Green Sprouts

Time and Hope

2012-01-21T21:21:00.001-06:00

Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year B

It’s been a couple of weeks since the last Green Sprout’spost. A combination of family obligations, travel, and a painful shoulder thathas made writing difficult is mostly to blame for so much time passing betweenposts, but it’s not the entire reason for the lack of posts.

While time has passed, I’ve been thinking about time in relationto global warming, struggling to process where we find ourselves in January of2012 and how to begin to articulate a response. We know how urgent this crisisis, yet our actions and those of our leaders seldom reflect that urgency. Weknow that our present course leads in this century to mass extinctions ofspecies, to mass migrations of people from areas of flood, drought, and famine,to increased risk of tropical diseases, to major cities dealing with risingoceans, and to island nations disappearing. We know that our present courseeventually leads to the end of life as we have known it, bringing a soberingeschatological element into the discussion.

By the end of 2011, we knew we were running out of time onclimate; we knew we were up against what some had begun calling a “climateemergency”. This blog’s December 20 post, How Can This Be? , summarized some of the factors that were causing us to realize that globalwarming was an even more pressing issue than we had known it was at thebeginning of the year. Yet while climate experts continue to publish informationpointing to the urgency of the situation and the need for the world’s leadersto address it in significant ways very, very soon, even those leaders whoacknowledge the problem speak and act as if we had all the time in the world inwhich to act.

Earlier this month, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the symbolic DoomsdayClock one minute closer to midnight, putting us at five minutes until midnight.The move was made not only because oflack of progress on nuclear weapons reduction and proliferation, but also becauseof “inaction on climate change”.

This week’s Scripture readings all address questions of timeand eschatology in some way, with the Epistle and Gospel using the word kairos,“the appointed time” or the time when the kingdom of God draws near. Each ofthese lessons suggest something for Christians to consider as this new year in thisstill young century begins and we wonder about how to go about caring for God’screation when so much seems to be working against us.

The reluctant prophet Jonah (Jonah 3:1-5, 10) warns the Ninevites that God will destroy thecity in forty days. Much to his surprise, the Ninevites heed the warning andrepent. Seeing their penitence, God spares them. The Ninevites might very well haveeither ignored Jonah and denied the truth of what he told them, or believed himbut decided their doom was inevitable and so did nothing. In our world, there are people in denialabout global warming, people so deep in despair that they see no point inacting, and others who continue to work to address the issue even though we don’tknow how effective our efforts will be. If we truly see what is happening,working to change things is a form of repentance. It’s the right thing to do. (As Bill McKibben has said, “The only thingfor a morally awake person to do when the worst thing that’s ever happened ishappening is try to change those odds.”)

Psalm 62 reminds us that power belongs to God. “For Godalone my soul in silence waits” because God is the only thing worthy of ourcomplete trust. Working for a healthier planet while all the power and money offossil fuel corporations seems to be working in the opposite direction isdiscouraging, but compared to God’s power, their power is nothing. “On thescales they are lighter than a breath, all of them together.”

Paul’s words in First Corinthians (I Corinthians 7:29-31) remind us to put first things first, to “deal withthe world” as if we have no dealings with it, to put the urgent matter beforebusiness as usual. This is something to consider, given that so many of thearguments in our country against addressing global warming have to do with ourinability to consider giving priority to anything over business as usual.

In our Gospel passage from Mark (Mark 1:14-20), Jesus says that “the time isfulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near”, then goes about ministry in avery concrete, straightforward way. He approaches ordinary men who are fishingor mending nets and invites them to follow him. They in turn will go out toinvite others to join them in following Jesus. We in Nebraska learned this pastyear about the power of ordinary power doing ordinary things – speaking withneighbors, writing letters to elected officials and hometown newspapers,telling our stories and the story of our land and water – that resulted in somethingextraordinary: keeping the Keystone XL pipeline out of the Sandhills. When werealize that we are living in an extraordinary time, our best response might beto go about what needs to be done in a fairly ordinary and straightforward way,relying on ourselves and other ordinary people to do the work and to inviteothers to join us.

This week’s lessons point to this: The best way forChristians to live in a time like this is to live in hope with our eyes wideopen. That means learning everything we can about what is happening,acknowledging the truth of the situation, and doing all we can to serve God,all of God’s children, and all of God’s creation.

Epiphany

2012-01-06T23:21:00.000-06:00

As we celebrate the Feast of theEpiphany today and move into the weeks following Epiphany, we talk aboutChrist’s revelation to the world and about Jesus’ ministry of healing andreconciliation. In particular today, we remember the journey and visitof the wise men. Matthew’s Gospel tells us that they followed the light of aspecial star, a natural object that they understood to be a sign of the birthof a king. We don’t know the exact location of “the East” that was home for thewise men; we can only guess at what their native religion or belief systemmight have been. Still, even though the star didn't point to the birth of newking in their own country, they noticed the star in the sky and knew itsignified something of great importance. More importantly, it touched theirhearts; Matthew says that when they saw that the star had stopped, they were“overwhelmed with joy”. The star and the distant event to which it pointed had adeep effect on them.

Our hearts, too, are sometimes touched deeply by things thatcause us to wonder. Such things can strengthen our faith; seeing things thatproduce feelings of wonder and awe help us feel closer to God and more certainof God’s goodness. Getting outdoors and seeing what there is to see can help ustaste enough of God’s love for creation that we commit ourselves to helping tocare for our environment in significant ways; the same experiences can give usthe strength to carry out that commitment.

May we go into the Epiphany seasoneager to carry the light of Christ into the world, ready to shine the light ofChrist’s love into the places where environmental degradation and climatechange are casting shadows on people’s lives. May we have the wisdom, courage,and love to care deeply about our planet and all living things, and to heal andmake whole the earth that sustains us all.

Joy to the World: Twelfth Day

2012-01-05T21:47:00.000-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to theworld” in my heart and mind, I’m looking each of these twelve days of Christmasfor the beauty and wonder in God’s world, for instances of the joy that runsthrough all of creation.

When Thoreau describes the ice melting in Walden Pond in thespring, he says, “Every incident connected with the breaking up of the riversand ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us wholive in a climate of so great extremes.” Thoreau's enthusiasm for observing the spring melting of Walden Pond came to mind today as a stop to walk around and stretch our legs at Holmes Lake Park in Lincoln turned into something more.

Thetemperature was in the upper 60’s, the sun was shining, and in the brief timewe were there we could hear and see the fairly thin layer of ice that hadcovered the lake breaking up and melting. A park full of people enjoying thewarmth, the sounds of the ice, the brightness of the sun, and the honks ofgeese were appropriately joyful for the last day of Christmas!

A few minutes later, the ice gives way!

Joy to the World: Eleventh Day

2012-01-04T22:28:00.000-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

This is the Green Team at St. Stephen’s in Grand Island. Thework we are doing is joyful and exciting, and spending an evening meeting with this group gives me great joy.

We are about to begin our second year of the GreenFaithCertification Program for houses of worship, learning and acting in the areas of environmentalstewardship, environmental justice, and spirituality. We are building on astrong conservation tradition in rural Nebraska, but we are doing many newthings on that foundation.

Some people look at our great environmental challenges andour overall failure to do enough to ensure a sustainable environment anddespair; some simply avoid looking at any of it, denying that the challengesexist. We are doing something rather than nothing, doing what we can to lead inanother direction, finding joy in one another’s support and in caring for theworld we love in the name of the God we love.

Joy to the World: Tenth Day

2012-01-03T22:38:00.001-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

There was no time for a walk outside today, but as I ran outto go an afternoon meeting, the squirrel who lives in our hackberry treegreeted me. This is the squirrel who eats from our bird feeders and will nibblesome of my flowers this spring – a rascal indeed – but it’s also the wildcreature who hangs around without being terribly concerned about our presence,and who entertains us with great contortions as it goes after the food in the birdfeeders. Rascal though it is, this squirrel brings me joy, and surely it’s oneof God’s beloved creatures.

Here it is a few days ago. It often sits on this bent branchto eat a nut and chatter.

And here it is late this fall, dining at the bird feeder.

Joy to the World: Ninth Day

2012-01-02T20:00:00.000-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

Afternoon moon!

This reminder that the moon, other planets, other solarsystems and galaxies, are all ordered so that each part of the universe –including our little corner of the world -- has a place enhanced the joy to be experienced under a brightblue sky.

“O ye sun and moon, bless ye the Lord.” (Canticle 1, The Book of Common Prayer)

Joy to the World: Eighth Day

2012-01-01T20:26:00.000-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With sunshine throughout the day and a couple of hoursdriving in the country, many things served as signs of joy for me today. Hereare two of the most basic things in our world in Nebraska, things that wesometimes don’t notice, that stood out today: the sky and the land.

The clouds in the late morning sky made beautiful patterns.

Fields of corn stubble, some with cattle grazing, lie fallowuntil spring. The expanse of the land, the evidence of its fertility, thepromise of sustenance for the year ahead, or maybe just the way the light hitthe fields today, radiated well-being. The earth itself can be a sign of joyand the cause of joy in our hearts.

Joy to the World: Seventh Day

2011-12-31T20:00:00.000-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

It’s been warm here. While I actually enjoy wintry weather,and while I’m a big fan of long spells of seasonable temperatures that mightindicate that our climate is still fundamentally stable, there is always joy inseeing new growth.

This is what I found in the patch of mint on the south sideof our house: a little bit of green, a few new leaves growing among the deadstalks of last summer’s plants.

One of our Easter hymns, “Now the green blade riseth” (Hymn204), is set to the tune of the Christmas carol Noel Nouvelet. The last verse isthis:

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,

Thy touch can call us back to life again,

Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Here’s the King’s College Choir from Cambridge singing NoelNouvelet:

Joy to the World: Sixth Day

2011-12-30T20:03:00.001-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world”in my heart and mind, I’m looking each of these twelve days of Christmas forthe beauty and wonder in God’s world, for instances of the joy that runsthrough all of creation.

During a conversation with my spiritual director this evening,I happened to look over at the window just as the sun was setting and saw thissky. We were both amazed at the colors:red, purple, and blue. We wondered at the beauty of the sky; the joy was in thesurprise of looking up at just the right moment to see such beauty, and inhaving another person with which to share it.

Joy to the World: Fifth Day

2011-12-29T20:00:00.000-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world”in my heart and mind, I’m looking each of these twelve days of Christmas forthe beauty and wonder in God’s world, for instances of the joy that runsthrough all of creation.

Today was unusually warm for December 29 in Nebraska. Earlythis morning I thought I heard doves cooing, something I don’t hear most wintermornings, though the sound was so faint that I wasn’t sure that it was doves. Around9:30 the sun got just high enough in the sky to really light up the room I wasin, a definite moment of joy! I stepped outside to take a look at the sky andthe sunlight, and noticed this pair sitting at the top of a spruce tree wheredoves often sat this summer and fall.

Later in the afternoon, while I was sitting at a windowlooking at the photos from the morning and writing, I saw a dove landing at thetop of the same tree. It looked white in the sunlight, and landed in a way that made it look just like a dove ornament we used to have on our Christmas tree. When I got outside to snap a picture, I heardit calling, and the second dove appeared. Double joy on the fifth day ofChristmas!

Joy to the World: Fourth Day

2011-12-28T20:00:00.002-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world”in my heart and mind, I’m looking each of these twelve days of Christmas forthe beauty and wonder in God’s world, for instances of the joy that runsthrough all of creation.

The rivers in south central Nebraska are running freely asthe year ends. I stopped today and listened to the sound of the river and watchedthe water flow. With the sun shining on it, this was a place to find joy.

Joy to the world! the Savior reigns; let us our songs employ,

While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.

Holy Innocents: The Most Vulnerable

2011-12-28T15:32:00.000-06:00

Today the church remembers the Holy Innocents, the childrenwho died when Herod ordered the slaughter of all children who were two yearsold or younger (Matthew 2: 13-23) . According to Lesser Feasts and Fasts, Augustine of Hippo called these children “buds,killed by the frost of persecution the moment they showed themselves.”

As climate change takes its toll with extreme weather,flooding, famine, and the spread of tropical diseases, many children in our worldhave their lives cut very short, buds killed in this case by the frost of theworld’s indifference the moment they showed themselves. MediaGlobal reports that children are the people most vulnerable to the effects of climate change,citing a recent Climate Vulnerability Monitor report that says that 99 per centof climate change deaths occur in developing countries, and that of thosedeaths, over 80 per cent are children. Children are especially vulnerable toclimate change because they are more vulnerable to malnutrition, cholera,diarrheal disease, dengue, and malaria.

Last summer, Josette Sheeran, executive director of the UNWorld Food Program, said that the famine in East Africa was “the children’s famine” because “the oneswho are the weakest are the children and those are the ones we're seeing arethe least likely to make it.” This famine was caused by a severe drought andexacerbated by the political situation. The U.S. estimated at the beginning of Augustof this year that 29,000 Somali children under the age of five had died in the pastthree months; at the same time the U.N. said that 640,000 Somali children were “acutelymalnourished”.

The people with power in this world – the political leaders,the economically comfortable, the corporate heads – differ from Herod, ofcourse. No one intends to cause the death of thousands of children; theobjective is to maintain political power by not addressing a difficult problem,or to ignore the effects of climate change so that we can continue enjoying thesorts of comforts and conveniences to which we are accustomed, or to make ahuge profit producing and selling carbon intensive energy resources or something dependent on them. Childrenare the collateral damage of our failure to address climate change, just aschildren are so often the collateral damage of wars.

But even Herod himself didn’t care one way or the otherabout the children who were slaughtered. His objective was to eliminate onechild; the others were collateral damage to his cause. When we look the otherway and refuse to acknowledge what is happening as a result of our failure toaddress climate change, we aren’t really all that different from Herod. And thegrief of the mothers of today’s innocent victims is no different from the griefof the mothers of Bethlehem or the grief of Rachel.

Joy to the World: Third Day

2011-12-27T20:09:00.000-06:00

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world”in my heart and mind, I’m looking each of these twelve days of Christmas forthe beauty and wonder in God’s world, for instances of the joy that runsthrough all of creation. (See yesterday's post .)

Today I found ducks making a joyful noise on a partiallyfrozen lake. There are usually plenty of mallards around this park in thewinter. Today I was pleased to see a couple of wood ducks among them. The duckswere active today: flying, splashing, and swimming around, then resting on theice along the open water.

Joy to the World!

2011-12-26T20:42:00.001-06:00

Let heaven and naturesing…

Joy to the world! TheLord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heartprepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

(Hymn 100)

The beautiful skies of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day inNebraska echoed our joy in the celebration of the birth of Christ, the Incarnation of God come tolive among us. The Christmas Eve sunset, the stars in a clear sky on ChristmasEve, and the abundant sunshine on Christmas Day gave us light during thedarkest time of the year, helping us to understand John’s Gospel (John 1:5): “Thelight shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

We Episcopalians celebrate Christmas for twelve days. With “Joyto the world” in my heart and mind, I’m looking each of these twelve days forthe beauty and wonder in God’s world, for instances of the joy that runsthrough all of creation. During a walk today, I was surprised by a hawk thatflew out of a nearby tree and glided on the steady southwest breeze.

Our Christmas Gospel from John (John 1:1-14) begins by articulating the connections among God’s creation of the world,Christ, life, and light:

In the beginning wasthe Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in thebeginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him notone thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and thelife was the light of all people.

The wonders of the world around us not only help us stayconnected to joy; they also remind us that God is God, the creator andsustainer of all that is in the entire universe.

He rules the worldwith truth and grace, and make the nations prove

The glories of hisrighteousness, and wonders of his love.

How Can This Be?

2011-12-20T23:54:00.001-06:00

Fourth Week of Advent

The Gospel reading for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Luke1:26-38, is also one of the readings in today’s Daily Office lectionary. This passage,the story of the Annunciation, bears repeating well! There is great mystery inthis holy conversation between the angel Gabriel and Mary; there’s a mystery inthe sense of knowledge beyond our capacity to reason in the beginning of theIncarnation, and there’s mystery in the sense of something we simply don’t knowwith certainty when we consider the different ways in which we might read Mary’sresponses to Gabriel’s words.

Mary asks, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” This is sometimes interpreted as Mary askinga question about the mechanics of Jesus’ conception, but given the rest of theconversation, considering this a sort of “That’s interesting; how will thiswork?” question doesn’t quite fit. Perhaps it’s more of an exclamation ofwonder. We ask/exclaim “How can this be?” when we see or experience all sorts of thingswe don’t understand. That exclamation doesn’t mean we necessarily expect to receivean answer, or even that we think an answer is possible. It means that we havemet up with something we recognize as being beyond our comprehension. We mightsay “How can this be?” when we receive very joyful news or when we are takingin a landscape of exceptional beauty; we might also ask “How can this be?” whenwe receive bad news or witness a catastrophe.

People who write about climate science have been sharingrecent news about methane bubbling up through the thawing permafrost in theArctic, releasing into the atmosphere carbon that has been buried for 30,000years. The thawing of the permafrost is the result of global warming; theeffect of the methane being released is expected to be increased andaccelerated warming. As noted in an article in the New York Times about the scientistsstudying what is happening as the permafrost melts, “in the minds of mostexperts, the chief worry is not that the carbon in the permafrost will breakdown quickly… but that once the decomposition starts, it will be impossible tostop.”

In recent weeks, we have seen a report from theInternational Energy Agency telling us that we have five years to beginaddressing climate change in a significant way before it becomes irreversible;we have seen the climate summit in Durban fail to put anything in place to dothat work within the next five years; we have started becoming aware of theextent of the carbon being released as the permafrost melts. The past month wein the church have been observing Advent, preparing our hearts to meet Christanew. As Christmas approaches, Christians who are aware of what is happening toour environment are preparing for our celebration of God coming to live amongus while painfully aware of what we have done and continue to do to the worldin which Christ was born. We have simultaneously the hope of Advent, the discouragement ofknowing what is unfolding around us, and the despair of the silence that alltoo often is the reaction to this news.

A reflection by Christina Villa published yesterday on the United Church of Christ website looks at those timeswhen personal loss leads us to say with regret that Christmas “will bedifferent this year”. For people who have been directly affected by the storms,floods, droughts, and fires associated with climate change, Christmas will indeed bedifferent this year; for others of us, the simple awareness that the security ofclimate stability is ending gives a different feeling to Christmas this year.Christina Villa concludes that those years when loss or hardship makesChristmas feel different can be years when we understand something of thedeeper meaning of Christmas:

Christmas is about the coming of love and light into theworld, which we would not need to celebrate if life were free of loss anddarkness. That's what makes Christmas a serious holiday. It's not alltinsel and eggnog. Jesus, a messiah bringing love and light into the world, wasalso "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," says Isaiah,putting it mildly. The serious mystery of Christmas is God's answer to thelosses we accumulate, the best answer we have and the very one we need.

I read about the melting permafrost and ask, “How can thisbe?” If this is a question about the mechanics of it all, scientists can giveme the answer: The carbon released by the burning of fossil fuels has raisedthat earth’s temperature enough to allow the melting of the permafrost. But ifit’s an exclamation to indicate that the full implication of what is unfoldingis beyond my comprehension, then Christmas is exactly what I need. When we meetsomething like this, we don’t need Christmas as a pleasant distraction. (Isuspect if we look to the celebration of Christmas as a pleasant distraction toget our minds off our worries, we will come up empty.) We do need Christmas asthe answer, as the opportunity for a deep encounter with love and light in aworld where we sometimes run into greed and darkness.

Mary put her trust in what God was doing even though shecouldn’t understand the mystery of it all. Trusting God didn’t keep her fromthe sorrow of seeing her son on the cross, but it allowed her to witness thejoy of Easter. Trusting God won’t keep us from the very real consequences ofour actions, but it can help us walk through this with meaning and hope.

Waiting

2011-12-10T11:04:00.001-06:00

Durban climate talks

This is the nativity scene my great-grandmother bought pieceby piece at a dime store sometime before 1950. A couple of things have beenreplaced over the years; a palm tree made of some sort of mystery material totallydisintegrated after a couple of years of summer storage in Nebraska. It is obviously worn; with its yellow sheepand Mary’s numerous chips, it’s not as beautiful as the nativity sets I see inother people’s homes, but it has a lot of meaning for me. As long as I canremember, I have helped set this up sometime during Advent. We keep the babyJesus elsewhere until Christmas Eve, when we place a small spray from theChristmas tree in the manger and lay the baby there.

Advent is a time of active waiting. We set up our nativityscene and wait for the arrival of the baby. We engage in spiritual disciplines –special readings or intentional quiet time or prayer walks – to help make ourhearts ready for a true celebration of the Incarnation.

Today we hope to go out and find a Christmas tree. Today issupposed to be all about getting the room ready for the tree, bringing the treehome and setting it up, and beginning to decorate it. We will probably get thisdone, but the start of all of this has been delayed because of the news comingfrom the climate talks in Durban.

The climate talks are basically in overtime. The GreenSprouts Wednesday post, Trampling on the Needy, talked about the disconnect between the United States proposal and the extentand timing of the need to address carbon emissions and climate mitigation in asignificant way.

Exactly what is being proposed as the conference has goneinto extra time isn’t clear at this point. Here is what we do know: unlesssomething of real significance comes out of this, unless the nations of theworld agree to do whatever we need to do in the next five years to assureclimate stability, we will have gone past the tipping point and unleashedunthinkable consequences for the living things on our planet.

It’s very odd to be carrying on traditional Christmaspreparations knowing that the fate of current and future generations – and thesort of world in which I enter old age – hangs on what is happening in aroomful of people in Durban today. People are suffering right now from climatechange, and inaction will make things much worse. Here is a list of the “topeight climate disasters during the Durban climate talks” from Think Progress.

Today we can actively wait on the outcome of these veryimportant talks. Please take some time today to pray for the climatenegotiators and those whose lives will be most immediately affected by whatthey decide, including the people of Africa and of the world’s island nations. Newsand links to ways to take action are available easily on the internet. One siteis tcktcktck.org . On Twitter, #COP17 can keep you informed.

Our Advent waiting isn’t just waiting for our Christmascelebration. It’s waiting and actively preparing for the coming of the reign ofChrist. As I go about my Advent preparations, I’m thinking of what all of thiswill be like for me in twenty years, what it will be like for those who will beliving on this planet long after I am gone. How will their Christmascelebrations look? What will their everyday lives be like? What am I and othersof my generation leaving them other than some dime store figurines andtraditions that need to be enfleshed by Christian compassion now if they are tohave any meaning in years to come?

Trampling on the Needy

2011-12-07T22:41:00.001-06:00

2020 Climate Treaty Proposal

Today’s Daily Office lesson from Amos (Amos 8:1-14)is an appropriate prophetic passage to respond to the news coming from the UNclimate talks in Durban, South Africa. Some of us have been praying for this meeting , along with praying that our own hearts be open so that we can see the needsin the world around us and respond to them.

Much depends on the nations of the world figuring out a wayfor us to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the damage already done. TheJesuit magazine America has anexcellent article Climate Change: A Life Issue that looks at climate change, its very real effects on people in the worldtoday, and its expected effects in the future:

In 2009, a study conducted by the Global Humanitarian Forum found that climate change was alreadyresponsible for 300,000 deaths a year, the suffering of 325 million people, andeconomic losses of over $100 billion. Over 90 percent of those persons mostseverely affected were from developing countries that have contributed least toglobal carbon emissions. In the coming decades, climate change canbring deadly famine, displacement and disease to large sectors of the humanpopulation and spawn mass extinctions of other species. In the long term, theclimate could change so radically that the earth could no longer support humancivilization. In this sense, caring for the climate and the biosphere is a paramountpro-life issue.

At the conference in Durban, the United States has proposedthat a new climate treaty be negotiated that would take effect in 2020. Jamie Henn of 350.org writes:

This isn’t just adelay, it’s a death sentence. Scientists have stated over and over that inorder to avoid catastrophic climate change, emissions must peak by 2015 or 2020at the absolute latest. (For a closer look at the scientific reasoning, read David Roberts.)It is especiallycallous and cold-hearted for the U.S. to be pushing the 2020 timeline here inDurban. Africa is already seeing the devastating impacts of the climate crisis,from the deadly drought still ravaging the Horn of Africa to terrible flooding,including here in Durban where heavy rains killed at least eight people justlast week.

At the beginning of the meeting in Durban, Oxfam wrote amedia briefing Extreme weather endangers food security: 2010-11: A grim foretaste of future suffering and hunger?. This briefing outlines the relationshipbetween the extreme weather events resulting from global warming and hunger.

“Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruinthe poor of the land,” writes Amos. Continuing, he describes the consequencesGod will send in response to callous disregard for the needy, includingconsequences for the earth itself. The response to our callous disregard forthe needy is unfolding according to the laws of physics and chemistry. Ourplanet continues to warm, and while it is affecting the poorest people in theworld first and worst, we will be affected by it also.

Please pray for a better outcome from this meeting. Pray forthose suffering from the callous disregard of those with money and power. Pray for us to be able to see what is happening in the world around us. Ifprayer leads you to a desire to act, there is a petition to President Obama andour climate negotiators to sign here . The conference ends in two days.

Second Advent and First Snow

2011-12-03T23:36:00.001-06:00

We had the first snowfall of the season for this part ofNebraska today. I’d been thinking about the lectionary texts for the secondSunday of Advent, especially Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8, and thinking aboutthe geography of these texts: Why is the wilderness the place to prepare theway of the Lord? Why is John baptizing and preaching in the wilderness insteadof in Jerusalem?

When we go into the wilderness, we leave behind the comfortsof home and deliberately place ourselves somewhere where we might have newexperiences and see things in a new way. Perhaps people report having profoundspiritual experiences in wild areas not only because of the beauty and wonderwe find there; it could also have a lot to do with leaving behind familiarthings that get so much of a hold on us that they keep us from growing.

The first snowfall of the season brings a bit of the wildinto our familiar routines. Plans get changed. Errands that seemed importantsuddenly seem less essential. Having to let go of some of our expectations forthe day can be frustrating, but it can also be freeing. We find time to go outand clear a sidewalk and feel the snow on our faces, or we stay in and do somebaking or work on a project that’s gotten crowded out by other things, or we simply look out on the snow and take in the beauty.

Our reluctance to let go of a way of living that has becomeso comfortable for us that we can’t imagine living any other way can keepus from being better stewards of the environment. Letting go of ourexpectations around energy sources, modes of transportation, consumer habits, waysof growing, processing, and packaging food, and a myriad of other activitiesmay be frustrating and difficult for some people, but it will also free us tolive richer lives that allow us to care for God’s creation and make asustainable and healthy life possible for more of God’s children.

St.Francis cloaked in snow

Advent 1

2011-11-27T00:42:00.000-06:00

From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (Mark 13: 28-31)

I took this picture of a budding tree in northeast Ohio theday after Thanksgiving. When the natural signs on which we rely get off track with shifts in the climate, we can’t use them to tell us about the seasons, to indicatewhat comes next. The effects of these seasonal cues becoming unreliable can be significant; the Associate Press today published an article by Gillian Gotora (Climate change hits Africa's poorest farmers) that describes the difficulties of figuring out when to plant crops as rainfall patterns change.

We do know, though, where we are in the liturgical year. Thelighting of the first candle on our Advent wreaths, the lessons we read, andthe hymns we sing tell us that Advent is here. We start off a new liturgicalyear preparing ourselves to recognize and live into the wonder of theIncarnation, of God coming to live among us on earth.

To help us stay anchored in the season of Advent, thediocese has provided a link to an Advent calendar. (See it here.) Some of the suggested activities to accompany the Scripture verses will getus outdoors to see some of the wonder of creation. Earth Ministry offers aSelf-Sustaining Advent Calendar that focuses on activities to strengthen our relationships with family andfriends and nature.

The Advent Conspiracy has a similar focus, encouraging us to“worship fully, spend less, give more, and love all”. Here’s their video, whichmay help us think about how we want to walk through Advent this year:

Thanksgiving: Falling In Love Again

2011-11-23T20:48:00.001-06:00

A day set aside to give thanks is splendid. The significanceof the day deepens when we use it to commit ourselves to a regular practice of gratitude.Thinking of a few things every day for which we are grateful and giving thanksfor those things is a powerful spiritual force when practiced regularly overtime. It opens our hearts to be more responsive to others, more compassionate,and more aware of God’s presence in our world and our own lives. We are grateful for things that we love; feeling gratitude for something is like falling in love with it to at least some degree.

Gratitude is intertwined with love, hope, and faith, allessential elements of a spirituality that results in and supports an ethic ofenvironmental stewardship. When we are grateful for the land, waters, plants,and animals and for our sisters and brothers with whom we share this planet, weare in compassionate relationship with the world around us. The more we know the natural world around us,the more likely we are to fall in love with it and care for it. A regular practice of gratitude helps us fallin love with the wonders of creation over and over again, deepening our lovefor and relationship with God’s creation each time we give thanks for some partof it. As our love for God’s creationdeepens, our love for the Creator deepens as well.

As children, some of us could hardly wait for theThanksgiving dinner to be over so we could go outside and play. Finding some time to get outdoors, even for afew minutes, and give thanks for what we find there brings joy to adults aswell as children. May Thanksgiving joy be yours!

O may this bounteousGod through all our life be near us,With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;And free us from all ills, in this world and the next! ("Now thank we all our God")

Praying the News: November 21 2001

2011-11-21T16:14:00.001-06:00

Praying the Newsoffers a way of lifting up people and situations to God and inviting others todo the same. We listen as well as speak in prayer, sometimes gaining wisdom orinsight in difficult

situations.

Almighty God, ingiving us dominion over things on earth you made us fellow workers in yourcreation: Give us wisdom and reverence so to use the resources of nature, thatno one may suffer from our abuse of them, and that generations yet to come maycontinue to praise you for your bounty; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Collect For theConservation of Natural Resources (TheBook of Common Prayer, p. 827)

Please pray for:

Coastal cities planning for the2020’s and beyond. A reportcommissioned by the state of New York’s energy research agency was releasedthis week. (See this Associated Press story.) The report, written by fifty scientists, describes expected changes inclimate and their expected effects on New York state so that New York can beprepared to minimize negative impacts and maximize positive impacts. With sealevel rising up to ten inches by the mid-2020’s around Long Island and Manhattan,storm surges could flood airports, subway tunnels, and the financial district.New York and other coastal cities need wisdom and courage to look ahead andplan for rising sea levels

Fort Chipewyan in Alberta and allcommunities around the world that suffer health and social stresses frommining. Last Thursday’s postSeeing and Serving Christ mentioned how the health and culture of the people of Fort Chipewyan have beenaffected by pollution from tar sands mining. That post referenced this soberingphoto essay from This magazine. People incommunities near large-scale mining operations suffering ill-effects frompollution is not unique to this situation, of course. Appalachian communities inareas where mountaintop removal is practiced, for example, are subject to negative impacts to their health and safety .

The rapidly warming Arctic region.While the IPCC predicts that Arctic Sea ice will completely melt in summerssometime in the 2030’s, a study by Prof. Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University says that the ice could be gone as soon as 2015 – four years from now. Whicheverestimate is correct, the ice is melting rapidly, with huge consequences for theArctic ecosystem with such drastic changes in habitat. This includesconsequences for people living in the Arctic region.

Participants in the COP-17 climatesummit in Durban. A call has gone out for Anglicans to pray for the 17^th Congress of the Parties (COP-17)to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as they meet inDurban, South Africa, beginning next week. Episcopal News Service reports:

Despite 17 years ofnegotiations to cut warming emissions, current global pledges to cut emissionsleave Earth on track for between 2.5 and 4 degrees of warming, widely agreed tobe catastrophic," the Rev. Canon Rachel Mash, environmental coordinator ofthe AnglicanChurch of Southern Africa and member of the Anglican CommunionEnvironmental Network, said in an Anglican Communion News Service release.

As we pray for others, we might also pray for our own heartsto be open so we can see the needs in the world around us and gladly respond tothose needs:

O heavenly Father,who has filled the world with beauty; Open our eyes to behold your gracioushand in all your works; that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn toserve you with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made,your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer for Joy inGod’s Creation (The Book of CommonPrayer, p. 814)

Seeing and Serving Christ

2011-11-17T17:09:00.001-06:00

Proper 29A

Almighty andeverlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-belovedSon, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples ofthe earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together underhis most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, oneGod, now and for ever. Amen.

Proper 29 Collect, TheBook of Common Prayer, p. 236

This last Sunday of the lectionary year focuses on Christ asKing of kings and on God’s restoration of all things through Christ. The Gospel text, Matthew 25:31-46, first identifies Christ with a king sitting on “the throne of his glory”. AsJesus describes what the king will do, however, we find Christ also identifiedwith the people in greatest need who are most likely to be ignored, the oppositeof a king seated in glory: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these whoare members of my family, you did it to me.”

The meaning of this is plain: When we see people in need anddo what we can to meet their needs, we see and serve Christ. When we fail tosee those in need, or see them and ignore their needs, we fail to see and serveChrist.

We know that in today’s global community, despite our accessto information from all over the world, those most affected by pollution andclimate change are often ignored and virtually unseen by people in other places.

Because of concern about our own water and land, Nebraskansnow know about the Alberta tar sands. What many of us do not know, however, arethe effects of the pollution from the mining of the tar sands on people livingdownstream from it. This magazinerecently published a photo essay about the community of Fort Chipewyan and howthe health and culture of the people there have been affected by tar sandsmining.

UNICEF released a report on Monday called Children and Climate Change: Children’sVulnerabilities to Climate Change and Disaster Impacts in East Asia and the Pacific. The report describes ways in which children, because of their developingbodies and immune systems and their place in society, are particularlyvulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It describes the direct impactsfrom storms and higher temperatures; the increase in diseases such as cholera,diarrheal disease, dengue, and malaria; and psychological, educational, andnutritional impacts of climate change. Here also, the situations described arenearly unknown and/or ignored by people in our part of the world, but thereport stresses that they are very real to the children in that part of theworld.

These are only two examples of situations in which we failto see those in need or see them and ignore their needs, thus failing to seeand serve Christ. Our Sunday lessons remind us that Christ is King of kings butis also identified with the poorest of the poor. To forget either – that Christis the ultimate authority or that Christ is found among those people we easilyignore – leads us to all sorts of moral and theological error and weakens thechurch’s ability to serve God’s children.

This Sunday's passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 1:15-23) says that the church is the body of Christ. If the church serves as the body ofChrist, we must be about the work of reconciliation and restoration, whichdovetails with the work of seeing and serving those in need. Working towards the restoration of all thingsin creation, including eliminating pollution and curbing global warming, woulddo a lot towards making clean water, ample and healthy food, and healingavailable to all of God’s children. If we are the authentic church, the body ofChrist, we will be about this work, seeing and serving the poorest of the poorin the name of the King of kings.

Praying the News: November 13 2011

2011-11-13T23:08:00.001-06:00

Praying the News hasbecome a regular feature of the Green Sprouts blog, a way of lifting up peopleand situations to God and inviting readers to do the same. Prayer is not a substitutefor action; neither is action a substitute for prayer. Each is strengthened bythe other.

Collect For theConservation of Natural Resources (TheBook of Common Prayer, p. 827)

Please pray for:

Wise leaders. With this week’s IEA report stating that “thedoor is closing” on the opportunity to hold global warming to 2°C (seeNumbering Our Days: Five Years ), we need wise leaders more than ever. Speaking at a gathering at the UK’s Royal Society to discuss the ecological impacts of climate change, Jo Philips, the Head of Climate Change Adaptation at WWF-UK said: “Currentlimited global ambition means that children around us today could be livingthrough this ‘worst case scenario’. We have to take responsibility now. We knowwhat we have to do and we have the solutions – we now need the leadership andcommitment necessary to tackle this global problem before it is too late.”

The ClimateVulnerable Forum (CVF). The CVF is a group of nations that alreadyare heavily affected by climate change. They are meeting now in Dhaka,Bangladesh, to prepare for the upcoming COP17 conference in Durban, SouthAfrica. Of special concern is the understanding that the less vulnerable (and more powerful) nations at COP17 are discussing proposing an international agreement that would begin in 2017 ,after the five-year door of opportunity has closed.

Climate justice forAfrica and poor people around the world. With the COP17 meeting in South Africa,leaders from Africa – including Archbishop Desmond Tutu – have created the “Have Faith – Act Now” campaign toadvocate for climate justice. Pray for their voices to be heard.

Protection for thoseaffected by severe weather and sound understanding. Last week’s severe weatherincluded a big storm in Alaska and unusually strong November tornadoes in Oklahoma. As of November 4, the U.S. this year had already set a record with fourteen billion-dollar weather disasters. Pray that as extreme weather events become more common and more severe that we receive and are able to understand honest information about therelationship of these events to climate change.

With thanksgiving for thedecision to have a more careful review of the environmental effects of theproposed Keystone XL pipeline. Pray for wisdom and courage for those makingthe final decision about the pipeline, and pray for the people who worked hard tomake our officials aware of the concerns around this project.

Pray for our own hearts to be open so we can see the needsin the world around us and gladly respond to those needs:

Prayer for Joy inGod’s Creation (The Book of CommonPrayer, p. 814)

Numbering Our Days: Five Years

2011-11-12T00:19:00.001-06:00

Proper 28A: Psalm 90

So teach us to number our days that we may apply our heartsto wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

Psalm 90 contrasts the greatness and eternity of God to ourfragile and finite lives with the hope expressed that we might learn to “numberour days” – to be aware of our finite human condition – so that we become truly wise, gaining wisdom in our hearts. This is the psalm that reminds us that athousand years are like yesterday in God’s sight, or like a watch in the night.Before the mountains or the land or the earth itself existed, God existed.

We take a smaller view of things most of thetime, losing the perspective of this psalm; survival demands that we pay attention to our essential and immediate needsbefore other things, and that habit of mind then extends to less essentialthings. But when our essentialneeds are met, we can step back and get some perspective on our place in theuniverse and in time.

The more we can keep hold of that perspective, the more that we realize that the world does not in fact revolve around any one of us, thewiser we become. God cares for each one of us and knows the number of hairs oneach of our heads, but we are wise if we can occasionally look outside ofourselves and think about something other than our hair or wealth or comfort.

This was a heavy news week across the board. Inenvironmental news, yesterday’s news about the Keystone XL pipeline projectbeing delayed – and perhaps eventually stopped -- and the underlying messagethat the voices of Nebraskans concerned about our land and water had been heardwas big news here. However, big though that story was for our state, ournation, and our planet – and it is a very big story indeed! – there is anotherstory that got much less attention among the general public but is veryimportant for everyone.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) releasedtheir 2011 World Energy Outlook (WEO-11) report this week. (See the executivesummary of the report here.) Among all the analysis of current energy sources, expected trends, anddiscussion of resources and expected energy needs as the earth’s population growsis this:

We cannot afford to delay further action to tackle climatechange if the long-term target of limiting the global average temperatureincrease to 2°C …is to be achieved at reasonable cost.

The report says that we have five years to turn thingsaround and prevent irreversible climate change. There have been some “steps inthe right direction, but the door to 2°C is closing”. Five years – a very shortamount of time even in our eyes.

What will we do in the next five years? What will be the prioritiesof our political and business leaders, and what priorities will we ask them toadopt? Will we in the church pray and work to preserve God’s creation anddefend the people hurt first and worst by climate change, or squabble over ourown internal affairs and wonder why people don’t seem to be interested injoining us?

The past five years were critical to climate change, as were thepast twenty as we really came to understand what was happening, but too littlehas been done to make a difference in outcome. We have been so much in denialthat we have allowed our leaders and policymakers to delay taking significant action toaddress climate change. The next fiveyears are our last chance to get it right.

The WEO-11 report says:

Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 ofinvestment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate forthe increased emissions.

In other words, delaying action is foolish, while doing whatneeds to be done would be wise. Given what is at stake, failing to get seriousabout climate change is totally irrational and morally indefensible.

So teach us to number our days that we may apply our heartsto wisdom.

Praying the News: November 5 2011

2011-11-05T21:35:00.000-05:00

Theologian Walter Wink says this about intercessory prayer:

When we pray, we are not sending a letter to a celestialWhite House where it is sorted among piles of others. We are engaged rather inan action of cocreation, in which one little sector of the universe rises upand becomes translucent, incandescent, a vibratory center of power that radiatesthe power of the universe.

History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the futureinto being. If this is so, then intercession, far from being an escape fromaction, is a means of focusing for action and of creating action. (Engaging the Powers, pp. 303-3-4)

When we approach our prayers for the news about theearth in this way, we pray in a spirit of hope and with a commitment to dothe work God gives us to do. In that spirit, here are particular topics forprayer from this week’s news.

Collect For theConservation of Natural Resources (TheBook of Common Prayer, p. 827)

Please pray for:

The special sessionof the Nebraska Unicameral. The purpose of the special session is “tofind a legal and constitutional solution to the siting of oil pipelines withinthe state”. The immediate issue that resulted in the decision to hold a specialsession is, of course, the proposal for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline tocross through Nebraska’s Sandhills region. (See also Praying the News: Keystone XL Pipeline.)

The approaching UN climate conference (COP17) in Durban, South Africa. As BBC environment correspondent, Richard Black, puts it: “Thetask, as always, will be to find enough common ground for an outcome that takesthe global community of nations forwards, if only by a few steps, rather thanbackwards. Such steps as there may be are likely to be small ones.” Pray forprogress; pray for those involved in the conference and those they represent toremain aware of the reality of the consequences of climate change on people andother living things.

Gulf oil spill cleanup workers. Health problems linger for people who werehired to help with cleanup from the Gulf oil spill. Pray for these people andfor justice to allow them full access to continuing healthcare and faircompensation.

The people of islandnations, including Tuvalu. The 42-nation Association of Small Island States(AOSIS) says that proposals to delay a significant international climateagreement until 2018 or 2020 are “both environmentally reckless and politicallyirresponsible”. (See Island states slamwait on climate action.) Remember especially the people of Tuvalu and Archbishop Halapua’s requestsfor prayers and action. (See this report from the Anglican News Service and the GreenSprouts November 3 post .)

Wisdom and compassionfor us all as catastrophic weather events occur more often. The Associated Press reports that adraft of an upcoming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) predicts more floods, more heat waves, and more droughts in comingyears.

Along with praying for these particular needs, we might prayfor our own hearts to be open so we can see the needs in the world around usand gladly respond to those needs:

Prayer for Joy inGod’s Creation (The Book of CommonPrayer, p. 814)

Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters

2011-11-03T23:42:00.000-05:00

Proper 27A

Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like anever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:24)

Environmental issues become justice issues when people whohave contributed little or nothing to environmental degradation end upsuffering from its harmful effects. This Sunday’s reading from Amos (Amos 5:18-24 ) uses water images to talk about justice and righteousness. Given that manyenvironmental justice issues have to do with water in some form – water pollution,too little water in droughts caused by climate change, too much water in floodscaused by increasingly heavy rain- and snowfalls (also the result of climate change)– Amos’s words seem especially well suited for the 21^st century

The words “Let justice roll down like waters, andrighteousness like an ever-flowing stream” are an especially good fit for an article posted this week by the Anglican Communion News Service aboutthe situation in Tuvalu. (See Loving Our Neighbors in 2011 , Part 2 of 3, from Oct 21.) Tuvalu is experiencing a severe drought, andbecause sea-level rise is making the water in the island nation’s wells salty,there is a severe water shortage. The people of Tuvalu have contribute littleto the accumulation of greenhouse gases that cause global warming and sea level rise, but aresuffering terribly from the effects of what those of us in industrializednations have done and continue to make worse through our failure to addressclimate change in any significant way.

The Anglican Communion News Service reports on AnglicanArchbishop Winston Halapua’s visit to Tuvalu. Archbishop Halapua said, “What Ihave seen is the reality of the sea rising,” and that this “is the biggestpossible issue”. Along with making thewell water undrinkable, sea level rise and the resulting increased salinizationhas poisoned the roots of banana, breadfruit, and coconut trees, dietarystaples in Tuvalu and other Pacific island nations.

Archbishop Halapua asks for prayer and action: action in theform of relief aid for the people of Tuvalu and in the form of our becoming moreaware of climate change “and its impact on marginalized people”, and prayerbecause the problems of climate change, sea level rise, and the effects onislands and coastal areas are something bigger than and different from anythingwe have ever faced before.

The church’s gift of prayer is a greater gift than manynon-believers -- and perhaps even many nominal believers -- can guess. As we begin to understand the enormity of what we facethis century and beyond, prayer gives us a way to sit with our fear, ourawareness of the work to be done, and our grief; to hold these up before God; and to process all of this in away that allows us to function well and do what we can to alleviate sufferingand continue to live meaningful lives with some sort of hope. Prayer is notasking God to magically make a bad situation go away; it is a way to receivewhat we need to go forward and serve in the name of Christ.

And so along with our aid and our paying attention toclimate change, Archbishop Halapua asks for our prayers:

We need to pray. We need to sayvery, very clearly to the church that we need to pray because this is something way beyond us. We need to pray that wewill be empowered to speak clearly to our elected agents in government who makedecisions about climate change.

Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like anever-flowing stream.

Praying the News

2011-10-30T23:38:00.000-05:00

Every day there are news stories about suffering caused bypollution or climate change. Some of these items are highlighted in posts on this blog,but many of them don’t get mentioned. I’m sharing some examples in this post andasking for prayers for the people in these situations.

The practice of praying the news was explored in an earlierpost (Praying the News: Keystone XLPipeline). For today’s post, I’m suggesting acouple of prayers from The Book of CommonPrayer to frame the prayers for these particular concerns. These concerns are all related to climate change; a brief explanation with links tonews stories is included for each concern in the prayer list. If others findmeaning in praying the news, I’ll be posting something similar fairlyregularly.

Collect For theConservation of Natural Resources (TheBook of Common Prayer, p. 827)

Please pray for:

People affected by floods inThailand. At least 381 peoplehave been killed in the worst flooding in Thailand in half acentury. With the loss of rice crops,global rice prices are expected to rise, creating more hardship down the road. Accordingto CNN, relief agencies describe a “humanitarian crisis”, with concern about water- and insect-borne diseases as well as those peoplein isolated areas who have been cut off for weeks without food or aid or anykind.

People in U.S. coastal areasmaking difficult decisions as sea levels rise. Communities in coastal areas of the UnitedStates are consideringthe options as the reality of sea level rise is recognized. In south Florida, there are concerns about water suppliesand existing storm drainage systems. This post from Cape Cod’s Climatide blog talks about the need to make some hard decisionssoon, and people’s reluctance to do so because public officials haven’t wantedto take on the issue of sea level rise and thus give the false impression thatit can’t be all that serious.

People of the Navajo Nation. Sand dunes in the Navajo Nation are moving, a sign of theincreasing aridity of the Southwest. USGS geologist Dr. Margaret Hiza Redsteer’sstudy of these changes “points up the vulnerability of indigenous people wholive on land she calls ‘just on the edge of being habitable.’ “ Dr. Redsteersays: “The annual moisture here has historically been just enough to get by.When there is even a small change, there is a huge effect.”

People in the American Northeastwho have lost power or suffered injuries or loss of property in this weekend’srecord snowstorm. Read The WeatherChannel’s account of injuries and damages. Weather Underground’s Dr. Jeff Masters puts this storm in historic perspective and discusses its connection to climatechange.

As we pray for others, we might also pray for our own heartsto be open so we can see the needs in the world around us and gladly respond tothose needs:

Prayer for Joy in God’sCreation (The Book of Common Prayer,p. 814)

Loving Our Neighbors in 2011

2011-10-23T21:46:00.000-05:00

Part 3 of 3. Gospel for Proper 25A.

Climate change caused by global warming is already causinghardship and sometimes catastrophe for people in many parts of the world. Lovingour neighbors entails doing what we can to relieve and prevent suffering. So,we should be concerned and willing to speak and act to reduce global warmingand help those most immediately affected by climate change.

The good news is that the church is not completely silent aboutthe climate crisis. The pastoral teaching on the environment released recentlyby the House of Bishops describes the reality of the crisis and calls us toaction. Along with calling us to the work of environmental justice, goodstewardship practices, and advocacy, it calls us to spiritual practices ofrepentance, fasting, Sabbath keeping, and Christ-centered mindfulness. (See theHOB teaching here and the September 22 Green Sprouts post about it here .) However, despite this call from our bishops and similar calls from others inthe church, for the most part this work has not become a priority issue formost Episcopalians. With few exceptions, it’s not what we talk about in termsof parish or diocesan mission.

Perhaps so many people act as if they don’t realize what ishappening because poor media coverage has succeeded in keeping many peopleuninformed; perhaps they really don’t know on any level what is happening. Ifthat is the case, then one way we can love our neighbors is to talk about whatis happening, bring it into conversations, and advocate with our leadership inthe church and in government to give priority to concerns about climate change.

Another possibility is that we don’t talk about it becausefacing a steadily unfolding catastrophe on a truly global scale is so new tohuman experience that it requires new ways of thinking. Some have suggestedthat new language would help us better think about and talk about climatechange and its effects.

When Words Fail: Does a Warming World Need a New Vocabulary? describes the work of Australian philosopherGlenn Albrecht. The author of this article, Marilyn Ostrander, says:

The words he createsare based on his research on how we feel about the places we live. His workmaps out the rocky emotional landscape we will have to navigate as the planetheats up, suggesting ways we can overcome paralyticfear about climate change and find sources of joy and hope.

One of Glenn Albrecht’s words is ‘solastalgia’. In a January,2010 article in the New York Times Magazine, Daniel B. Smith explains that theword is “a combination of the Latin word solacium (comfort) and the Greek root –algia (pain). Albrecht defined described solastalgia as “thepain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides andthat one loves is under immediate assault . . . a form of homesickness one getswhen one is still at ‘home.’ ”

Solastalgia describes the emotions of people whosesurroundings have been changed by a natural disaster or environmental degradation– the changes in the Athabasca region where the tar sands are mined would beone example of the latter. But it also describes the emotions of more and morepeople around the world as climate change brings changes in our surroundingsthat may be glaringly apparent (like the water situation in Tokelau and Tuvalu)or more subtle (like changes in bird and animal migrations or growingconditions for plants).

If nothing else, the fact that people are thinking about thepossibility of needing new words to describe what we are facing indicates someof the difficulty we have grasping the situation.

I’ve heard people say that they don’t think or talk about climatechange caused by global warming because it’s too emotionally difficult to doso. The situation seems hopeless. Avoiding a situation because it seemshopeless is not really an option for Christians; in bringing the Gospel to theworld, Christians bring hope to the world. Engaging in the spiritualdisciplines outlined by the House of Bishops may help us find hope and see whatthat looks like in this situation so that we might bring hope to others.

Along with those practices, the simple practice of gratitudecan help keep our hearts open and hopeful. Spending time outdoors payingattention to the wonder and beauty around us gives an opportunity for gratitudeas well as reminding us of how emotionally and spiritually important the earthand its wonders are to us.

Today’s collect is a wonderful prayer for us as we searchfor ways to obey Christ’s commandment to love our global neighbors (andourselves):

Almighty andeverlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and,that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; throughJesus Christ our Lord, who live and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, onGod, for ever and ever. Amen.

Loving Our Neighbors in 2011

2011-10-21T23:38:00.001-05:00

Part 2 of 3. Gospel for Proper 25A.

This is the second of three posts looking at what loving ourneighbors requires when we live in a global community and climate change isalready bringing hardship to many parts of the world.

A necessary step to loving our neighbors today is to careenough to know what is happening to other people in other places and to haveenough curiosity to wonder why. Indifferenceand apathy are incompatible with compassion.

Here is a sampling of a few of the things happening in ourworld now:

· The drought and famine in East Africa (seeEastern Africa: Drought and Famine posts from July) continues. In a recent article in Nature entitled We thought trouble was coming, Chris Funk explains how the Climate Hazard Group from UC Santa Barbara forecast the drought. One of the factors they had considered in making theprediction was warming in the Indian Ocean as a result of climate change.Warming in the Indian Ocean had been observed to be linked to drying of springrains in East Africa. La Nina effects, intensified by global warming, had driedthe autumn rains in 2010. Funk reports that with the severity of this crisis,11.5 million people across East Africa need emergency assistance.

· Along with the floods in Mexico, CentralAmerica, and Haiti mentioned in the previous post in this series, flooding isthreatening Thailand’s capital city, Bangkok, and has already flooded much ofThailand. A Reuters story today reports that flooding has killed at least 342 people in Thailand since July, and 247 people in Cambodia. As a result oftorrential rains since Wednesday at least 100 bodies were found near theIrrawaddy River in Myanmar and 100 more people are missing.

· The Pacific island nations of Tokelau and Tuvaluhave been dealing with severe water shortages, the result of lack of rainfall(expected to continue because of an intensified La Nina pattern) along with increasedsalinization of the islands’ water supplies because of sea level rise. Emergencywater supplies and additional desalinization equipment from other Pacificnations have brought assistance in the crisis. The New York Times online thisweek carried a photo essay from Tuvalu. A related article, As Danger Laps at Its Shores, Tuvalu Pleads for Action, tells about how climate change is affecting people there now – their diet,soil, water supplies, and health all are affected -- and how they might cope inthe future. Current projections are that Tuvalu will be uninhabitable withinfifty years.

· Monday’s dust storm in Lubbock, Texas, theresult of the ongoing drought there, featured an 8000 foot dust cloud travelingat 70 mph. (See Texas dust storm, biggest in U.S. in decades, turns sky red and black.)

· Here’s the view from a window during the storm:

· The economic effects of this drought are veryserious. A sobering forecast from NASA climatologist James Hansen says that “If we stay on with business asusual, the southern U.S. will become almost uninhabitable” within this century. The social and economic upheaval if this prediction holds will be enormous.

· Jeff Goodell’s Rolling Stone article ClimateChange and the End of Australia suggests that if we want to see what is in store for us, we might look at whatis happening already in Australia, where “rivers are drying up, reefs aredying, and fires and floods are ravaging the continent.” Goodell ends his storywith this:

We walk for a while, watching all the happypeople strolling along the boardwalk and drinking wine in cafes and surfing thewaves. The sun is shining, and everything is lovely. Too bad that it all has togo.

These are all big events or well-known situations, yet theyaren’t part of what most of us hear about or think about from day to day, and they aren’t partof most of our conversations in the church about our mission in the world. The need to expand our ability to providedisaster relief is obvious. Paying attention to what is happening now helps us to seewhy we need to work now at mitigating climate change, lessening its extremesin future years. The more we know about how people are suffering now and willsuffer in the future, the easier it becomes for us to lessen our carbonfootprints as individuals and as a church and to advocate for policies that will reduce carbon emissions. And if you’ve read this far, it maybe obvious that as we confront this crisis, we will require spiritual resourcesand care for ourselves as well as others.

What keeps us from having the conversations we need to have andfrom doing the work that the church should be doing to serve God’s people andcare for God’s creation now and in the years to come?

Loving Our Neighbors in 2011

2011-10-21T07:41:00.003-05:00

Part 1 of 3. Gospel for Proper 25A.

34When the Phariseesheard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35andone of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, whichcommandment in the law is the greatest?” 37He said to him, “’You shalllove the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and withall your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And asecond is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On thesetwo commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40)

Faithfully loving God and our neighbors has been a challengefor Christ’s followers ever since he said these words. In the 21st century wehave two comparatively recent circumstances to take into account in attemptingto follow these commandments.

First, we live in a truly global community. Increased traveland communications, and especially the sorts of communications and relationshipbuilding possible through the internet, have brought us to a very different understandingof what it means to love our neighbors. When a newsworthy event happensanywhere in the world, we know about it immediately. When there is some sort ofdisaster, the world can respond immediately.

Second, our climate is changing rapidly and significantly. Awarmer global atmosphere holds more moisture. This means there is less moderateprecipitation; instead, there are at the same time both areas hit by heavy precipitationand areas of drought. Sea levels are rising, the ocean is becoming more acid,and coral reefs are dying. Changing temperatures bring changes in insect anddisease patterns.

Just this week, exceptionally heavy rains from HurricaneJova and a tropical depression hit Mexico, parts of Central America, andsouthern Haiti, affecting around 100,000 people. The Episcopal News Service reports onthe flooding in El Salvador, which Anglican Bishop of El Salvador Martin Barahona has described as “acatastrophe unparalleled by other disasters” in El Salvador’s recent history.Episcopal Relief and Development reports:

In El Salvador, thehardest hit country, the Lempa and Grande rivers overflowed ontoalready-saturated ground. The severe flooding that resulted has killed morethan 30 people and destroyed more than 18,000 homes. An estimated 65 peoplehave also died in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Costa Rica.

This is one example of the way increased precipitation canaffect our neighbors. The church in El Salvador and Episcopal Relief and Developmentare responding in the name of Christ by helping people who have lost theirhomes. As we will see in tomorrow’s post, this flooding is one of manyclimate-related events affecting people right now. Every day we fail to addressclimate change, the chance of these sorts of disasters affecting more and morepeople increases.

In the introduction to MoralGround: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, authors Kathleen Dean Mooreand Michael P. Nelson describe a typical suburban autumn evening with peopleoutdoors doing common things: a teenager driving a car, a little girl playing,someone using a leaf blower. After describing the scene, they say:

The scene feels odd,almost fictional, the way life goes on. It seems almost as if we were watchinga herd of dinosaurs grazing on giant fern-trees, oblivious to the shadow of theasteroid that will strike Earth and forever change the conditions under which theywill live – or die.

For some reason, even though we know what is happening inour world and know that we have very little time to change the way we do thingsso that the changes future generations face might be more bearable, life goeson pretty much unchanged. It’s as if we don’t realize what is happening or don't care.

Even those of us who care passionately and are intentional about keeping up withthe issues of global warming and climate change find it easy to slip intoacting and speaking as if nothing is changing. In a poem entitled Warsaw on the Eve of My Departure[i],poet Aaron Zeitlin wrote about the days before he left Warsaw in anothersituation where reality was difficult to grasp, knowing that the time for Jewsliving in Warsaw was short. He wrote: Everythingthat you own and that you see / a desolate darkness will soon envelope. / Avoice tells you so, but you forget…You do and do not feel from day to day howfinal is / the city. In a similar way, as accelerated and increased climatechange approaches, we both do and do not know what is coming; we both do and donot feel the finality of the changes taking place on our planet.

In the next couple of posts on this blog, we will look atthe climate change situation and how it affects our neighbors near and far,some of the questions this raises for Christians and the institutional churchin particular, and the question of how to talk about what is happening in a meaningfulway. The larger question asks what keeps us from doing the work we need to do to ensure our survival and that of our neighbors.

I’m suggesting that the time has cometo make sure that the reality of climate change becomes part of ourconversation any time we in the church plan for the future and talk about doingministry. To avoid the topic intentionally for fear of upsetting people, or to letit slip out of our minds, or even to give it a quick nod before turning to ourusual business is to ignore our neighbors and to deceive ourselves if we thinkour own lives as individuals and as a church will continue in familiar ways formany more years.

We need to talk now about mitigation of climate change,considering where and how we might decrease our carbon footprint as the churchand how to help individuals learn good environmental stewardship. We can figureout how to gear up to provide disaster relief as the frequency and severity offloods, fires, droughts, and storms increase. And the church especially needs to be thinkingabout how to meet people’s spiritual needs as the crisis becomes harder toignore and people cope with a crisis different from any other in human history.What spiritual practices will be helpful? What language will we use to talkabout it? How do we stay faithful andfind meaning in the years to come?

[i]Zeitlin, Aaron. Poems of the Holocaustand Poems of Faith, ed. and trans. By Morris M. Faierstein. iUniverse:2007, p. 1.

Clergy opposed to Keystone XL pipeline

2011-10-16T15:00:00.006-05:00

Realizing that our reasons for opposing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline rested on Christ's commandment to love God and our neighbors, and thinking that this viewpoint should be part of the wider discussion about this issue, Fr. Don Huber and I wrote this statement and sent it around to other clergy in the Diocese of Nebraska that we thought might have an interest in the issue. It has been published in the Lincoln Journal Star, the Grand Island Independent, and the Alliance Times Herald.

As clergy of the Episcopal Church in Nebraska, we oppose construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline which would transport bitumen from the Athabasca Tar Sands to refineries in Texas. Our concerns about this project are rooted in Christ’s commandment to love our neighbors and in our belief that creation care is a foundation of local and global love of others, ourselves and our creator.

The commandment to love our neighbors requires considering the effects of our actions on others and on ourselves. Scripture calls us to be the tillers and caretakers of the earth, the stewards of creation. Our tradition as articulated in The Book of Common Prayer teaches us that we are fellow workers in God’s creation, that we need to use the resources of nature wisely and reverently so that generations yet to come may have life, breath and cause to continue praising God for the bounteous gifts of creation. Using our resources wisely and reverently means acknowledging and remembering that they come from God and that our use of them is not solely for our own immediate gain, but for the good of all of creation.

The mining of the Athabasca Tar Sands has already brought disaster to the First Nations people who have lived along the Athabasca River for generations. Reduced river flow and contamination of the water and land has impacted fishing and hunting and people’s health. The area being mined is in the Boreal Forest, a fragile and essential habitat for migratory birds and an ecosystem whose continued ability to function as the largest carbon storage area on earth is essential to mitigation of global warming which causes climate change.

Globally the impact of processing and burning the oil extracted from the Athabasca Tar Sands will further accelerate climate change. The world is already experiencing violent storms, record heat, flooding and droughts as greenhouse gas emissions have reached a critical level. Surely a project that would accelerate greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting acceleration of global warming does not serve God and God’s purposes for humankind and the rest of creation.

As Nebraskans and others voice our thoughts on the pipeline to the United States State Department, the political question being asked is: Is the proposed pipeline in the national interest? This is an important question, but we believe that we have a greater obligation to ask some moral questions. The moral questions go further than the political question, asking: Does the proposed pipeline harm or hurt humanity as a whole? Is building it consistent with the wise and reverent use of creation? If we as a people and a nation agree to the building of this pipeline, will we be acting as good stewards of creation? We believe the answer to these moral questions is no. We believe we cannot further endanger the earth’s precious fresh water reserves; we cannot further endanger water which supports the crops that feed our nation and the world; we cannot feed our greedy desire for cheap oil at the expense of our and others’ health and food and our children’s future.

Locally, the possibility of a pipeline leak over the Ogallala Aquifer risks devastating consequences for people over a vast area of our state who depend on the aquifer for drinking water. This concern is well-founded because of the history of leaks in such pipelines and is shared by us, our Governor and our Senators. A foreign company coming into our state and appropriating land to build this pipeline that endangers the people of the state is a great injustice to those who depend on the land and water for their livelihoods and their very lives. It is at its best risky business and at its worst morally reprehensible.

The Keystone XL pipeline will provide some immediate gain for some people. We must conclude, though, that while in the short-run it may serve financial gain for a few, it doesn’t serve the long term health and well being of humanity and creation. Given this choice, we oppose the granting of a permit for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and call on others to join us in choosing life and health.

****

These are the names of the sponsors as listed on October 5:

Deacon Betsy Blake Bennett, St. Stephen’s, Grand Island

The Rev. Don Huber, St. Matthew’s, Alliance and Calvary, Hyannis

Deacon John Adam, St. Matthew’s, Alliance and Calvary, Hyannis

The Rev. Scott Barker, Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska

The Rev. Carol Ann Bullard, Holy Apostles, Mitchell

The Rev. Jason Emerson, Church of the Resurrection, Omaha

The Rev. William Graham, St. Mary’s – Holly, Rushville and St. Joseph’s, Mullen

Deacon Christine Grosh, Trinity Memorial Church, Crete

Deacon Cheryl Harris, St. Matthew's Church, Alliance and Calvary, Hyannis

Deacon Nancy W. Huston, St. Martha’s Church, Papillion

Deacon Colleen Lewis, St. Luke’s, Kearney

The Rev. Gretchen R. Naugle, Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska

The Rev. Jeffrey S.F. Nelson, Church of Our Savior, North Platte

The Rev. Larry Parrish, St. Thomas, Falls City

The Rev. Dr. Charles A. Peek, St. Stephen’s, Grand Island

The Rev. Chris Plantz, St. Hilda’s, Kimball; St. Paul’s, Ogallala; St. George’s, Oshkosh; Good Shepherd, Harrisburg

Deacon Kim Roberts, St Martin of Tours, Omaha

The Rev. Ellie Thober, Grace Church, Columbus

The Rev. Ruth Tomlinson, St. David's, Lincoln

Archdeacon James Visger, Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska

The Rev. Judi A. Yeates, Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska

St. Francis: All of Creation

2011-10-03T16:06:00.009-05:00

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which
You give sustenance to Your creatures.

St. Francis expressed his joy in all of creation in his Canticle of Creation , sometimes known as the Canticle of Brother Sun. (We Episcopalians know this as Hymns 406 and 407, “Most High, omnipotent, good Lord”.)

Many parishes have a tradition of blessing the animals – dogs, cats, hamsters, and sometimes more exotic creatures – on or around October 4, St. Francis Day. This is a popular tradition; we appreciate the reminder that God loves our animal companions just as we do. St. Francis loved not only the animals, seeing them as his brothers and sisters, but all of creation – including the wind that is promised for St. Francis Day in central Nebraska. Perhaps we should bless our chrysanthemums and cottonwoods, our rocks and rivers along with the animals. We could make a point of rejoicing in the breeze, the songbirds, the stars and moon, the insects, and in our food, clothing, homes, and the people around us.

Discussion of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline has made many of us more mindful of the gifts of the Ogallala aquifer and of the soil and the grasses that help provide stability to the soil. We have learned about the tar sands in Canada and about the vast Canadian Boreal Forest. Aware of himself as part of God’s creation, St. Francis would see these resources, too, as brothers and sisters. Scholar Daniel Wildcat, quoted by Carol Berry on the Indian Country website , says something similar. Berry reports:

Wildcat suggested looking at tribal nations that “never had a word for ‘resources’ in their vocabulary” but instead called them “relatives,” pointing out that “You don’t treat your relatives like resources” and the “ATM” approach “is not going to cut it” given 200 years of withdrawals without many deposits.

Joy in creation is one strand of the life of St. Francis. An equally strong strand is his teaching of compassion for the poor. The Old Testament reading appointed for the Feast of St. Francis, Jeremiah 22:13-16, is about humility. It reminds us that God is more interested in justice and righteousness, in how we treat the poor and needy, than whether we are able to have luxurious homes. The two strands are intertwined, as finding joy in the everyday wonders of creation opens our hearts to compassion for all creatures, including our sisters and brothers in the human family.

Joy in God’s creation and compassion for the poor are two elements of environmental stewardship. We work for a sustainable environment because we know the poorest and least powerful people in the world usually suffer first and worst from any sort of pollution or climate change, but we also work for a sustainable environment so that we can preserve our non-human brothers and sisters, those animals and plants and places through which we encounter God in God’s creation.

Michaelmas and Wonder in Creation

2011-09-29T21:04:00.007-05:00

(Rosh Hashanah, Too!)

Today was the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, also known as Michaelmas. Traditionally, Michaelmas has marked the divide between late summer and fall – hence the British ‘Michaelmas term’ for what we would call ‘fall semester’.

The angels described in the Bible are different from the cute angels of popular culture. Something about Biblical angels makes it necessary for them to say, “Fear not!” when they appear to humans. Exactly what sorts of creatures these are is hard to say; exactly what the word ‘angel’ represents is at least in part a mystery to us. But they are creatures, part of God’s creation. Because today celebrates all angels, it’s in part a celebration of those mysteries in creation that are beyond our understanding. With the change in seasons and a reminder of the wonder and mystery of creation, Michaelmas is a good time to renew our own sense of wonder at God’s creation.

Today’s meditation in Forward Day by Day says that today’s observance calls us to “remember the vastness of God’s creation in which angels and archangels fill the heavenly court.” The writer adds:

We inhabit a cosmos greater than anything we can imagine, yet all is within the reign of God. To remember this is to grow in awe, trust, and hope in God’s purpose.

Wonders abound this time of year in our corner of creation. The rich colors of autumn leaves and grasses are probably the most striking change. The flowers in fields and gardens that are still blooming have their own striking colors. Butterflies, including monarchs, are migrating. The air is crisper than it was even a couple of weeks ago, and the sky seems to be a deeper shade of blue as fall sets in. At night, the fall sky can be amazing.

The practice of wonder at the earth, the heavens, and the mysteries of all of God’s unimaginably vast creation can help us be mindful of the majesty, power, and goodness of the Creator and more caring of God’s creation. Our own part of God’s good creation, this blue-green planet we call home, is in need of care and defenders. Today’s reading from Revelation (Revelation 12:7-12 ) about the war in heaven between Michael and his angels against the dragon and his angels gives us an ideal of the forces of good battling the forces of evil. Our battles against forces that would destroy much of the rich variety of life on earth through pollution, habitat destruction, and greenhouse gas emissions require the same sort of persistence and courage that all battles require. It also requires wisdom, the ability to see both the big picture and the smallest of creatures, and the willingness to learn and adapt. Along with calling us to wonder, Michaelmas can call us to renew our commitment to fight for a sustainable environment for all living things.

While we are observing Michaelmas today, our Jewish brothers and sisters are observing Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and beginning of the High Holy Days. Through the GreenFaith website, I found the post The Binding of Isaac and a Spirit of Optimism by Rabbi Edward Bernstein, a GreenFaith Fellow. Rabbi Bernstein tells how awe of creation and the Creator permeate the story of the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22), one of the biblical texts in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy. Rabbi Bernstein helps us see the dual themes of awe in creation and a call to stewardship of creation in this story. It’s well worth a read, and wonderfully relevant to our own observance this day.

Pastoral Teaching on the Environment

2011-09-22T14:51:00.004-05:00

While meeting in Quito, Ecuador, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church issued a Pastoral Teaching about the environmental crisis, saying:

We, your bishops, believe these words of Jeremiah describe these times and call us to repentance as we face the unfolding environmental crisis of the earth:
How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it the animals and the birds are swept away, and because people said, "He is blind to our ways." (Jeremiah 12:4)

This is a powerful document, bringing together Scripture, science, spiritual practices, and the Church's traditional concern for the poor and the suffering. It is something to read carefully (click here for the full document), something to pray, something to consider when choosing our actions in our daily lives in the world and in our private spiritual practices. It calls us to make changes on a deep level, to repent:

Our current environmental challenges call us to ongoing forms of repentance: we must turn ourselves around, and come to think, feel, and act in new ways. Ancient wisdom and spiritual disciplines from our faith offer deep resources to help address this environmental crisis. Time-honored practices of fasting, Sabbath-keeping, and Christ-centered mindfulness bear particular promise for our time.

This pastoral teaching will enrich the conversation about creation care for Episcopalians and others in the coming months and years. If we study it and act on it, we may indeed find the hope of this document fulfilled:

May God give us the grace to heed the warnings of Jeremiah and to accept the gracious invitation of the incarnate Word to live, in, with, and through him, a life of grace for the whole world, that thereby all the earth may be restored and humanity filled with hope.

Pipeline and Pie at St. Stephen's

2011-09-21T13:22:00.006-05:00

Tomorrow evening is the forum about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (aka Pipeline and Pie) at St. Stephen’s in Grand Island. This event is organized by the Green Team at St. Stephen’s as part of our stated mission: Drawing on Nebraska’s traditions of conservation and moved by Christian hope and purpose, we will engage in whatever learning, actions, and practices make us more caring stewards of God’s creation and better neighbors to the world’s other inhabitants.

As part of our work, we are trying to stay informed about the pipeline and the concerns that have been raised about it. The Rev. Dr. Kenneth Moore, Regional Minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Nebraska and Board Chair of Nebraska Interfaith Power and Light, will speak about why the issues around the proposed pipeline matter to people of faith. Jane Kleeb of BOLD Nebraska will share some general information about the proposed pipeline – what it is, what it would carry, where it would be built – and some of the concerns about the pipeline and its proposed route through the Sandhills and over the Ogallala aquifer. Randy Thompson, whose land is in the path of the proposed pipeline, will talk about his concerns as a landowner and conservationist. We will have time for questions and will continue our conversation over pie and coffee.

The St. Stephen’s Green Team is working toward GreenFaith certification for the parish, which includes a growing point for us: paying attention to environmental justice issues. The Episcopal Church and GreenFaith recently announced the beginning of a new cycle of the certification program in which Episcopal parishes can apply for subsidies to offset part of the cost of the program. Michael Schut, the economic and environmental affairs officer for the Episcopal Church, explains that the goals of the certification program include “supporting the development of faithful, strong environmental leadership; helping congregations learn to reduce their operating costs; and modeling creation care, spirituality and justice throughout a congregation's life and practice.”

Anyone with an interest in the Keystone XL pipeline (or in some good pie and conversation) is welcome to join us tomorrow evening at 7:30. Please come in through red doors on Cedar Street.

Perceptions of Limits

2011-09-06T22:14:00.007-05:00

Paul, Disability, and the Environment

Today’s Forward Day by Day reflection on Philippians 1:12-30 is about Paul in prison. It talks about Paul’s faith being steadfast and fruitful despite his circumstances. The reflection ends making the sound point that no matter what our circumstances, we “have all been made alive”, created anew.

In the course of making this point, though, the writer says that some of us are “confined to wheelchairs”. This all too common phrase always strikes me as odd, since for someone who can’t walk, a wheelchair is far from something confining; in fact, it’s a way to go somewhere. While a wheelchair may look limiting to someone who can walk around easily, using a wheelchair is a way of accepting a limitation and getting on with living life; it’s a means towards flourishing.

This way of looking at physical limitations is similar to the way we sometimes perceive the limits that the laws of physics and chemistry and biology put on what we can do without making our air, water, or climate unsustainable. If we can’t accept those limits, if we see them as somehow imprisoning us and keeping us from living in accordance with some shallow idea of progress – such as accumulating more things – we will only end up harming ourselves and other living things. If we accept these limits, however, and get on with living, we can flourish. Living in harmony with the laws of nature is no more confining than using a wheelchair!

To check out my thoughts about the wheelchair analogy, I wrote to our son, Andrew Blake Bennett, a doctoral student at Syracuse University in Cultural Foundations of Education specializing in disability studies. Andrew did more than answer my question; he wrote his own reflection, asking some good questions that apply equally to the way we think about disabilities and the way we think about environmental stewardship. He points out ways the church has thought about disability, which parallels the way we have thought about nature and the perceived need to dominate or “tame” it. I thank Andrew for permission to use his reflection in its entirety.

The writer of today’s Forward Day by Day series impresses upon the reader that disability such as being “confined to a wheelchair” or “deafness, blindness, pain, etc.” and so forth is an “imprisonment”. Since the meditation is short, one cannot know what exactly the author meant by this, but certainly there is a long tradition, even sometimes within the Church, of equating disability to a limitation. This treats disability as something that is something horrible and limiting instead of as something that is a part of the human condition. The social model of disability, on the other hand, considers how society contributes to the idea of disability.

The term 'confinement', therefore, usually ends up having a very temporarily able bodied perspective. It is this way because the medical model, that is a model of seeing disability as a deficit, sees disability as being something that makes a person invalid. Simi Linton notes in Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity that this word comes from the Latin invalidus meaning “weak” and ties being a person with a disability to always being a patient, even in non-medical situations where this does not apply (Linton, 1998, pp. 28-29).

Much of this control stems from society wanting the person with a disability to be something else. Linton describes within her book Trembley’s (2006) description of Canadian World War II veterans. Staff wanted these individuals to be able to walk, even though it was much easier for them to propel themselves with wheelchairs. Linton wrote “It is that type of manipulation and control, along with architectural and attitudinal barriers that confine people. It is not wheelchairs” (Linton, 1998, pp. 27-28).

While I agree with the author of today’s reflection as to the main point in the passage, I think the reading would benefit from a closer reading of the text. Even as Paul says that living is in Christ and dying is gain, he also talks about the fruitfulness of the labor of “living in the flesh” (Philippians 1: 22-24). Paul also writes of the privilege of “not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well – since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I have”. With Paul, of course, there were physical manifestations of struggle and suffering, but in a way, this sense of “suffering” can also mean “witnessing” for God even when concerns would appear to limit us.

Considering that we, as human beings, are all limited in some way or another, how might we “breakthrough” and witness to the things that God calls us to witness to, things like stewardship of the earth, poverty, and upholding the dignity of every human being in its most expansive sense even when we feel limited by practical constraints? The first thing that Christians are called to do is to listen to God. What does scripture tell us to do and how do we apply it to today’s world? What has tradition taught us? In what ways have traditional ways of doing things worked and not worked? Is the tradition reasonable for today’s world? Finally, we must examine how God is speaking in today’s world and consider that to follow where Christ calls us will require creativity and innovation, but also may require sacrifice and a tempering of an individual sense of entitlement for collective benefit. This can be far reaching, everything from how we are designing our cities, towns, and rural communities to how we experience and think about our societal institutions, and, especially, how we, as human beings, think about and experience our neighbor, whether our literal neighbors or far away. Later on, Paul spoke of God’s salvation “enabling you to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2: 13). If we allow God to work within us, to be innovative and creative, to speak within us, and to put away old ideas and attitudes, we are capable of more than we ever expected and allow others to also fulfill their potential. Thanks be to God!

Environmental stewardship is not something we do in isolation; it’s interconnected with all our other concerns. When Andrew says “we must examine how God is speaking in today’s world and consider that to follow where Christ calls us will require creativity and innovation, but also may require sacrifice and a tempering of an individual sense of entitlement for collective benefit”, that speaks to our relationships with the earth, water, air, and the earth’s plants and animals as well as our relationships with one another.

Today's News

2011-09-02T23:41:00.005-05:00

James 4:13 – 5:6

This is a late night post, looking back on what may prove to have been a pivotal day for Americans who care about the environment. It’s been one of those days where a common theme seems to emerge from a variety of things. Since that theme is related to today’s Epistle reading, I’m sharing this personal reflection both as a thought on one of today’s lessons and as a way of looking at what happened today.

Today’s Epistle reading in the Daily Office lectionary was James 4:13 – 5:6. The first part of this passage talks about how fleeting our lives are; the second part talks about the foolishness of thinking that accumulating riches – which rust and rot – will somehow keep our injustices from catching up with us. All of this certainly helps give clarity to our situation, but the verse that stayed with me throughout the day was this one: “Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.”

If we know right from wrong, we have a responsibility to do the right thing. As we learn more and more about the environmental impacts of the way we live and the decisions we make, we have the opportunity to have a less negative impact on the environment. When we know that our actions have a negative impact on other people or on the air, water, land, or climate system that supports us all and yet go ahead and do those actions, we commit sin.

This verse initially jumped out at me this morning because I was already puzzled by something I had come across as I checked Twitter: a link to a Climate Progress post by Stephen Lacey with the headline Energy Secretary Chu Suggests He Supports Keystone XL Pipeline, Nebraska GOP Governor Dave Heineman Opposes It. In the article, Stephen Lacey tells about an interview that Secretary Chu gave with EnergyNOW! at the National Clean Energy Summit. Secretary Chu is a Nobel-prize winning physicist and knows the science of climate change and the need to address climate change very well. In the interview, Chu sounds as if he backs the building of the Keystone XL pipeline despite its environmental impact, calling it a “tradeoff”. I was surprised to read this!

In light of that, I was again surprised by what followed in the post:

Directly after taping that interview at the summit, Chu explained in a brief conversation with Climate Progress that he believes that the fossil fuel industry has “an interest in seeing that action isn’t taken” on climate change and lamented the lack of understanding of climate science among political leaders.

Secretary Chu understands both the physics and the political situation, he knows the gravity of the climate situation, and yet seems to be ready to accept the building of the Keystone XL pipeline as some sort of “tradeoff”.

Later in the morning, the story broke that President Obama was suddenly asking EPA head Lisa Jackson to withdraw the draft standards for tighter regulation on ozone (smog), something that had been anticipated as a significant step forward for public health. In a post (Obama to Breathers: Sorry, Wait Until 2013 ) on the Blue Marble environmental blog from Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard, who uses the word ‘flabbergasted’ to describe the reaction of pubic health and environmental groups, writes:

According to the American Lung Association, the weaker standard means that as many as 186 million Americans are currently breathing in unhealthy levels of smog. The EPA's own figures are even more shocking. If the Obama administration set the lower standard of 60 parts per billion, it would prevent 4,000 to 12,000 premature deaths a year by 2020. Even the higher standard of 70 parts per billion would save between 1,500 and 4,300 lives per year. Improved air quality would bring down the number of deaths and hospitalizations every year due to asthma, bronchitis, and other heart and lung conditions.

The EPA also noted that while compliance with the new rule would cost polluters between $19 billion and $90 billion a year by 2020, the benefits to human health will be worth between $13 billion and $100 billion every year.

Another place where we know the science, we know the effect this will have on people, and fail to do what we know will make people healthier and save lives!

When I visit churches, I hear people say that they want to do the right thing for the environment but need more information in order to be confident that they are making good decisions. Yet these examples today show that sometimes the people with the best access to information get swayed by other things; sometimes we know the right thing and fail to do it.

A post by Rose Marie Berger on the God’s Politics blog from Sojourners provided an antidote to all of this, as she reported on people of faith who have been among the 1,009 people arrested so far in the tar sands civil disobedience action in front of the White House. Among those quoted is Tim Kumfer of Tell the Word ministry:

The act of standing with a few sisters and brothers on behalf of all of us sends out shockwaves. It sets us free from the despair we all feel in a world rapidly deteriorating due to climate change. It reminds us that we’re not alone — that, in fact, we’re growing.

Freeing us from despair, finding hope when it’s hard to find, is a major role of people of faith at this time. Rose Marie Berger ends her post with these words: “When people of faith take risks to protect their covenant with Life, we witness God’s Word active in the world.”

Thanks be to God for this witness! And may all of us, when we know the right thing to do, go right ahead and do the right thing.

Praying the News: Keystone XL Pipeline

2011-09-01T20:36:00.007-05:00

Collect For the Conservation of Natural Resources (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 827):

Almighty God, in giving us dominion over things on earth you made us fellow workers in your creation: Give us wisdom and reverence so to use the resources of nature, that no one may suffer from our abuse of them, and that generations yet to come may continue to praise you for your bounty; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline is in the news in Nebraska and elsewhere. This morning’s Omaha World Herald and Lincoln Journal Star both carried front page articles about the pipeline. With Governor Heineman this week asking the President to deny the permit to build the pipeline, with State Department public hearings to gather testimonies about the pipeline scheduled in Lincoln and Atkinson the last week of September, and with protests in front of the White House and elsewhere, more and more people are hearing about this issue and taking an interest in it.

Praying the news is an especially rich spiritual practice when we become aware of issues that evoke a passionate response from ourselves and others. Praying about the pipeline issue doesn’t necessarily mean being so sure of our own position that we pray exclusively for ourselves and our political allies! When we pray the news, we hold the issue up to God and pray for compassion to be present in ourselves and others as we consider the issue and decide whether and how to act on it. We pray for increased clearness around the issue and for courage in following where the truth leads. In the case of the Keystone XL pipeline or any other issue, praying the news can help us prepare to listen well to people on all sides of the issue; it can help us prepare to come together to find creative solutions to challenges instead of having every important issue become a source of bitter division.

We can simply hold the issue up in contemplative silence, or we can pray about it in our own words, having a conversation with God (which involves listening at least as much as speaking). If it’s difficult to find a way to pray about the Keystone pipeline issue, we have a wealth of resources in The Book of Common Prayer to help us. The Collect for the Conservation of Natural Resources (at the top of this post) is a good place to begin. It points to some key components of the concerns about the pipeline and about all environmental justice issues – our role as “fellow workers” with God in God’s creation; our need for wisdom and reverence to help us make good and holy decisions; and concerns for the effects of our actions on other people, including people in generations yet to be born.

These prayers contain some of the same elements: For the Future of the Human Race (p. 828), both prayers For Guidance (p. 832), and the prayer of thanksgiving For the Beauty of the Earth (p. 840).

We may be moved to pray for the President and our Governor (For the President of the United States and all in Civil Authority, p. 820): “…make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in thy fear…”; we may be moved to pray for the people being arrested in front of the White House (For those who suffer for the sake of Conscience, p. 823) “…and to us your servants, give grace to respect their witness and to discern the truth…”; and For those who Influence Public Opinion (p. 827): “Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous…”

This seems a very good time to pray for our Nebraska Sandhills and the Ogallala aquifer using the prayer For Towns and Rural Areas (p. 825):

Lord Christ, when you came among us, you proclaimed the kingdom of God in villages, towns, and lonely places; Grant that your presence and power may be known throughout this land. Have mercy upon all of us who live and work in rural areas [especially in Nebraska]; and grant that all the people of our nation may give thanks to you for food and drink and all other bodily necessities of life, respect those who labor to produce them, and honor the land and the water from which these good things come. All this we ask in your holy Name. Amen.

And however we pray, offering our gratitude as well as our concerns will help us keep our hearts open and compassionate. Here’s the contemporary form of the prayer For Joy in God’s Creation (p. 814) to help us get to a place of gratitude:

O heavenly Father, who has filled the world with beauty; Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Resources

2011-08-22T21:24:00.007-05:00

Many of us believe that when we follow where God is calling us, the resources we need will appear. We often are surprised at what appears; we sometimes think we need a different sort of resource from what is provided to us; but when we stay flexible and in tune with God’s call, resources of all sorts do appear: spiritual resources, human resources, ideas, time, money, and so forth.

Practical Resources

I’m returning from a trip to Washington, D.C. The primary reason for this trip was to spend a day at a White House briefing for community leaders. We spent the morning together learning about things of interest to people working in a variety of areas. Among them were information about web-based resources that allow us to access information and to have some input as citizens. In the afternoon, I was part of a conversation with a smaller group with interests in energy and the environment, and we learned about further resources from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality to help us do the work we are doing in our communities. Here is a sampling of things that might be useful to people involved in environmental stewardship in parishes and communities:

The EPA home page – epa.gov – has a box in the left hand column labeled 'Info Where You Live'. In the there’s a space called ‘MyEnvironment’, where you can enter a ZIP code or address and access a variety of reports and statistics about air and water quality, pollutants, and so forth. It’s an easy way to find out the environmental strengths and challenges of a community.

The same box contains links to several types of resources, including one for grants. Under grants, the Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) program is especially interesting, as it gives grants to partnerships within a community. A parish could join with other churches or community organizations to reduce levels of toxic pollutants and build a self-sustaining coalition to help keep the environment safer.

The White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships forms partnerships between government and non-profit organizations, including churches, to serve the needs of communities.

Loving our neighbors

While in Washington, I discovered a multimedia exhibition, “Conversations with the Earth: Indigenous Voices on Climate Change”, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. The stories it tells are very moving. The exhibition is part of a much larger project by the same name. The resources from the Conversations with the Earth website, especially the photo essays and videos created by people in indigenous communities, give a good picture of how climate change (and sometimes misguided attempts at mitigating climate change) is threatening communities and peoples. This project is an excellent resource to help us understand the connection between Jesus’s commandment to love our neighbors and environmental stewardship. The photo essay from Manus Island in Papua New Guinea was one of those featured at the museum; this story of people trying to hold on to their homes and their culture despite the huge challenges presented by the rising ocean is especially poignant.

The Richest Resource

Sunday morning we were at Eucharist at Washington National Cathedral. Because I was going to witness the Tar Sands Action later in the morning, we were at the earlier service that followed the same service leaflet as this service. The sights and sounds and spirit of this space are a great source of spiritual nourishment. Dean Lloyd’s sermon on the Gospel lesson (Matthew 16:13-20) asked us to think about our own answers to the questions “Who is Jesus?”. Thinking about this in light of the work I was doing in Washington, it seems that answering the question of who Jesus is helps us better understand who we are because we know ourselves best in relation to Christ. And when we know who we are in relation to Christ, we not only have a sense of the unique work and way of life to which God calls each one of us, but we gain the strength and energy to do that work. That is the deepest and richest resource of all!

Recreation

2011-08-13T19:52:00.008-05:00

Wonder and Action

This week I’ve been in New York State and Ohio. While the trip was primarily about visiting family and helping out with some things, there was also time to be outdoors. Some dramatic skies as weather systems changed, an evening and morning at Niagara Falls, and walks in parks offered opportunities for wonder. Any sort of trip or activity becomes recreation in its true sense when we are open to seeing and experiencing opportunities for wonder. This is re-creation, joining with God in delight and love for all of God’s creation, experiencing the creation anew.

This week’s experience of the form of contemplation we call ‘wonder’ has been well-timed. I’m returning to Nebraska for a few days before heading to Washington, D.C. for some advocacy work (and no doubt for some more opportunities for wonder). After that, lots of work is ahead in Nebraska this fall.

It reminds me that while the distinction between contemplation and action is perhaps a useful way to talk about some of our religious experience, it is not a real distinction; contemplation and action are inseparable parts of a whole life. In its wider sense, contemplation refers to a variety of things such as wonder, different types of prayer, and reflection on Scripture. These contemplative practices give us a way to listen for God and discern the more active practices – e.g. service, teaching, administration – to which God is calling us. In particular, this week’s experience of wonder while anticipating the activities coming up in the weeks ahead reminded me that holy action must always be grounded in contemplation.

Eastern Africa: Drought and Famine

2011-07-30T21:12:00.003-05:00

Part 2

Proper 13A

When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’

Our Sunday Gospel reading (Matthew 14:13-21) is Matthew’s version of the story we read from Mark on Tuesday. Both accounts include Jesus’ clear instructions for the disciples: “You give them something to eat.” I posted Part I of this reflection about the drought and famine in Eastern Africa on Tuesday, talking about conditions in the refugee camps, the need for immediate aid, and the work that Episcopal Relief and Development is supporting there. The need is urgent; any compassionate response to the situation must include giving what we can to alleviate the terrible hunger and suffering in that part of the world.

But the size of this crisis in terms of both the number of people in need and the degree of the food crisis means that we need to do much more than send money in order to give our sisters and brothers in Eastern Africa something to eat. This week the Episcopal Public Policy Network (EPPN) called on Episcopalians to send a message to our representatives in Congress asking them to protect famine and drought aid to Africa. Noting that UNICEF has “called this the most severe humanitarian emergency in the world and the worst drought the region has experienced in 60 years”, EPPN reports that the House Appropriations Committee has proposed reducing humanitarian aid by 12% and food assistance programs by 18%. Along with sending our own dollars to aid agencies, we can advocate for compassion to remain as a priority in our national budget. A template making it easy to contact Congress is available from EPPN here.

Given that large-scale and long-term droughts are predicted to become more frequent as our climate warms, there are two more things people of faith are called to do in relation to drought and famine. First, we must continue to do all we can to curb global warming, working to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere and being willing to make changes in our own lives so that others might live.

However, with 393 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and 350 ppm being the safe limit for human life, warming will continue for a significant time even if the nations were to put policies in place that would limit greenhouse gas emissions to a safe level. And so there is one more thing for people of faith to do: pray, reflect, and develop policies to meet the need for humanitarian aid that is expected to grow as the effects of climate change – droughts, floods and disappearing coastal lands, windstorms, and loss of fish populations – become greater.

Our plans must include even more than the traditional aid response of food, supplies, and aid workers. As these needs increase, and especially as the number of climate refugees grows, there may well be a temptation by some in wealthier nations like ours to tighten our borders and hold tightly onto what we have. Christian compassion and Christian service may be in short supply. Our plans should perhaps include ways to prepare ourselves spiritually to remain compassionate to those in need, to be welcoming to strangers, and to be certain in our hearts that God cares for all of God’s children and all of God’s creation.

Eastern Africa: Drought and Famine

2011-07-26T23:15:00.005-05:00

^{Part I}

"Give them something to eat."

³⁵When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; ³⁶send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’ ³⁷But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ (Mark 6:35-37)

Jesus’ instructions to the disciples no doubt resonated with many of us reading today’s Gospel lesson as stories and pictures from Somalia and other parts of Eastern Africa are in our news. We have been seeing television reports such as this one from NBC News:

While the root cause of the famine in Somalia is drought, it is complicated by the political situation there. Hundreds of thousands of people have become refugees, going to centers in neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia, and in the Somalian capital, Mogadishu. This report from Episcopal Relief and Development tells about the refugee situation, as does this update from the UN Refugee Agency.

This video from the UN Refugee Agency shows the Daadab refugee camp in Kenya and tells the story of one woman’s journey with her children to the camp:

In an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times this week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon helps us understand the severity of the situation:

This is a wake-up call we cannot ignore. Every day I hear the harrowing reports from our U.N. teams on the ground. Somali refugees, their cattle and goats dead from thirst, walking for weeks to find help in Kenya and Ethiopia. Children who arrive alone, terrified and malnourished, their parents dead, in a foreign land.

From within Somalia, we hear terrible stories of families who watched helplessly as their children died, one by one. One woman recently arrived at a U.N. displacement camp 87 miles southwest of Mogadishu after a three-week trek. Halima Omar, from the region of Lower Shabelle, was once considered well-off. Today, after three years of drought, she barely survives. Four of her six children are dead.

Episcopal Relief and Development is providing aid to Somali refugees in Kenya through Episcopal and Anglican partners working with local agencies. Donations to Episcopal Relief and Development may be made here. Donations to the ERD Disaster Relief fund at this time are being directed to an ecumenical agency working with refugees in Kenya.

Donations to ERD or other established aid organizations are the way we can respond to Christ’s words “You give them something to eat.” This immediate response is essential.

Ban Ki-Moon also said this in his LA Times piece:

Even as we respond to this immediate crisis, we need to find ways to deal with underlying causes. Today's drought may be the worst in decades. But with the effects of climate change being increasingly felt throughout the world, it surely will not be the last. This means practical measures: drought-resistant seeds, irrigation, rural infrastructure, livestock programs.

The assistance program supported by ERD includes preparing the land to grow crops in the next rainy season. That is the next step once food has been provided.

With further droughts on the horizon, the church needs to think about how we insure food for God’s children in the longer term. Some thoughts on that in the next post.

God's Earth: Tar Sands

2011-07-21T16:22:00.006-05:00

Are we so complacent that we are willing to risk the economic future of our state and the land that feeds the nation and the world because we don’t want to pay more for gas? Are we so delusional that we don’t think a major spill will occur? Have we become so egocentric and short sighted that we can’t look down the road and see what we are risking for the sake cheaper fuel in the short term?

Fr. Don Huber asked these questions in a Keystone XL Pipeline post on his Agrestic Father blog yesterday. Fr. Huber laid aside some of the more typical questions about the proposed pipeline to ask some pointed questions about how we in Nebraska are responding to the possibility of having a pipeline bringing tar sands through our state. In particular, he addressed this question to people of faith:

Where are the voices of Christians, the people of God, who are entrusted to be the tillers and caretakers of the earth, the people who, according to Scripture, are the stewards of creation?

Related questions are raised in today’s meditation in Forward Day by Day. Reflecting on Psalm 50:12 – For the whole world is mine and all that is in it – this meditation asks what the world would look like today had we acted on the assertion that the earth belongs to God. What would our world be like if we really understood that God created and owns everything?

The proposed pipeline has the potential to do severe damage to Nebraska’s economy and ecosystem should it leak its contents into the Ogallala aquifer. The environmental damage where the tar sands are being mined in the Boreal Forest of Canada is already devastating. A report put together by environmental organizations, Tar Sands Invasion, describes some of its effects. First Nations people have been fighting back against the loss of fishing grounds, forest, and clean water. A rare form of cancer has appeared among these people that they suspect is connected to the pollution from the mining operation. Some of us in Nebraska were dismayed to learn that Kentucky is considering allowing hunting of sandhill cranes. Of more concern for bird lovers should be the effects of the tar sands mining operation on birds in the Boreal Forest. According to the Tar Sand Invasion report, 30% of North American songbirds and 40% of North American waterfowl rely on habitat in the Boreal Forest.

What sort of response do we give to this as people of faith? Where are our priorities? As Fr. Huber writes:

We cannot serve God and mammon, we cannot serve two masters. Doing the right thing is not always the cheapest way to solve a problem nor is it always the easiest. Which master will we serve? Our choice will have a dramatic effect on our future both here and at the judgment.

St. Stephen’s, Grand Island, is planning an evening to help us learn more about the Keystone XL pipeline on September 22. Watch the diocesan Ministry Memo or contact St. Stephen’s to find out more about this event as the date approaches. Nebraska Interfaith Power and Light is working on a response to the pipeline. In the meantime, it’s good to prayerfully read Fr. Huber’s post in its entirety and take a look at the Tar Sands Invasion report. If you are so moved, let our political leaders know that people of faith have deep concerns about this sort of project; encourage them to insist at the least on more safeguards, more research, and a route that avoids the Ogallala aquifer and the Sandhills ecosystem before allowing it to go forward.

For all the beasts of the forest are mine, the herds in their thousands upon the hills. I know every bird in the sky, and the creatures of the fields are in my sight…the whole world is mine and all that is in it. (Psalm 50)

Hope and the Work at Hand

2011-07-17T17:44:00.007-05:00

Proper 11A

Today’s lectionary readings include the passage from Romans (Romans 8:12-25) in which Paul talks about hope and how the whole of creation is waiting to be set free from its bondage to decay. One of last July’s posts, Hope,talked about this passage in light of two very different experiences: the peaceful experience of sitting outside on a summer morning for prayer, study, and contemplation, and the experience of feeling helpless and discouraged hearing news about pollution and climate change.

More recently, a post about Innate Optimism, Bad News, and Hope from the end of May talked about this passage in relation to even more discouraging news about the climate than we had a year ago. That post asked a couple of questions and offered a couple of general ideas about the particular contributions Christians might make as we face the realities of climate change:

One of the questions the church might be asking is what form our hope should take: What are our specific hopes in relationship to the realities of climate change? That we won’t face hardship? That our leaders will get it together at the last possible moment to avert the worst of the disasters that await us if we continue doing little or nothing? That we will simply find a way to live with dignity and meaning in the midst of all of this?

Other institutions are or will be working on other aspects -- economic, engineering, agricultural, military, political, etc. -- of adaptation to a warming world. Along with our traditional roles of disaster relief, perhaps the church should be thinking and praying about the deeper adaptation, the spiritual adaptation, to a world of increasing challenges and hardships. Christian love, our values of charity and kindness and care for our neighbors, will be an essential part of humankind’s adaptation to these new challenges. The sort of deep resilience that is rooted in faith is something else that might allow us to face our future with dignity and real hope.

This morning’s Gospel lesson (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) can give us some more insight into what our work might be at this time. The parable of the wheat and the weeds (formerly known as tares) makes it clear that it’s not our job to figure out who’s in and who’s out in God’s kingdom. Even if we could discern the wheat from the weeds, the web of interconnections that make up humankind and all of creation make it impossible to exclude others without ultimately excluding ourselves. But there is plenty of work for us to do; Jesus is clear about what our work is: the greatest commandment is the commandment to love. That love takes the form of serving one another: healing the sick, feeding the hungry, doing whatever we can to tend to “the least of these, the people in our world who are easily ignored or overlooked, the people who might look like weeds to us but might very well look like saints to God. The Gospel tells us that when our brothers and sisters are suffering because of environmental degradation, love calls us to do something to lessen that suffering and bring healing where there is brokenness.

Paul’s passage about hope seems to spring up in the Sunday lectionary or the Daily Office readings around the time there is some sort of especially discouraging news about the environment. This week was no exception.

Most obvious to Nebraskans would be the recent heat and humidity. This particular episode of heat and any one incredible dewpoint reading cannot be directly ascribed to climate change (this is the proviso we always need to make about any particular weather event), but it does fit the pattern of increasingly warm temperatures over time and also gives us a taste of what we can expect to be the norm in the years ahead. This heat wave has hit the entire central United States – e.g. as I write this the heat index in Bismarck, North Dakota is 112 degrees --and has spread east.

Also close to home for those of us on the Great Plains are tornado statistics for the year. The Weather Channel has a concise chart comparing the number and severity of this year’s tornadoes to those in an average year. So far this year, 537 people in the United States have been killed by tornadoes; the average number of deaths for an entire year is 56.

But perhaps the most discouraging news of the week has not been noticed much in this part of the country. Even though its effects on our climate will be huge, the accelerated melting of the Arctic ice seems too remote to be of much concern to many folks here. Melting at the Arctic – taking into consideration both the extent of sea ice and its thickness – is happening faster than predicted. (If you follow such things, you know this isn’t the first time that acceleration has been noted.) Joe Romm, who reports on some of the most recent findings in a July 16 post, says that he and some other scientists believe that the Arctic will have “virtually ice-free summers within a decade”. The loss of Arctic ice will accelerate warming for the rest of the planet. To learn about its immediate effects on the land and people near the Arctic coast, read this Icelights report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder.

The parable of the wheat and weeds acknowledges the existence of evil in the world. Part of the point of the parable is that ultimately, evil doesn’t threaten the reign of God. Paul reminds us that even when things seem most desperate, Christians live in hope. We don’t hope because we can see good things happening; we hope for what we can’t yet see. God is in charge. We don’t need to see everything; we don’t even need to know everything. What we do need to do is the work Christ has given us to do: lessen the suffering, bring healing, and have care and compassion for our brothers and sisters and for our planet that sustains life and whose wonders can give us so much joy.

Sowing the Seeds

2011-07-08T19:49:00.004-05:00

Proper 10A

Some gardeners carefully space seeds out in straight rows in their vegetable gardens. That had long been my method, but this year I got interested in the idea of polyculture (see Hope: Planting and Prayer 4/11/11) which involves a method of sowing that is closer to that described in the Gospel lesson for this Sunday (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23). While scattering seeds instead of placing them took some adjustment on my part, it was worth it; the garden has done well so far this summer. I have lost fewer plants than usual to bunnies, there are fewer weeds to pull, and there’s an abundance of produce in my small garden space.

This Sunday’s Gospel lesson touches on the work of environmental stewardship in a couple of ways. The passage begins with Jesus leaving the house where he had been and sitting beside the sea; when he speaks, he tells a story about seeds and thorns and different types of soil. In our theological wanderings, we may sometimes drift into the sort of dualistic thinking that divides spiritual things from physical things (and then almost always goes on to state that the spiritual things are superior to the physical things). Jesus comes along, though, goes outside and walks down to the sea, and speaks about seeds and soil, or fig trees, or birds and lilies. It’s hard to be convinced of this sort of dualism when Jesus goes down to the sea or up a mountain or into a garden, and when Jesus speaks so frequently about the created physical world, the world that God so loves.

Then we have the example of the sower. The sower sows generously, flinging seed around so profligately that some of it lands in places where it can’t grow. This method assures, however, that any place where there is deep, fertile soil will have a seed planted. The sower in the parable isn’t concerned with holding onto the seed (which will have a lower germination rate anyway if it’s saved for another growing season) but with growing as much as possible. If the sower focused on the seed that doesn’t grow, discouragement might set in; there would be a temptation to quit sowing so much seed, maybe to give up the whole task.

Our efforts as individuals and parishes to conserve energy and water, to reduce waste and recycle the waste we do produce, to advocate for the environment can begin to seem insignificant and futile when we look at the enormity of the task of restoring a healthy, sustainable environment and at the weak response from most governments. In a week in which oil spilled into the Yellowstone River, an unusually big dust storm swallowed up Phoenix, a report came out about the amount of plastic debris found in fish in the North Pacific, and the implications of the State of the Climate report continued to be realized (e.g. every month since 1985 has been warmer than the twentieth century average for that month), it’s difficult to see how or whether our efforts will make any difference.

But each effort we make is like planting a seed. Some efforts may not make a difference and some may. We usually won’t know one from the other. That doesn’t mean that our efforts are futile, though; it simply means that our job is similar to the sower’s job. God calls us to be faithful, to keep making the effort, as generous and extravagant an effort as we possibly can. Not every effort will take root and make a huge difference, but this method does ensure that a variety of efforts will be made in a variety of ways. If anything is going to take root and give results in the long run, the faithful efforts of God’s people to care for creation can plant the seeds, make the initial efforts, for the sorts of initiatives that take hold and help heal and sustain our environment.

Prayer for High Summer

2011-07-05T16:59:00.007-05:00

Gracious God, creator of the world and giver of all good things, we thank you for the beauty of high summer: for flowers and fruits, for birds and crickets, for sunny days, starry nights, and sudden rains. Help us in the warmth and abundance of these days to remember how fragile our future summers are. Help us through our love for you and for your summertime creation to find the wisdom and will to so order our lives that the delights of high summer might remain with us for generations to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The old-fashioned phrase “high summer” came to mind as I sat outside this beautiful morning in central Nebraska enjoying the quieter sounds of birds and chattering squirrels after yesterday’s Fourth of July celebrations. I was praying in gratitude for the beauty of the morning, all the while aware of the need to continue praying for all the living things of the earth as global temperatures continue to rise.

While a few of the prayers in The Book of Common Prayer are close to what I was praying this morning, we lack prayers for the occasions of specific seasons. The prayer of thanksgiving For the Beauty of the Earth (p. 840) comes closest to what I was praying; it captures the gratitude for the beauty of this sort of morning and this time of year, and then turns to praying “that we may safeguard [these good gifts] for our posterity”. The idea of safeguarding something brings to mind a picture of keeping out external forces that would bring harm. In 2011, we know that the forces that threaten the gifts of summer are both internal and external; our own habits threaten the very things we love. Furthermore, we know how close we are to losing what we love; we know that the future of the environment we know and love is fragile. Praying that we can safeguard the gifts of summer sounds a little like praying for continued good health for someone who is terminally ill.

Slate.com has posted an essay Walking Home from Walden from journalist Wen Stephenson. In Part Two of the essay, Stephenson writes about walking along a favorite place, a “sacred spot”, and coming to this realization:

As these realities sank in, it felt like a turning point of some kind had been reached. That day at Stone's Pond, I could no longer pretend, and I knew, with a kind of visceral force: This place is already condemned. In the blink of an eye, it will no longer exist. Not like this. Not the way I know it. And not because some future builder and bulldozer will destroy it, but because they—we—I—already have, by what we've already done. Walking through a hayfield on a cold, bright, and gusty New England morning, it can be hard to believe that the Arctic is melting, the oceans acidifying, the great forests dying, ancient glaciers disappearing. But I knew that all of it was true, and that this sanctuary, this refuge, was a private delusion, a self-indulgent fantasy. There was no refuge. There was no sanctuary. Not for me, not for anyone.

I hope this prayer for high summer helps give words to that tension so many of us are experiencing between our continuing joy in the beauty and wonder we still experience outdoors and the knowledge that the things we love so much are in grave danger of being lost forever; I hope it helps us hold the earth in prayer.

Imagination

2011-07-02T08:17:00.006-05:00

“Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you…” [Prayer of Self-Dedication, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 832]

A couple of things that have happened this week have me thinking about imagination. It’s good that we pray for full imaginations; well-developed imaginations are helpful to people who want to care for the earth.

A penguin story

Last week an emperor penguin appeared on a beach in New Zealand. The last time an emperor penguin was spotted in New Zealand was 1967, so this is a rare occurrence. At first the penguin was left alone, giving it an opportunity to swim back out to sea. But it became apparent that the penguin wasn’t going anywhere and soon didn’t appear to be well. People were concerned; as the title of an Earthweek article about the penguin puts it: Wayward Penguin Captures New Zealand Hearts. The bird was given the name Happy Feet and taken to the Wellington Zoo for veterinary treatment. When penguins get warm or dehydrated, they eat ice and snow. Finding itself on a sandy beach rather than a frozen beach, the penguin had eaten sand and driftwood. According to the New Zealand Herald, Happy Feet’s stomach was pumped again today.

Most people are compassionate when they know of an individual – a human being or another sort of animal – in need. With x-rays, air conditioning, and medical procedures, Happy Feet’s stay at the zoo isn’t cheap, but people are willing to help out in this sort of case. A Google search of “happy feet penguin” resulted in a row of images of the cute cartoon film penguin by the same name followed by three results for the film. Then comes a link to “Happy Feet’s stomach to be pumped again”. A particular individual case of an animal in need, something concrete, helps people to care; it also helps when the animal in need is associated with a cute cartoon creature!

It takes more imagination to care about the emperor penguins we don’t see, the ones that aren’t named or experienced as individuals or identified with a cute fictional character. A press release from ECO (the Environment and Conservation Organisations of NZ) points out that emperor penguins are “at grave risk of extinction from climate change by the end of the century”. Not only do emperor penguins need ice, but they breed only in the Antarctic winter and they feed on krill, which is itself impacted negatively by climate change. To feel the same level of compassion for these unseen birds as people do for Happy Feet, we need to be able not only to understand the facts about warming temperatures, melting ice, and dying animals, but also to be able to picture this future scenario in our imaginations.

In all aspects of environmental stewardship, it takes imagination to step from the science to compassion and the will to act. It also takes imagination to figure out the best ways to address climate change and other forms of environmental degradation. Climate change on the scale we are experiencing it is an entirely new problem; its solution may very well involve the breaking of some paradigms. Certainly we have seen that treating climate change like any other social issue doesn’t work; we don’t have the luxury of time. The laws of physics and chemistry don’t allow for gradual social change or political compromise.

Maps and Charts

Gardeners are familiar with maps of hardiness zones that help us figure out what varieties of plants can thrive where we live. These hardiness zones are changing, as some Nebraskans may have guessed from our own gardening experience. To help us imagine this on a national scale, an animated map of the changes in hardiness zones is helpful. Seen in this form, the changes from 1990 to 2006 are obvious.

The State of the Climate report for 2010 from the American Meteorological Association has been published. (See a summary here . NOAA summarizes some highlights of the report on this webpage.) The summary report of long-term trends – rising greenhouse gas emissions, rising global surface temperatures, and a sharply shrinking Greenland ice mass – includes helpful graphs of these climate indicators, making it easy to picture these trends on one level. But here again, it takes some imagination to begin to grasp the reality of these trends well enough to cause us to see the necessity for action.

The limits of our imaginations

Our limited imaginations can keep us from understanding our situation and from seeing how to best address the challenges we face. May God fill our imaginations so that we can be better stewards of the earth!

But realizing the limits of our imaginations can also be a blessing, because we know that no matter how good we get at imagining the possibilities for the future of our planet, we can never fully understand the bigger picture. In The Book of Common Prayer, one of our options for concluding Morning Prayer begins “Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine…” Remembering that God can do more than we can ask or imagine gives us hope. When we can’t imagine how we will live into our future, our prayers of self-dedication, of asking God to equip us with the hearts, minds, imaginations, and wills to do God’s work, may be answered in ways we cannot ask or imagine. The Prayer of Self-Dedication asks for God to equip us so that we can be wholly God’s and so that God might then use us to God’s glory “and to the welfare of your people”.

We very much need the gift of imagination at this time; we are also blessed to know the limits of our imaginations.

Worshiping Molech

2011-06-25T23:13:00.007-05:00

Proper 8A

Genesis 22:1-14; Romans 6:12-23

Molech was an Ammonite deity who was thought to require child sacrifice. This week's lesson from Genesis (Genesis 22:1-14) about Abraham taking Isaac up the mountain because he has heard God tell him to offer Isaac as a burnt offering reminds us of Molech, first in the nature of the command Abraham hears, and then in the moment when God says, “Do not lay your hand on the boy”, revealing God to be very different from Molech and the other lesser gods.

It’s worth noticing that the same week our Old Testament lesson brings Molech to mind, we had news about the environment that once again told about the perils we and our children face in the fairly near future.

There was the summary report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) which brought grim news about the deterioration of marine ecosystems. The report predicts that unless a massive effort is made to address the environmental stressors on the ocean, there will be a mass extinction of marine life sometime during this century. This is not good news for us, for our children, or for our children’s children, The same sorts of stressors affect the non-marine environment; these combined with the effects of the tragedy unfolding in our oceans do have and will have a profound effect on the world in which we and our children and grandchildren are living out our lives.

An article in Saturday’s New Zealand Herald, Toxic tide mankind’s next great threat, quotes a recent UN environmental program report known as Yearbook for 2011 describing plastics “lost” in the oceans as “the world’s new toxic time-bomb”. It seems that plastics floating in the ocean accumulate and concentrate chemicals we don’t want entering the food chain, such as PCBs and DDT. And as plastic photo-degrades, it eventually breaks into individual molecules of plastic that, invisible as they are, enter the food chain very easily.

These reports provide further evidence for what we already knew from looking at other forms of pollution and at climate change, its effects, and our failure to address the issue: we have chosen to sacrifice the lives of our children and our children’s children in the names of various gods -- gods of convenience and money and laziness and all sorts of sin -- gods too numerous to mention. These gods are today’s equivalent of Molech, deities that are not the true god but whom we mistakenly believe have so much power that we will sacrifice our children to them.

In this week’s lesson from Romans (Romans 6:12-23), St. Paul tells us “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Our understanding is that God offers us the gift of true life, ours for the taking, and that when we turn our back on that gift and instead choose to sin, putting all these lesser gods before our relationship with the Living God, the result of that is always death.

This understanding raises questions that should puzzle and disturb us more than the question of how Abraham could ever have set out in obedience to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. Given a God who offers us the good gift of eternal life -- life at its deepest levels -- why do we ever choose anything other than God’s freely given gift? Why is it so hard for us to choose life for ourselves and our children? Why do we give everything in the world precedence over ensuring that we leave our children a planet that can sustain human life? Why do we sacrifice our children and our children’s children to these lesser gods?

The Habakkuk Response

2011-06-23T22:30:00.006-05:00

Mass Extinction in the Ocean

This week brought a report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) that was labeled “shocking”. The shock value was at least as much about the rate at which marine ecosystems are deteriorating as it was about the specific observations and predictions. For those who follow these things, many elements of the report are not news, but the gravity of it all becomes more obvious with the timeline described and with consideration of the way these various elements interact with one another. The conclusion about the risk to both marine life and human life if we stay on our current course is grave: “the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.”

According to the report, the greatest stress on the ocean is global warming with its twin effects of warming the temperature of the ocean and causing ocean acidification. Dr. Alex Rogers, the scientific director of IPSO who says “when the oceans go down, it’s game over”, talks about the main problems we are looking at with the oceans and some possible solutions:

“I find it very difficult to tell people what a scary situation we’re in at the moment,” says Professor Chris Reid of the Marine Institute, University of Plymouth. “The oceans are changing in a huge way, and I’m particularly worried for my grandchildren.” Here’s the rest of what he says about the speed of the changes that are occurring:

Even though care was taken in the report to talk about possible solutions to this crisis, the report was very discouraging given the political realities of today’s world that make it highly unlikely that these solutions will be implemented in time to ward off mass extinctions in the ocean and the attendant effects on the rest of the world, including human life.

I read something else this week, an interview from Christianity Today called The Joyful Environmentalists: Eugene Peterson and Peter Harris. In it, Peter Harris talks about the difference between their work – work done “in response to who God is” -- and the work of secular environmentalists. Noting that environmentalists who believe they’ll be able to save the planet may easily get “exhausted and disillusioned and depressed”, Harris goes on to say:

If, on the other hand, you do what you do because you believe it pleases the living God, who is the Creator and whose handiwork this is, your perspective is very different. I don't think there is any guarantee we will save the planet. I don't think the Bible gives us much reassurance about that. But I do believe it gives God tremendous pleasure when his people do what they were created to do, which is care for what he made.

The idea of doing what we can to care for the earth out of a joyful response to the Creator resonates with the verses near the end of Habakkuk. Though the crops have failed and the livestock is gone, says Habakkuk, “yet I will rejoice in Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). The Habakkuk response suggests a spiritual path to help us avoid despair and do the work of creation care as well as we possibly can in the difficult years ahead.

Dominion, Trinity Sunday, and Father's Day

2011-06-20T23:42:00.002-05:00

Yours are the heavens; the earth also is yours; you laid the foundations of the world and all that is in it. (Psalm 89:11)

(Monday) This morning’s Psalm with its reminder that all of creation -- the heavens, the earth, and the sea -- belong to God echoed the account of creation from the first chapter of Genesis (Genesis 1:1-2:4a) that we read as one of our Trinity Sunday lessons.

While yesterday was Trinity Sunday on the liturgical calendar, most Americans thought of it as Father’s Day. I don’t know how many times around Father’s Day this year I heard people say something to the effect that there’s a big difference between being a biological father and actually being a man who acts like a dad, who cares for and protects and teaches and loves a child, whether his own biological offspring or another child: “Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.” That Father’s Day thought came to mind when I was listening to Verse 28, “the dominion passage”, in yesterday’s reading. This is the verse that says that after the creation of humankind, God said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

Some people have taken the command to have dominion over other living things as permission to do whatever we want with the resources God has given us, to simply dominate other living things, while others look at having dominion as caring responsibly for other living things and the resources that support life. Those who support the latter interpretation look at this passage in the context of all of Scripture instead of in isolation. Passages such as today’s Psalm that remind us that creation ultimately belongs to God, not us, provide some of the context for the responsible care interpretation. The command in Genesis 2:15 to “till and keep” the garden also points to this latter interpretation. In his book For the Beauty of the Earth Steven Bouma-Prediger suggests that Genesis 1:28 and 2:15 taken together call us to be “earthkeepers”.

The distinction between dominion as domination and dominion as responsible care is parallel to the distinction between fatherhood as a purely biological matter and fatherhood as standing in a certain healthy relationship to a child. The fact of being a parent, of having authority over a child, doesn’t mean that it’s okay to treat that child any way we please. We expect good fathers and mothers to nurture their children, to protect them and teach them and certainly to love them. Having authority over God’s other creatures doesn’t mean that it’s okay to treat other living things and the resources that support their lives (and ours) any way we please. With that authority from God comes an expectation that we will care for creation, protect and tend and keep creation, and love God’s creation.

Anyone can be a member of the species homo sapiens, but it takes someone special to be an earthkeeper.

Wind of Pentecost

2011-06-15T13:58:00.006-05:00

Feeling the Spirit outdoors

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” (Acts 2:1-2)

According to Acts, Jesus’ followers were inside on the day of Pentecost. The congregation of St. Stephen’s, however, gathered outdoors this year at L.E. Ray Park in Grand Island. We baptized a teen-ager and three babies in the lake, celebrated the Eucharist using a picnic table as the altar, and had a picnic afterwards instead of the usual coffee hour. The weather forecast when we went to bed Saturday night was terrible for the next morning – an 80% chance of thunderstorms, possibly severe – but by Sunday morning a good breeze (as opposed to a violent wind) pushed the clouds to the south and east, the sun came out, and it was a lovely morning for an outdoor worship service.

The people who came said we should do this more often; there was something very special about our worship that morning. As I’ve shared our experience with others this week, it’s obvious that lots of people find something in worshiping together outdoors that is missing when we worship inside a building. People remarked on how peaceful it was; the sounds of the birds and lapping of the water, and the sights of the water sparkling in the sunlight and the trees moving in the wind contributed to that feeling of peace. People also seemed more joyful (not that we are lacking in joy when we are indoors); being outdoors and trying some new things was simply fun!

There are advantages, of course, to our usual space: we are sheltered from extremes in temperatures and from precipitation, the acoustics are better, and we don’t have to hold down the fair linen and the pages of the altar book with rocks to keep them from blowing around. But indoors we also can’t feel the sun beginning to warm the morning air, we don’t hear the birds sing, and, most notably on a day like Pentecost, we can’t feel the wind blow.

The Greek word for the wind (not a violent wind, but the sort of breeze we felt on Sunday) is pneuma; like the Hebrew word ruah this means wind and spirit and breath. As Jesus explained to Nicodemus (John 3: 7-8), the Spirit/wind is a moving thing. We experience it, but we don’t control it. We feel it, but we don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. We Nebraskans know about the untamed nature of the wind perhaps better than some other people would!

When the wind blows strongly, and especially when the wind turns very cold or very hot, it’s almost instinctive to shelter ourselves from it, but if we always avoid being out in the wind, we miss an opportunity to more fully understand the meaning of what Scripture tells us about the Spirit. Remembering the connections between wind and Spirit might help us see whether we are also trying to shelter or hide from the Spirit. We know that’s ultimately impossible to do – the Spirit rushed right into the house where Jesus’ followers were gathered – so on one level our attempts to hide don’t matter, but an openness to the Spirit can give us peace that evades us when we are trying to evade the Spirit.

A well-designed indoor space can provide sights and sounds that enhance our worship, but it’s good to occasionally leave those spaces and experience sights and sounds that we don’t control. During the homily Sunday morning, I watched a goose walk through the lawn chairs where the congregation was seated and on into the lake, where it swam out into the lake and then came back closer to the shore behind our temporary altar. It was so good not to have a wall separating us from that sight! It was a reminder that as much as we try to do everything in what we consider to be “good order”, God’s ideas of good order might be different from ours.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis makes it clear that while Aslan is good, Aslan is not a tame lion. God is not a tame god and doesn’t always fit into the spaces – physical, intellectual, and spiritual – that we design. The wind blows where it will; the Spirit blows where it will. I’m thankful for our outdoor worship reminding us that the Spirit that brings us peace is also an untamed Spirit, a Spirit that blows where it will, leads us where it will, and fills us with the sort of power we experience when we pay attention to God’s creation.

A New Thing for a New World

2011-06-10T15:36:00.005-05:00

While sitting and waiting for my turn to vote in the election of our new bishop last Saturday, the idea came to me of writing an open letter to whomever we elected that day, a letter that would talk about the importance of our diocese putting and keeping environmental issues before us in a more intentional way. Like most everyone who was at the election, once we elected The Rev. J. Scott Barker , turned in our credentials, and got home (though my getting home, unlike that of others, was an easy and happily eco-friendly matter since I live near the Pro-Cathedral), I was exhausted. The idea of an open letter was forgotten.

Sunday morning, I woke up eager to get up to Grand Island and share the news of the election with folks at St. Stephen’s. It was exciting to think about the new possibilities for ministry in several areas that might emerge in our diocese under Scott’s leadership. As I do most Sundays, I got up early enough to have a leisurely breakfast and check the weather report and news headlines before heading to church. The news of the day quickly reminded me that there are things about which we – all of us, in the church and out of the church – need to be talking much more than we are. There are things we need to be thinking through and doing that we are instead putting out of our minds and neglecting doing. I remembered my idea about writing to our bishop-elect about these issues.

From Sunday on the news stories brought the issue of climate change both closer to home and closer to a place where ignoring the issue was becoming more difficult for many people. When I picked up the Sunday papers from our porch, the Omaha World Herald featured a story about the Missouri River flooding: Even tamed, river a threat. When I checked the weather forecast on The Weather Channel website, there were links to articles such as Expert says Tornadoes 106% Above Average and California’s June Oddity about the highly unusual amount of rain in California in early June. The New York Times online ran an article with the headline Food Supply Under Strain on a Warming Planet.

As the week went on, records for high temperatures were broken in many American cities, fires burned in Arizona (the maps and photos on Wildfire Today give some idea of the size of the affected area), people along the Platte River as well as the Missouri were warned of flooding, and temperatures continued to be high in the eastern part of the country.

It seemed this week that more people were making a connection between all of these “extreme weather” events and climate change. There was news of a timely Stanford University study predicting that “large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly by the middle of this century even the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years.” The study talks about an “irreversible rise” – yes, irreversible – for the tropics and much of the Northern Hemisphere if – and our hope is tied to negating this antecedent ‘if’ clause – greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase. On Wednesday, Plomomedia put this illustrated and narrated version of Bill McKibben’s essay A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never! on YouTube:

And today Richard Black of the BBC reports that the observed climate warming since 1995 – the warming that seemed to match the predictions of climate scientists – has now, with the accumulation of one more year of data, reached the point of statistical significance.

With that sample of the kinds of things we know about and are thinking about with regard to the climate, we come to the idea of an open letter to our bishop-elect, Scott Barker. While I hope to see the sort of leadership from Scott that would be helpful as we work with this issue, it hardly seems right to address a letter to a bishop-elect asking him to take on the task of leading us into the coming years with our eyes wide open to the realities of the world around us as if the bishop is the only one with any responsibility for this work. Rather, it seems better to have people already in the Diocese of Nebraska ready to talk with our new bishop about the impact of these issues in this place and to present creative ideas for him to consider as he gets his feet on the ground. Instead of an open letter to our new bishop, then, consider this an open plea to the diocese as a whole to be ever mindful of climate change and other environmental issues as we do ministry in our diocese and in our parishes. Given the lack of questions during the walkabout about either the effects of climate change on our programs or the church’s response to this pressing need in our world, we have some work to do to get to that level of awareness.

I don’t know off the top of my head the particulars of what these radical changes in our world might mean to our planning, to our living out our mission. That’s something we have to tackle as a diocese. What is clear to me is this: we can discern where we go with our knowledge about these changes only if we truly know and accept the reality of where climate change leaves us. Climate change is no longer a separate issue. It isn’t something that a handful of people in the diocese think we should address because it relates to the Millennium Development Goals or because it shows that the Episcopal Church cares about the world. All of those are still among the reasons to do this work, but the failure of our institutions – governmental, religious, civic – as a whole to have done this work early enough and well enough leaves us with something much more urgent and much bigger, something we can’t continue to leave unacknowledged most of the time.

We must do some triage; we must ask which elements of our current life as a diocese are essential and which things might be, while good and worthwhile in themselves, expendable or open to revision in this time of rapid change. We need to ask what new elements of ministry might help us better minister to the world and to our own faith community in this century. The whole of what we are doing now is at best unsustainable. Insofar as it lulls us into assuming that the way we are living is spiritually sound it is worse than unsustainable; insofar as it leads us to think that the way we have lived and the way we have done church in the past is still the way to follow Christ today, we are leading people into sin.

We will change in this century, while many of us are still living on this earth. Staying the same is not a long-term option. We can choose to make significant changes (and some of these will be difficult changes) now in order to mitigate the effects of climate change on our lives in the future, or we can choose to continue to do business as usual, church as usual, for a few more years until change of a graver nature is ours with no more choice in the matter. The first choice gives us opportunity to do a new thing with joy; the latter choice might give us some short-term comfort. As we sang at the Election Council Eucharist, "Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the living of these days."

ACEN: Anglican Communion Environmental Network

2011-06-05T22:11:00.005-05:00

Ascension Sunday

The Anglican Cycle of Prayer listed today as Ascension Sunday and also as World Environmental Day, and bade prayers for the Anglican Communion Environmental Network (ACEN) : “Pray for the Anglican Communion Environmental Network (ACEN) as it promotes local initiatives to protect the environment, and encourages the education of Anglicans, as individuals and as communities, to become better stewards of God’s creation.”

The home page of the ACEN website contains the mission statement for the network along with links to current news items about environmentalism in the Anglican Communion. The most recent link is to an article about the Anglican Church in South Africa preparing for the 17^th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17) to be held in Durban late this year. The article explains that “With provincial and diocesan programmes around the Communion, particularly in the southern hemisphere, increasingly having to integrate a response to the impacts of climate change within local mission, it is hoped that governments will make firm and urgent commitments to decrease national carbon emissions.”

Anglicans in South Africa invite people from other parts of the communion to join them in Durban for COP17. The Rev. Dr. Andrew Warmback from the Diocese of Natal explains:

We will be part of civil society's watching brief to show our governments that the world is eagerly waiting for an outcome from the COP17 deliberations that will bring justice to the world and enable sustainable, ecologically-sound development for all people, especially those most in need and the poorest of the poor. This is our opportunity to witness to our faith, and publicly to put our faith into action, calling for an ethical and moral outcome to COP17.

Some of us observing today as Ascension Sunday read Psalm 47 this morning. Robert Alter’s translation from the Hebrew (in Alter’s The Book of Psalms) of the last four verses of Psalm 47 are:

For king of all earth is God, hymn joyous song.

God reigns over the nations, and sits on His holy throne.

The princes of peoples have gathered, the people of Abraham’s God.

For God’s are the land’s defenders. Much exalted is He.

Certainly these verses suggest a reason for God’s people throughout the Anglican Communion to care about the earth and to put our faith into action in defense of the earth.

Innate Optimism, Bad News, and Hope

2011-05-31T16:34:00.007-05:00

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)

Over the long weekend, I came across two Scripture lessons from Romans, a Time magazine article, an editorial from The Guardian, and a press release from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) that all stuck in my mind as a group. All five were worthy of some attention on their own, but what really intrigued me was the way these five disparate things seemed to be related. I’m still unraveling the relationships among them, but am sharing them along with my initial thoughts about them because they seem to point toward some of the questions which all of us, and the church in particular, should perhaps be asking ourselves in the second half of 2011.

It all started with Saturday’s Daily Office lessons, including the verse quoted above about hope. God is the God of hope, it says, and Paul is praying that the Romans might “abound in hope” – have abundant hope – that flows out of the joy and peace of belief, a belief that seems itself to be grounded in hope.

Optimism

The June 6 issue of Time magazine arrived with a cover story about “the science of optimism”. The article, The Optimism Bias, is adapted from a book by the same name by Tali Sharot. The next biggest headline on the cover of the magazine is “In the Twister’s Path: What’s behind the worst tornado season in 50 years?” While that article does ask the question, “Is this the ‘climate chaos’ that scientists of global warming have been warning about?”, no answer is given, and most of the article simply reports on the tornado’s damage.

The Optimism Bias argues that we have an innate bias towards believing “that the future will be much better than the past and present.” The article gives examples of optimistic expectations even when those expectations are not reasonable. Yet this bias helps us to imagine a better future and then work towards it:

Even if that better future is often an illusion, optimism has clear benefits in the present. Hope keeps our minds at ease, lowers stress and improves physical health. Researchers studying heart-disease patients found that optimists were more likely than nonoptimistic patients to take vitamins, eat low-fat diets and exercise, thereby reducing their overall coronary risk.

I wondered whether this view of optimism might help explain our widespread denial about the reality of climate change caused by human activity – both whether it is occurring at all and how urgent a problem it is. On the one hand, the example of the optimistic heart-disease patients suggests that optimism might make us more willing to do the things we need to do – like drastically reducing the amount of CO2 we send into the atmosphere – because we believe we can succeed in creating a better future if we do these things. On the other hand, unrealistic optimism might keep us from understanding the severity of our global predicament.

“The worst news”

Then came the editorial from The Guardian, Global warming: Bleaker and bleaker, which begins with these words:

Sometimes a quotation really does say it all. As chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol is not given to overstatement – so his comment in our paper today that the latest figures on greenhouse gas emissions are "the worst news" should be taken seriously.

The editorial argues that the diplomatic, economic, and industrial strategies that were supposed to adequately address climate change have failed, and there are no strategies to take their place. It ends by saying this:

Today's figures, then, show a world still hurtling towards dangerous climate change – at a time when policymakers are out of solutions for slowing this process. "A nice utopia" is how Mr Birol describes the hope of keeping a rise in global temperatures below 2C. And if he thinks that, we should all be alarmed.

Hope

But then there was the Epistle Reading for our celebration of Rogation Sunday Romans 8:18-25: “…But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Paul talks not only about humankind waiting in hope, but about “the whole of creation” waiting. This passage reminds us that hope is truly hope only if we don’t know it as a present or certain reality.

A “stark warning”

Finally, I came across the press release from the UN FCCC, “UN Climate Chief says IEA estimate of record 2010 emissions is stark warning to governments to make rapid climate progress this year” (IEA = International Energy Agency) that gives some background for the bleak editorial from The Guardian. In it, though, UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres is quoted as saying, “I won’t hear that this is impossible. Governments must make it possible for society, business and science to get this job done.”

Questions

Reflection on this mixed bag of readings raises some questions. Given our present circumstances with regard to the environment, how do we “abound in hope”? It can be hard to find a glimmer of hope, let alone abound in it! Yes, we might answer that Paul is talking about “spiritual hope”, not hope for our world, but we know from the Romans 8 passage that Paul is talking about hope for the world, all of us and all of creation. If we have hope anchored in the joy and peace of belief and if it is plentiful, it needs to be hope with some substance!

We may have a bias towards optimism, but facts can adjust our expectations, especially if we are aware of our tendency to believe the best even when it is unrealistic. Where does that leave us?

For right now, that hope or optimism that helps us see that there is good reason to change our habits is one of our greatest gifts. The hope that gives Christiana Figueres the resolve to say, “I won’t hear that this is impossible” just might get us where we need to go. If we think that we can choose to do things that create a better future, then we just might do them. And we just might think there’s some point in letting our leaders in government, industry, and the church know that we expect the same from them. And if none of that happens, if it’s all too little too late, may we find some sort of hope to help us bear the realities we will have created.

3+ Gardens

2011-05-30T19:42:00.007-05:00

Rogation Days

Gusty winds kept some of us in Nebraska from big home garden projects today, while others were out there somehow keeping everything anchored down and hoping for the best (e.g. no hail storms this evening) for plants being set out. All things being equal, today would be a big gardening day. Most obviously, it's Memorial Day, the third day of a long weekend at the beginning of the summer. Less known, but in some ways more relevant, because of the date for Easter this year – which determines the date of Ascension Day (June 2 this year) and all the other days from Easter through Pentecost – today is also the first of the three Rogation Days. Traditionally, Rogation Days are a time for prayers of petition, and particularly for prayers for the land and its newly planted crops and for special blessings for fields. Today, with our understanding of the way care for the environment affects our ability to grow crops, the Rogation Days invite our prayers not only for the fields closest to home, but for the entire planet.

At St. Stephen’s this Sunday we used the Rogation Day propers and observed Rogation Sunday. We talked about stewardship of creation in the homily and at a program afterwards launching our GreenFaith green certification work. We remembered the way this work is rooted in Scripture and in Anglican tradition, and also recognized the way our parish has always cared for the parish grounds.

St. Stephen’s is downtown, right on Route 30, in Grand Island. Surrounded by blocks where the only trees are fairly young, recent additions, our corner has mature trees that have been cared for through years when other downtown trees were neglected or removed. While we lack the spacious grounds of some of our suburban churches, we have managed over the years to find space for three small gardens: a prayer garden in the courtyard between the main church building and the St. Stephen’s Community Center; a memorial garden created by the Webb family near our red doors; and a new (two weeks old!) community garden – with vegetables and flowers for whoever wants them -- behind our youth center across the street from the main building. Despite a steady drizzle Sunday morning, we processed outside for the prayers of the people, remembering the needs of the world at the community garden and blessing this newest of our three gardens. Then we walked back across the street and remembered the departed (including those who died in service to our country) at the memorial garden. Finally, we processed down the alley and through the back gate of the prayer garden to pray for our own needs and those of others dear to us.

Processing from one area to another for different categories of prayers helped us remember that our Sunday prayers and petitions aren’t just for ourselves and our ten closest friends and relations, but for the whole church and the world. Simply being outdoors in the three gardens gave us a spirit of thanksgiving that can be lacking in our standard prayers. The simplicity of our Rogation liturgy made it possible for us to be at once prayerful and refreshed.

Being in a garden, digging in the dirt, helps keep us connected to the Creator; it gives us true spiritual grounding, sometimes in a profound way. Parish gardens, whether designed for prayer and contemplation or to provide food for people, help the members of the parish remember that our lives as Christians aren’t contained within the walls of our church buildings, and they can remind people passing by of God’s gifts to us, especially the gift of new growth. Our community garden is a gift for the parish and for the wider community, a sign of the open doors and open hearts that bring new growth of all sorts to our parish.

As noted in a July 6, 2008 post , gardens are designed for a variety of purposes in a variety of settings, but all have some spiritual benefits in common.

The rain (and perhaps the prayerfulness of the liturgy) kept cameras tucked away Sunday morning. Here is a before picture of the community garden area, a place in obvious need of some beautification! (We were relieved that a soil test showed lead levels well within the acceptable range.)

And here (click here) are some lovely slides of the prayer garden at St. Augustine of Canterbury in Elkhorn, a parish in a suburban setting where there is plenty of room for gardens. This prayer garden is listed with The Quiet Garden Trust, a network of gardens set aside for prayer and reflection.

Tornadoes: Deeper Compassion

2011-05-25T14:57:00.005-05:00

The midsection of the United States has been hit by violent storms, tornadoes, and floods, and more is forecast for today and tonight. Earlier this spring, violent tornadoes tore through the southeastern United States. All sorts of records have been broken.

A spare article from the Associated Press, 2011 Tornadoes By the Numbers, tells part of the story. It’s not only the number of tornadoes or the fact that they have hit populated areas that has caused so much damage; it’s also the intensity of the tornadoes.

The Joplin tornado has been rated EF-5, the highest possible rating. No amount of warning or preparedness can keep this sort of tornado from causing a disaster if it hits a populated area. Holly Yan of CNN asks why with all the advancements in storm technology, we have seen so far this year 8.5 times the average number of tornado fatalities in an entire year. She quotes CNN meteorologist Chad Myers saying that some tornadoes are just too big to survive.

Our response to so much destruction as human beings and as Christians is a desire to help ease the pain of the survivors. We respond by offering whatever aid we can and by offering prayers. Episcopal Relief and Development offers assistance through its USA Disaster Relief Fund. A note about their efforts after the Joplin tornado is found here, and donations can be made through this page.

We wonder why we are seeing so much severe weather, so much suffering, in one season. Asking that question can lead us to a deeper level of compassion, a deeper commitment to alleviating suffering.

If we expand our vision to the rest of the world, we see that our season of severe weather is part of a global phenomenon. Alice Thomas, Climate Displacement Program Manager for Refugees International, writes in a post called Colombia: Water, Water Everywhere about the situation in Colombia over the past year, where three million people have been affected by record rainfall and flooding that has left “hundreds of thousands” of people homeless, and then goes on to talk about the number of people displaced by extreme weather events in 2010. She ends this article – one that is best read prayerfully – with these words:

I am left questioning the wisdom of continuing to view today’s extreme events as unforeseen occurrences for which no one is responsible, as acts of God or nature, as risks that cannot be managed. It is starkly evident that neither national governments nor the humanitarian community is prepared to respond to the increasing pressure that climate variability is bringing to bear not only on some of the world’s poorest and most crisis-prone countries but also on a humanitarian system that is already over-stressed and woefully underfunded.

This blog has said before that no single weather event can be linked to climate change. However, several extreme weather events in several places begin to suggest a pattern. We know that warmer air holds more moisture and that very humid air is one of the ingredients for tornadoes, violent thunderstorms, and, of course, for heavy rains. Climate scientists predict periods of drought punctuated by periods of extreme rain, a sort of watery feast or famine, and they have predicted just the sort of extreme weather we are seeing this spring. If extreme weather events are indeed risks that can be managed by addressing the problem of global warming and climate change, it would seem to be our moral duty to address these issues.

Bill McKibben yesterday wrote a tongue-in-cheek opinion piece for The Washington Post, A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never! in which he parodies our reluctance to connect the dots and recognize an emerging pattern.

In a different tone, today’s meditation in Forward Day by Day ends with this from classic Christian author Oswald Chambers: “Only by refusing to think about things as they are can we remain indifferent.” If we truly have compassion for the victims of extreme weather events, we will want to know the truth about the cause of these events and, if changes in the way we live can help reverse the trend, will find a way to do so.

On my way home from the walkabout on Saturday, my husband and I dodged severe storms in eastern Nebraska. About ten miles from home, we saw a rainbow, a sign of hope. I’ve seen pictures of a double rainbow after the Joplin tornado. The hope symbolized by those rainbows can be realized if we find the will to give environmental concerns the priority they deserve.

Nebraska Walkabout

2011-05-19T23:47:00.006-05:00

For all the beasts of the forest are mine,*

the herds in their thousands upon the hills.

I know every bird in the sky, *

and the creatures of the fields are in my sight.

(Psalm 50)

These images from this morning’s psalm were especially rich for me today because I’ve been traveling through Nebraska this week as part of the support team for our bishop candidates who are on their walkabout around the diocese. Our itinerary has allowed us to see several areas of the state and experience the beauty of springtime in Nebraska. We’ve seen and heard a variety of birds; we’ve seen calves and colts in pastures, deer in the countryside, and prairie dog towns in the sandhills. We’ve seen spring green grass, wildflowers along the road, lilacs in bloom. Tonight in Lincoln we are experiencing the energy of a thunderstorm.

The scale of the landscape in much of Nebraska reminds us of how small we are; we are unimaginably smaller and less powerful compared with God. The reminder of our relative size and strength leaves us in awe of God’s greatness; this psalm suggests that an awareness of God’s greatness impels us to obedience and right relationship with God. Surely if awe at God’s creation can inspire us to want to live rightly with God, part of that right relationship is consciously caring for creation itself.

Three recommendations in Vatican report

2011-05-06T19:31:00.006-05:00

“What then should we do?”

“The cost of the three recommended measures pales in comparison to the price the world will pay if we fail to act now.” This statement follows three recommendations made in a report from a group of scientists organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican. They met in April to discuss the causes and consequences of the retreat of mountain glaciers, and to prepare a report for the Vatican, Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene, about their conclusions.

The Scripps Institute of Oceanography, to which four of the scientists are connected, points out in their press release about the report that it’s unusual for scientists to propose actions to respond to the situations they describe in this sort of report, but that panel co-chair Veerabhadran Ramanathan said that “the circumstances warranted” doing so in this case. The three recommendations are immediate reduction of CO2 emissions “using all means possible”; reducing the amount of “warming air pollutants” (dark soot, methane, lower atmosphere ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons) by up to 50%; and preparing to adapt to both chronic and abrupt climate changes.

Yesterday’s post on this blog, “What then should we do?”, asked what we should do in response to our increasing understanding of the changes we face on our planet. This report to the Vatican begins with a Declaration by the Working Group that ends with these words:

We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish.

That commitment itself suggests another way of answering the question “What then should we do?” And the plain statement that the cost of not carrying out these recommendations far exceeds the cost of doing what we need to do now tells us that now is when we should start doing whatever it takes to maintain a sustainable environment for all of God’s children.

What Then Should We Do?

2011-05-05T20:34:00.007-05:00

Arctic melting accelerating; sea levels rising

“What then should we do?” is the question the crowds ask John the Baptist in today’s Gospel lesson (Luke 3:1-14) for the Daily Office lectionary. John the Baptist is preaching about “the wrath to come”, a time of judgment, and tells the crowd that who they are or who their ancestors were won’t make any difference. Instead, they need to “bear fruits worthy of repentance”.

"What then should we do?" What does it look like to bear fruits worthy of repentance? John’s answer seems a little surprising, given John’s dramatic description of the coming time and the crowd’s apprehension. He tells them to do some fairly simple things: If you have extra clothing or food, share it with those in need. Tax collectors should collect no more than the prescribed amount. Soldiers shouldn’t use their power to extort money, but instead be satisfied with the money they are paid. Repentance, true sorrow for sins and an effort to live a better life, doesn’t have to be something dramatic or showy. It’s evidenced in daily behavior, in basic moral decency. It’s shown in caring for the poor, in everyday honesty, in using one’s power for good.

Instead of being proclaimed by a modern-day John the Baptist with apocalyptic imagery, a news story about the most recent scientific findings concerning climate change and sea level rise has been buried in the news this week. The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) has released a summary of a full report that will be delivered to the foreign ministers of the eight Arctic nations next week; the Associated Press first reported on the summary on Tuesday of this week (see New report confirms Arctic melt accelerating ).

Three to Five Foot Rise in Sea Level by 2100

A prediction of sea level rise in this century made by the United Nation’s panel on climate change in 2007 predicted a sea level rise of 7 to 23 inches by 2100. That prediction did not take into account the dynamics of ice melting in the Arctic and Antarctica; research since that time makes it possible to include those dynamics in this new estimate. The new prediction is that sea levels will rise anywhere from 35 to 63 inches by 2100 – in the next 89 years. A baby born today may very well see great changes in geography through sea level rise alone, apart from other factors related to climate change.

The sorts of feedback mechanisms that scientists had predicted we would see as the Arctic ice started melting have now started to kick in. The report says that temperatures in the Arctic region the past six years were the highest ever recorded since measurements began in 1880. That means that even if carbon emissions were cut drastically tomorrow, some of the heating and melting would continue. We are no longer talking about preventing the melting of the Arctic ice cap and a consequent rise in sea level; we are talking about mitigation, about keeping the rise in both temperature and sea level rise as low as possible given where we are now.

What then should we do?

As we think about these comparatively rapid changes in our world and about the consequences for people and communities in coastal regions, we might very well ask the question the crowds asked John the Baptist: What then should we do?

There are several books that address that question in some depth. Two that I can recommend are Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse by David W. Orr and Eaarth by Bill McKibben. Both acknowledge that our planet has already been changed in ways that will not be reversed, but both also describe with hope ways to adapt to our changing planet and mitigate the effects of climate change.

My guess is that John the Baptist’s way of answering the same question points toward the way we might best answer it. While the more dramatic, large-scale underpinnings for our response to climate change will need to come from government and corporations, the lasting changes will come from our daily actions. As we come to understand that basic moral decency in this century includes weighing the environmental consequences of our everyday actions, the choices we must make will become clearer.

Those simple things we all know we should do – turning off lights when we leave a room, growing some of our own food and/or buying locally produced food, planning our errands to minimize driving, using alternatives like walking, biking, or public transportation where possible – aren’t very glamorous. They make a difference, though, not only in carbon emissions, but in the way we think about our relationship to the earth. As we consciously change our actions, we become more aware of our relationship to the earth; and as we become more aware of our relationship to the earth, the easier it is to see and accept the changes we must make if we are to preserve a sustainable environment for ourselves and for those who will be alive at the next turn of the century.

What then should we do? Be awake and aware. Find out what is happening, even if the news about climate change isn’t on the front page of the newspaper. Do the simple things we know can make a difference, and actively seek other things we can do. Advocate for policy changes in government and industry. Pray for the earth and pray for wisdom and guidance for ourselves and our leaders.

Or, as John the Baptist says, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”