Kyle Kramer

This fall marks six years since my family and I sold our 27-acre organic farm and the house we had designed and built ourselves—the place my wife and I thought we’d call home our entire lives. The grief of leaving that place and that life still runs deep in me. I often find myself thinking, I should be over it by now.

Most of us want to believe that the world is fundamentally predictable and safe. I know that I don’t do especially well with uncertainty and risk. Even when I’m doing something adventurous like rock climbing, I don’t want dramatic surprises; I want to know that I’m on route and that my gear will prevent disaster.

Years ago, as Lent approached, I asked a trusted spiritual counselor what he was going to give up. He gave me a sly grin and said, “I’m giving up giving things up for Lent.”

The pope’s 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’” (“On Care for Our Common Home”), reflects on our relationship to each other and the Earth. Rarely has an encyclical been this widely anticipated, or this widely discussed, in the worldwide Catholic community and far beyond it.