Abstract

The passionate song by U2, Beautiful Day, stresses the relationship between peace, ecology and religion: ' See the world in green and blue/ See China right in front of you/ See the canyons broken by cloud/ See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out/ See the Bedouin fires at night/ See the oil fields at first light/ See the bird with a leaf in her mouth/ After the flood all the colors came out.' Here, in Bono's lyrics, beauty meets concern and care for global devastation. In a plea for action, they call for social and environmental justice. Inspired by U2's moving words, this paper explores the relationship between spirituality, beauty and green and blue environmental care. Using a whirlpool of lived 'oceanic' experience and creative conservation, it outlines a range of spiritual and religious responses to the calamity facing the planet, from ritual performance to environmental activism, from nature restoration to restoration of the spirit, from mainline religions' policy platforms to guerilla tree planting - explicitly from beauty to duty. Embedded in local ecologies and spirit of place, the paper journeys through a prism of lived religious expression in search of dimensions that make up an 'eco-religious' or 'eco-ethical identity'. Along the way it meets a luminescence radiant in campaigns to protect endangered species, dark green forests and the deep blue sea.