, a paradigm shift, a decisive Turning Point (Capra 1982).
During the following two decades and lasting to the end of the millennium, environmental activism is often described as radical or illegal, highly political and subversive (Wall 1999:45). In his comprehensive monographic study of Earth First!, Derek Wall presents a wealth of historical evidence for this last, showing how in both the UK and the USA green activism is heavily shaped against the ruling political discourse of the 1980s and 1990s, Green Party policy (often in absentia) and existing, ‘cautious’ environmentalism. For instance, the growth of Earth First! in the USA is credited by some sources to ‘the election of an environment
hostile politician in the form of Reagan’ (Scarce, 1992, quoted in Wall 1999: 139).
Since the turn of the new millennium scholars note a new shift in the environmental movement, a shift that results from the implications of living with unprecedented global risk. Phil Macnaughton and John Urry (1998) contend that in the late 1990s a new form of environmentalism began to emerge that was different from the preceding ‘road rage’, ‘animal rage’ and ‘oil rage’ of the earlier decades (Macnaughton and Urry 1998: 70). According to these authors this new form of environmental activism is heavily positioned ‘against the system’ (hence demanding global change), is based on grassroots organisations and direct action and has a ‘heroic’ character. The environmentalism of the 1980s had more cultural elements, such as lifestyle, vegan diets, concern for animals, wholefood shops and open-air festivals (ibid. 56). Of course these earlier trends continue to be present in contemporary eco-activism but climate change brings a new global dimension to environmental activism, as I will also endeavour to show when investigating my own data.
THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT
Acting on climate change presupposes a global vision, yet envisaging and understanding the problem is not sufficient to provoke action. Writing from a psychological perspective, Anthony Leiserowitz (2006) shows that risk assessment and decision-making concerning climate change is first and foremost an affective process rather than a primarily cognitive activity. This link seems intuited by many commentators and a change in cultural and personal values as well as the emotional dimension is often implied by public voices that address the topic of climate change. Thus, many suggest that acting on climate change may presuppose ‘a change of hearts and minds’ (Obama 2008) or an inner transformation akin to a ‘religious conversion’ (Williams 2009) and that climate change cannot be tackled only economically or politically ‘as it requires a profound ethical and philosophical change that can only take place in our heart, a revolution of the spirit’ (Monbiot 2007).
In his recent Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, George Marshall (2014) looks at a diversity of findings from the fields of psychology, science and sociology, attempting to uncover the reasons why we refuse to acknowledge and act on climate change. He shows that because of political pressures scientists were
forced to frame climate change in a ‘weak language’ such as ‘very likely’ or ‘unequivocal’ (Marshall 2014: 231) and that humans have a propensity to focus on past loss rather than future loss. Marshall shows that humans have a deep-rooted need for storytelling and that we need to integrate climate change into our collective narrative.
Climate activism should be, according to some theoretical positions, very improbable. Mancur Olson’s (1965) highly debated theory of collective action is based on economic principles, using concepts such as ‘goods’, ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’, and maintaining as its basic tenet that ‘unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interest’ [my emphasis] (1965:2). The main reason for this is the negative relation between the number of people in a group and their individual effectiveness in bringing about the public good (see Opp 2009: 52). For example, if a group of ten people take collective action their individual effectiveness is ‘1/10’, a tenth of the total effectiveness that can be claimed by the group; however, the larger the group, the more diminished the personal effectiveness in achieving the public good.
Moreover, Olson talks about those beneficiaries to the public good who do not participate in bringing it about, the so-called free riders. Olson maintains that if rational, self-interested individuals think that their action is not required in the achievement of a cause they will not act but enjoy the free ride (see Opp 2009:59). In an article entitled ‘Collective Action on Climate Change: the Logic of a Regime Failure’, Paul Harris (2007) uses Olson’s collective action theory to explain the inaction of the climate regime by arguing that, although the right ingredients are there to stimulate collective action as per Olson’s theory, that is the public good is well stated, it is precisely the scale of the problem and consequently the necessary mobilisation, that is acting against it; the bigger the group, the more unlikely it is for collective action to take place.
Yet despite the fact that such studies show that humans are ill prepared to accept and act to alleviate the environmental crisis, and despite the early denial and evasiveness in the media concerning climate change, since 2005 a climate movement has been growing actively in Britain and abroad. The movement is predicated on both protest and on changing values and lifestyles. Although the climate movement may be viewed genealogically or diachronically as the most recent crystallisation of the green movement similar to, for example, the Anti Nuclear Protests of the 1980s or the Road
Protests of the 1990s, it is also very much distinct from past waves of environmentalism, most notably through a global, unprecedented involvement from and engagement with a wide spectrum of political, social and religious factions.
THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT: RELIGIOUS, SECULAR OR POST-MATERIAL
The climate movement on the other hand is a self-declared secular movement, and some of the networks that partake in this movement have an anarchic, anti-institutional ethos. This religious–secular division however is not a straightforward one. Some scholars argue countercultural environmental movements are in fact religious, despite their declared secularity and their opposition to institutionalised religion (Taylor 2001, 2010a). Moreover, Abrahamic traditions are often set in opposition with nature religions and nature religionists are reported to be critical of Abrahamic religions for their anthropocentrism, patriarchal tradition and arrogance (Taylor 2010a: 5, 8, 36, 163).
In his article ‘From deep ecology to radical environmentalism’, Bron Taylor (2001) argued that ‘although participants in countercultural movements often eschew the label religion, these are religious movements, in which these persons find ultimate meaning and transformative power in nature’ (2001: 175). Elsewhere Bron Taylor (2010a) considered the evolving field of environmental activism diachronically and posited that radical environmentalism could be understood as ‘dark green religion’. Taylor identified the birth year of this new, unnoticed religion as 1859, marked by the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (Taylor 2010a: 200). This would imply that the participants in my research did not in fact encounter a secular movement in their involvement with the climate movement but a covertly religious one.
It can be argued that radical environmentalism and climate activism in particular are likened to religion because of the high cost and the sacrifices demanded from the individual, such as sleeping in a tent for weeks on end, in the rain and without any of the comforts of modern living, coupled with the absence of an immediate, tangible reward. The Stark–Bainbridge theory of religion (Stark and Bainbridge 1979, 1987), a theory that is often applied to new religious movements, states that religion is most distinctly defined by its offering of ‘compensators’ instead of real rewards. In
a world were real rewards are scarce, reward-seeking humans will therefore accept ‘compensators’ instead, which are in essence intangible, unverifiable promises: a better afterlife, a future ability to fly, a reunion with friends and family ‘on the other side’. Compensators have a tendency to be incredibly generous offerings; they are after all ‘unsecured’. They also have a tendency to escalate concomitant with recruiting needs; the more generous the promises, the more followers might come (see Bainbridge and Jackson 1981: 115). Present costs and sacrifices are thus justified. Other commentators contend that humans do not have any specific emotional resources or values to sustain environmentalism and are instead ‘recycling’ old religious sentiments. In an article entitled ‘The Meaningless Ritual of Recycling’, Timothy Cooper argues that recycling is a redemptive act for the guilt we feel as consumers. In other words, instead of changing our ways we ‘just do our bit’ (Cooper 2006). More elaborately, in an essay entitled ‘Green Guilt’, Stephen T. Asma (2010) debates the source of present-day environmental guilt, making reference to Nietzsche’s thesis that religious emotions are still present in a post-Christian world. He therefore makes a case for environmentalism being a convenient extension of our atrophied Jewish and Christian morality and more generally a new, seemingly secular, outlet for perennial religious emotions, such as guilt or indignation. Asma writes:
[e]nvironmentalism, as a substitute for religion, has come to [the] rescue [referring to feelings of unworthiness]. Nietzsche’s argument about an ideal God and guilt can be replicated in a new form. We need a belief in a pristine environment because we need to be cruel to ourselves as inferior beings, and we need that because we have these aggressive instincts that cannot be let out (Asma: 2010: 11).
Asma goes on to suggest different parallels between religion and environmentalism, from apocalyptic eco-narratives and present-day ecoprophets to ascetic self-denial where ‘one does not seek to reduce one’s carbon footprint so much as to eliminate one’s very being’2 (ibid.). This last seems to be an unlikely reaction to climate change and, in contrast, other scholars discuss a contemporary trend towards developing feelings of responsibility (rather than guilt as Asma suggests) for the planetary health3 (Kempton 1997:14). Dominic Corrywright shows that ‘wellbeing’ has developed an integral social dimension: ‘the pursuit of wellbeing
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Juhannus-iltana
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Juhannus-iltana Laulunsekainen kansannäytelmä yhdessä näytöksessä
Author: Urho Wiljo Walakorpi
Release date: December 11, 2023 [eBook #72376]
Language: Finnish
Original publication: Hämeenlinna: Boman & Karlsson, 1904
Credits: Tapio Riikonen *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUHANNUSILTANA ***
Henkilöt: Heikki. Matti. Eero. Kustaa. Kerttu. Anni. Katri. Niemelä. Taneli. Kahvi-Leena. Poikia ja tyttöjä.
Metsäinen paikka. Perällä järvi ja sen takana metsiä ja vuoria.
On juhannus-ilta. Kylän nuorisoa karkeloimassa.
Taasen meill' on juhannus ja taasen riemut meillä. Vuoret, laaksot kesä kattaa kukkaseppeleillä.
Laulaa linnut metsissä ja vuorilla ne soittaa.
Kesän hellän lempi-aika mielen aateloittaa.
Itsemme me koristamme heinän helpeheillä, kesä, kesä, riemun aika onhan myöskin meillä.
Tullos kansa karkeloihin, murehesi heitä!
Kesä kulkee kummuilla ja sitoo seppeleitä.
Tullos kansa leikkihimme!
Pois on talven valta!
Laulut, kesän laulelmat ne soipi kaikkialta.
(Kuuluu viulun ääntä. Piiri hajoaa).
Kerttu: Kas! jopa viulu soi.
Heikki: Tulossa on Taneli, se riemusilmä! Onhan se jotakin että saamme jättää tämän piirileikin ja ruveta tanssimaan. Eikö niin,
tytöt? Onhan se hauskempaa kun tämä "savikraanan" vääntäminen?
Anni: No tietysti!
Eero: Mutta kylläpä ne kenkäparat kuluvat! Lieneekö huomen aamulla Annillakaan kengistänsä muuta jäljellä kun varret.
Anni: Eipä väliä. Onpa suutari kylässä, viedään sinne.
(Viulun ääni lähenee)
Kerttu: Kas, jopa Taneli on täällä!
Matti: Täällä hän on ja ilon ja riemun hän mukanaan on tuonut. Tuntuupa jo elämäkin aivan toisellaiselta!
Taneli (Tulee soittaen viululla): Kas niin! Täälläpä lieneekin koossa tämän kylän nuoret. No, no onneksi olkoon! Ja onko sitten ihme! Onhan nyt, ellei tuo muistini aivan petä — juhannus ja juhlapäivä.
Heikki: Juhannus on, kesän kaunoisin ilta. Ja riemuita aiommekin illan kunniaksi.
Taneli: Onneksi olkoon! Mutta minne aiotte laittaa juhannuskokon tai ettekö laitakaan?
Matti: Laitettu on jo kokkomme tuonne kalliolle ja suuripa onkin.
Eero: Ja koska se Tanelikin on nyt noin juhlatuulella, niin voimmehan illan hauskuudeksi ja juhannuksen kunniaksi pistää kalliolla pikku polkaksikin — eikö niin, tytöt?
Kerttu: Niin. Mitäpä se juhannus olisikaan ilman soittoa ja tanssia!
Anni: Ja varsinkin sellaista soittoa, kun Tanelin soitikosta lähtee; sehän mielen korkeuksiin kohottaa.
Heikki: Mitäpä me tässä turhia haastelemme! Onhan se jo soittajan velvollisuuskin seuraa tehdä, mukanansa kone, joka vanhat luo nuoriksi ja särkyneet sydämet ehjiksi loihtii. Sehän kuuluu luonnollisesti asiaan.
Taneli: No, no, älkäähän nyt! Kukapa sitä nyt tällaiselta herrasväeltä hennoisi mitään kieltää. Minne vaan silmänsä luokin, niin kaikkialta näkee rukoilevia silmiä ja pyytäviä katseita. Teille seuraa olen tekevä. Soittava olen niin että mäki kaikaa ja vaarat vaskiset va pisevat ja olenpa soittava aamuun asti.
Kerttu: No tuonhan kaiken me jo edeltäkäsin arvasimmekin.
Taneli (Raappien korvaustaan): Mutta yksi asia painaa mieltäni. Mieli on miehellä musta ja kieli kuivinta kuivempi. Suottehan tekin minulle hiukkasen iloa, kun minäkin teille suon?
Matti: No tietysti, jos vaan siihen antiin pystymme.
Taneli: Eipä tarvita pystymistä paljon. Annatte vaan pari tilkkasta sydämen tippoja, mieleni murheisen lohdutukseksi. Silloin vasta voin soittaa ja polkkia vedellä. Eikö niin, hyvä herrasväki, onhan se oikeus ja kohtuus?
Heikki: Mutta sanoittehan eilen — ellen väärin muista — että heitätte hiiden hinkaloon kaikki väkijuomat ja sen semmoiset ja rupeatte todelliseksi raittiusmieheksi.
Taneli (Miettien): Sanoinko niin? No juutas! Teinpä nyt hullun lupauksen. Olisihan tuo vähän niinkuin mieltä murheista virkistänyt.
Heikki: Iloinen on mies, kaipaisiko iloa parempaa! Ja mitä ne väkijuomat sitten mieltä virkistäisi? Mitäpä ne muuta tuovat, kuin kurjuutta, tuskaa ja turmiota.
Taneli: Taitaapa se niinkin olla. Mutta hiisi vieköön, olisihan se sentään mieltäni riemuisaksi luonut. Täytynee kai sitä sitten kohtaloonsa tyytyä.
Niemelä (Tulee).
Taneli: No kas, onhan täällä Niemeläkin. Terve mieheen!
Niemelä: Jumal'antakoon! (Kättelevät.) Täälläpä onkin väkeä: nuoria ja onhan täällä vanhempiakin, enemmän kuin jouluaamuna kirkossa. Mutta, Taneli, näytäthän kovin murheiselta, mikä on miehelle tullu?
Taneli: Pyysinhän vaan-näiltä nuorilta pari tilkkaa sydämen tippoja, mutta…
Niemelä: Eivätkö juuttaat antaneet?
Taneli: Eivät antaneet. Senpätähden mieleni murhei
Niemelä: Huoli pois! Ehkäpä toisella kerralla käy paremmin. — No nuoret, joko pian aiotte panna kon palamaan?
Eero: Kohta, isäntä, kohta. Tänä iltana aiomme pitää iloa.
Niemelä: Oikein lausuttu, poika, oikein. Silloin tuleekin riemuita, kun siihen vielä on syytä; kun vielä täydellä sydämellä riemuita voisi. Ja sitä voi tehdä ainoastaan silloin, kun miehellä on nuoruus rinnassaan ja suonet kaikki tulena tykkii. Pian saapuu vanhuus,
nuoruuden kevät vierii ja kylmiksi tulevat tunteet riemuja kohtaan.
Riemuitkaa, nuoret, riemuitkaa ja tauvottuanne taas alkakaa, sillä emmehän nuoruus-ajan riemuja katumaan tule!
Kerttu: No ehkäpä tekin isäntä, vielä muutamia polkkia pyöräytätte? Ettehän nyt vielä niin vanha ole.
Niemelä: Hm, vanhaksi alkaa käydä mies. Eipä liene minusta enää nuorison karkeloihin.
(Panee tupakkia piippuunsa ja tarjoaa Tanelille).
Niemelä: No, Taneli, piiput suihin!
Taneli: Kiitos, kiitos. (Tekee samoin).
Niemelä:
No Taneli kai sitä taas tänä iltana nuorille vinguttelee?
Taneli: Ovathan ne minua siihen pyytäneet. Ja miksi en sitten soittaisi, miksi en toisillekin riemua soisi! Lehdissä ovat puut, kirkas on taivas, linnut joka lehvällä lemmestä laulaa. Mitäpä me surisimme, mitä miettisimme? Suruihin ei ole aikaa meillä!
Eero: Siispä kannel soikoon ja vierköön virsi, niin että korvet kumajavat ja vaarat vaskiset tulta iskevät!
Taneli: Niin laulakaamme. Täysin rinnoin laulakaamme Suomen suloa ja suvi-illan kauneutta!
Kaikki (Laulavat):
Honkain keskellä mökkini seisoo
Suomeni soreassa salossa.
Honkain välistä siintävä selkä vilkkuvi koittehen valossa.
Hoi laarilaarilaa, hoi laarilaarilaa
Kaikuu mun suloinen Suomeni maa!
Omanpa henkeni ieltä ne puhuu honkain humina ja luonto muu. Itse en sydäntän' hillitä taida, riemusta soikohon raikas
suu: hoi laarilaarilaa, hoi laarilaarilaa kaikuu mun suloinen
Suomeni maa.
Eero: Ja nyt pojat kalliolle! Kokko palamaan ennenkuin yö tulee.
Heikki: Sen teemme. Eteenpäin mars! Mutta viulu soimaan, Taneli, niin keveämpää on kulku.
(Kaikki menevät. Taneli edellä soittaen marssia).
Katri (Tulee laulaen vastaiselta suunnalta vähän ajan kuluttua):
On tuoksussa tuomet ja luonto niin uinuvi hiljaisna. Mulla raukalla mieli on musta ja sieluni raukea.
On kaikilla rinta se puhdas, ja mieli on riemuinen.
Mä raukka en riemua tunne ja tunne mä onnea en.
Joka lehvällä lemmestä linnut ne laulavat riemuissaan, joka rinta on nuoruutta täynnä ja onnea, onnea vaan.
En näitä tunne ma kurja, mä rqukkq ja poloinen, vain lemmettömyydessä kuljen ja yössä mä haaveilen.
Tule lintu, sa riemukas rintaa, sä laulaja riemuinen, pois kauaksi tuskani kanna taa vuorien korkeiden!
Kustaa (On laulun aikana tullut ja rientää nyt esiin): Etkö todellakaan riemua tunne, kun noin surullisesii laulelet?
Katri: Kustaa! No pilvistäkö sinäkin putosil? Enpä olisi laulanutkaan, jos tietänyt olisin, ken on mulla kuuntelijana.
Kustaa: Siis onni minulle, ettet tietänyt, sillä aamurunkoiton tavoin valaisi laulusi sydäntäni.
Katri: Todellako! No sepä hyvä. Sinulla on kai siis jotakin surtavaa?
Kustaa: No onhan sitä. — Mutta sinä et voi todellakaan arvata, minkälaisen vaikutuksen laulusi teki.
Katri: Älähän nyt aina kiittele. Sehän tuntuu niin jokapäiväiseltä. Siitä tulee sinun lakata.
Kustaa: Lakatako? Sepä tuntuu vaikealta, sillä parastahan sitä aina kiitellään. Ja tiedänhän minä aivan hyvirn, että sinä olet parhain tyttö koko kylässä.
Katri: No jopa nyt jotakin.
Kustaa: Ja jos sinä edes hetkeksikin matkustaisit jonnekin pois, niin arvaapas mitä tekisin silloin minä?
Katri: No?
Kustaa: Minä todellakin seuraisin sinua, vaikka maailman ääriin mä seuraisin.
Katri: Ja miksi juuri minun perässäni? Ja ellenpä huolisikaan sinun seurastasi, mitäpä tekisit silloin?
Kustaa: Et huolisikaan. Mitä vielä! Tiedänhän minä aivan hyvin, että seurastani huolisit. — Ja sitten, Katri, olen ajatellut, arvaas mitä?
Katri: No sanoppa!
Kustaa: Olen ajatellut, että koska meitä nyt on kaksi… (Tarttuu hänen käteensä.) Niin, Katri, pidäthän sinä minusta?
Katri: Mutta tiedäthän sinä…
Kustaa: Niin tiedänhän minä. (Syleilee häntä.) Kas tuonne hongikkoon, joka tuolla vuorella lepää, me majamme rakennamme. Siellä kaksin raadamme ja kärsimme, eikö niin?
Katri: Niin, niin, siellä monta, monta vuotta onnessa elämme. Sepä vasta tulee olemaan ihanaa.
Kustaa: Ihanaa tulee se olemaan, taivaallista, Katri!
Katri: Mutta katsohan, tuolla maantiellä tulee Kahvi-Leenakin reppuineen. Mikäpä tuuli hänetkin tänne toi?
Kustaa: Se iloinen sielu! Mitäpä lienee taasen eukolla kerrottavana.
Kahvi-Leena (Tulee mytty kädessä): Siis vihdoin olen täällä.
Päivää, Katri, niin Katrihan sinä olet, vai muistiniko pettää? Ja tuossa toinen. No Kustaahan se onkin. Terveisiä kaupungista!
Katri: Onhan se Leenakin jälleen kotipaikkoihinsa osannut?
Leena: Olenhan minä, olenhan minä. Ei viihdy lintukaan vieraalla maalla saatikka sitten ihminen. — No. Kuinka sitä nyt on täällä päin voitu?
Katri: Aina vaan kuten ennenkin. Ei ole tapahtunut mitään kummempaa. Mutta mitenkäs se Leena on itse voinut?
Leena: Herra parantakoon! Onhan se ollut väliin niin ja väliin näin. Väliin on ollut murhetta, väliin taas iloakin. Palveluksessa olin kaupungissa kahdessakin paikassa. Kumpikaan paikka ei nyt niin kehuttava ollut, mutta menihän se sentään, menihän se. (Huokaisee syvään).
Katri: Ja mikä nyt sitten päähänne pisti, että jätitte toimenne ja lähditte tänne tallustamaan?
Leena: Mikäkö päähäni pisti? Kysytkin vielä. Sanoinhan jo, että kaipaahan sitä lintukin kotimaitaan saatikka sitte ihminen. Tahdoin taasen nähdä näitä järviä ja vuoria, kuunnella syntymäseutuni honkien huminaa ja tavata entisiä tuttavia. — Mutta voi herran terttu, miten sinustakin on tullut pitkä tyttö!
Katri: Ja onko sitte ihme? Johan pari vuotta tulee siitä kun minut viimeksi näitte.
Leena: Niin — pian kulkee aika. Mutta minäpä vaivainen olen tullut tuolla kaupungissa kymmentä vuotta vanhemmaksi.
Katri: Ette ensinkään. Punoittaahan poskennekin kuin mansikat aholla.
Leena: Ei ole minullakaan kuin oli ennen. Vanhaksi alkaa käydä jo ihminen, enkä tiedä, millä leipänsä irti saisi.
Kustaa: No siihen tiedän kyllä keinon: teidän pitää hankkia itsellenne kelvollinen sulhanen ja mennä vakavaan liittoon. Onhan se elämäkin silloin vakavampaa ja hauskempaa.
Leena: Ahah, Kustaa, se entinen pilkkakirves. Enpä muistanut sinua ollenkaan, kun tämän Katrin kanssa touhusin. Onpa sinustakin tullut jo aika mies, uljas ja pulska. Sinun kyllä kannattaa naimaan mennä, sillä saathan sinä morsiamia viisi joka sormelle.
Kustaa: Onpa se Leena nyt oikein antelias. Mutta ellenpä enää tarvitsisi yhtäkään?
Leena: Ahaa, nyt minä ymmärrän. Tämä Katri on sinun morsiamesi. No ilmankos se muotokin loistaa ja paistaa kuin Naantalin aurinko.
Kustaa: Oikeinpa arvasitte. — Mutta teille täytyy minun myös ruveta touhuamaan kumppania tälle elämän ohdakkeiselle -polulle. Miekkonen vaan on se mies, joka saa teidänlaisenne emännän.
Leena: Hm. Mitäpä me vanhat sulhasista! (Valoa virtaa näyttämölle.) Kas, jopa juhannustuletkin palavat!
Katri: Ehkä lienee parasta mennä katsomaan, ennenkuin' sammuu. Siellähän tekin Leena, tapaatte tuttavianne.
Kodin ympäri viljavat vainiot kalarantoja kaunistais', jalon kansan kuntoa laulelmat yli aaltojen kuljettais!
Kaikk', kaikk' ylös yhtenä miehenä nyt Suomen onnea valvomaan.
Hetken työt tuhat vuosihin vaikuttaa isänmaahan ja maailmaan!
Taneli (Tulee laulaen):
Minäpä se olen soittoniekka ja mun on lysti olla. Hei illalla minä laulan vaan, että mun on lysti olla!
Ystävä yksi on mulla vain, mutta se ystävä parhain, hei illalla minä laulan vaan, että se mulla on parhain!
Viuluni, viuluni, soitikkoin, kruunuihin ma en vaihda, hei illalla minä laulan vaan, että kruunuihin en vaihda!
Soittaja mie olen — soitan siis!
Kaipaisinko mä muuta?
Hei illalla minä laulan vaan, että kaipaisinko mä muuta!
Leena (On tullut laulun aikana ja tarkastellut Tanelia. Rientää esiin):
No päivää! Vieläkö muistat sitä Mäkipään Leenaa, joka sullekin monta kahvikuppia keitti?
Taneli: Ka Leena! No mikä tuuli sinutkin tänne toi?
Leena: Miksikäkö? kysyy jokainen, Kaipaus ja murhe, mikäs muu.
Taneli: No ethän hitossa vaan minua kaivannut?
Leena: Sinuako? No aina vähän.
Taneli: Todellako! Sepä hyvä, sillä jos minäkin toden sanon, niin olenpa totta tosiaan vähän kaiholla muistellut sinua. Olihan se silloin edes jotakin, kun sai kunnollista kahvia, sillä sinähän ne parhaimmat kahvit keitit koko kylässä. Mutta näinä aikoina on se ollut vähän niin ja näin.
Leena: Onpa se hyvä, että edes joltakin saa kiitosta töistään. Niin… kyllähän se ikävää oli kaupungissa.
Taneli: Onhan se ikävää tällainen kulkurielämä kaikkialla. Toistapa se olisikin naineena miehenä!
Leena (Kielitellen): Olisihan se, olisihan se! Ei tarvitsisi minunkaan näin pitkin kyliä renkutella. Mutta herra parantakoon! Kai sitä täytyy
lopun ikänsäkin kulkurina olla. Niin. Mitäpä sille kohtalolleen taitaa.
Taneli (Hymyillen): Mutta kuuleppas, Leena… niin eihän se niin kummallista olisi. Onhan minulla pirtti tuolla salossa, muut tarpeet sitten kyllä voisimme hankkia… että…
Leena (Nypistellen helmojaan ja muuten touhuavana) Että…
Taneli: Että mekin, Leena, käytäisi niinkuin samaan puulaakiin…
Leena (Paukuttaen käsiään): Mutta herranjesta! ajattelethan sinä aivan niinkuin minäkin. Eihän minulla tuota mitään vastaan ole.
Taneli: Siis ei muuta kun kättä päälle! (Tarttuu hänen käteensä).
Leena: No kukapa sitä nyt olisi uskonut, että näin pian joutuu tekemisiin miesten kanssa. Niinhän se on tässä maailmassa, ettei sitä ihminen tiedä kohtaloaan.
Taneli; Ja tänä iltana pidämme kihlajaisemme, eikö niin, Leena armas?
Leena (Taputellen häntä aika ajoin): Kuten vaan tahdot.
Taneli Ja ensi pyhänä kuulutetaan ensi kerran kirkossa ja kolmen viikon päästä pidämme häämme.
Leena: Aivan niin, Taneli.
Leena: Aivan niin, Taneli.
Taneli: Ja sitten jätän tämän kulkurielämäni, ja muutamme asumaan minun pieneen pirttiini. Siellä sitten kaksin puuhailemme.
Hauskaa tulee olemaan elämämme, Leena.
Leena: No arvaahan sen, no arvaahan sen!
Taneli: Ja sitten kun saamme pojan…
Leena (Kyynelissä): Ja sitten kun saamme pojan…
Taneli: Niin hän tekee työtä ja me saamme levätä.
Leena: Kukapa sitä olisi uskonut! Eihän olisi eilen voinut arvata!
(Nuorisoa tulee).
Heikki: No tännekö se soittoniekkamme on tullutkin? Ja mitä minä näen! Niinkuin näette, pojat, on hän kihlannut Kahvi-Leenan!
Taneli: Niin todellakin. Minä teille morsiameni esittää saan.
Eero: Kas niin, Taneli, niinhän sitä miehet tekee! Saammehan tänä iltana siis viettää kahden parin kihlajaisia, sillä niinkuin tiedän, on myös Kustaa aviosiipan valinnut.
Kustaa: Niin… minä myös morsiameni esitän.
Taneli: Vai Kustaa ja Katri. No, Kustaa, sinä siis myös avioliiton tärkeyden tajusit?
Kustaa: Minä tajusin sen.
Heikki: No, mitä muuta sitten, kun peli soimaan ja soitto helisemään, sillä harvoinhan sitä tällaista juhannusta on, että vallan kahden parin kihlajaisia vietetään.
Taneli: Tosin tuntuu vähän oudolta olla soittoniekkana omissa kihlajaisissaan, mutta koitetaanhan nyt sitäkin.
Kustaa: Ja onhan täällä muitakin, jotka sitä taitoa osaavat, he saavat vingutella väli-ajoilla.
Eero: Siis kaikki hyvin. Mutta ensin laulamme laulun kihlattujen onneksi ja juhannus-illan kunniaksi. Sehän kuuluu asiaan.
Taneli: Ja sitten soikoon viuluni niin, ett» kallio kaikaa ja maa tärisee ja se soikoon aamuun asti!
Heikki: Ja nyt laulumme kalkukoon, korkealle kohotkoon jokaisen rinnasta laulu Suomen suloudelle, ihanalle juhannus-illalle ja kihlattujen onnelle!
Kalkki (laulavat):
Oi terve Pohjola Islllnune onnela, voimamme, henkemme sinulle uhroamme!
Oi terve vapaus. sä kansain ihanuus! Eipä ken orjuuteen voi syöstä poikiamme!
Terve, terve, terve sa Suomenmaa!
Taneli: Nyt, pojat, kalliolle! Siellä se vasta ilo alkaa! (Kaikki menevät. Leena astuu Tanelin vierelle, Katri Kustaan. Taneli on joukossa ensimäisena ja soittaa Porilaisten maissia).
