Dear Billy, 

What’s happening? I shudder to think what Trump’s election victory will mean for us and the Earth too. 

— Kate

Dear Kate,

Across the world, the super-rich are shooting down anything that moves to the left or just anything that threatens their money. The old idea of good government is gone, overwhelmed by greed. The way that politicians use fear to stupefy citizens is locked in by consumerism’s media and fantastic lies.

Key to the economies that feed the rich is that the Earth is used for extraction and the dumping of toxic waste. The Earth’s response has accelerated in 2023 and 2024 like never before. The heat rises and rises, with fire and flood, drought and starvation sweeping the globe. The greed only accelerates as the sixth extinction wipes out entire cities in a flash. 

Where will this all lead? No question — the Earth will have its way. The elites simply have no idea: You can’t use your habits of racism and classism on the Earth. They need to experience the power of a 200 mph storm. Writing here in The Indypendent, we can dream openly about new kinds of protesting. A 200 mph wind is one hell of a protest. Is the sixth extinction a kind of protester? As we get effective, we’re called eco-terrorists.

The Earth will end the hoarding by the super-wealthy. Will there be a future of communities of anarchists who share what they have with ecosystems they protect? Is it inevitable that we have a science fiction nightmare, more of what we have now? AOC is right to suggest the thing to do now is serve our local communities, love our neighbors. Are all climate politics local? 

Debra White Plume, the Oglala ­Lakota prophet, had this to say about what’s coming: “Our elders were talking about it. There will come a time when the Earth will rise up with great force to rebalance, cleanse, to help life survive. And she will reach out and invite humans to work on the great changes with her. But then some humans will hesitate and not step through the door. And they wall disappear.”

What form will our work take if we help the Earth? In the hottest year on record, 2024, what form would our protest take? Our Stop Shopping community thinks that music and new rituals will be part of it. But sometimes the whole thing is hard to picture.

— Rev Billy

• • •

Reverend Billy, 

I hear you’re closing down your storefront church on Avenue C. What’s up with that? I attended some of the Sunday afternoon services that you all put on there and thought it was awesome. 

— A Lower East Side Neighbor

Dear Neighbor,

It was a fascinating two-and-a-half years — the secular Earthchxrch experiment. Our songs, chants and my preachings all mixed together from the pressure of the weekly Earth service. We learned a lot about our work. A storefront in Loisaida: The floor-to-ceiling windows made for lots of waves and smiles, and we kept the door open so people could wander in. We would try to explain the Eartchxrch idea, and they would try to understand it. Had a kitchen there so we could make coffee… and a piano next to the big blue marble Earth picture.

The Baruch and Riis apartments wrap around that corner of the Village, so we got involved with protecting the local green space, the East River Park. We renamed the 70 trees now in harm’s way the Jordan Nealy Grove (450 trees have been downed so far). We might find a new place in the neighborhood. Families like to walk to the Earthchxrch, like you did, on Sundays.

— Billy

Reverend Billy Talen is the pastor of the Church of Stop Shopping. Have a question for the Reverend? Email Revbilly@revbilly.com and unburden your soul.