Return to the Beautiful River

The Baptism of Our Lord, 2015

On the day we celebrated The Baptism of Our Lord a year ago, I shared the experience of reflecting on the waters of baptism during morning worship immediately after reading about the contamination of the Elk River in West Virginia from a coal-washing chemical. Especially poignant that morning was singing the hymn Shall We Gather at the River? with its chorus about "the beautiful, the beautiful river".

Platte River near Grand Island, Christmas 2014

Today we sang that hymn again. This time it was the Keystone XL pipeline that was on my mind. Knowing my interest in the issue, people talked to me about it before church, keeping this week’s events around the pipeline well in my mind as our service began.  People expressed an ongoing concern about possible contamination of our water and land right here in Nebraska should this pipeline be built and used to transport diluted bitumen, a slurry of viscous tar sands and chemicals that help it flow through the pipeline. Along with the global concerns about adding carbon emissions from tar sands oil to our already unsustainable carbon output, the immediate local concern is the possibility of this mix of tar sands and chemicals leaking into the Ogallala aquifer or streams or even our beautiful Nebraska rivers. 

On Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court announced their ruling allowing a controversial pipeline routing law to stand, taking away a legal impediment to construction of the pipeline. That same day, the House of Representatives voted to authorize construction of the pipeline. It was discouraging news to people advocating for our land and water and for some degree of climate stability, but it does not necessarily mean that the pipeline will be built. Opposition to the pipeline is deep, and Nebraska’s pipeline fighters and our allies in other states will continue to ask President Obama to use his authority to stop this project and to advocate in other ways for an end to it. Dropping oil prices and an increasing sense that it is time to shift away from fossil fuels may help make the argument against building it.

Once again this morning for The Baptism of Our Lord we renewed our baptismal covenant. We promised to seek and serve Christ in all persons; we promised to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being. These promises would include paying attention to the beautiful rivers on our planet that sustain life, and to the people who are caught in a system that allows the coal industry in the United States or the tar sands industry in one of our neighboring countries to continue putting profits before the health and safety of people.

And so once again this year on the Sunday of The Baptism of Our Lord, we ask: Which will we choose? Will we choose the beautiful river of life “flowing by the throne of God”, or remain complacent and choose rivers contaminated by chemicals that are harmful to living things?

Here is a recording of Anonymous 4 singing Shall We Gather at the River?

Easter Hope and Joy

 Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

I’m writing this after participating in the joyful celebration of the Great Vigil of Easter at Church of the Resurrection in Omaha this evening. Earlier today, I spent a couple of hours helping to staff Nebraska Interfaith Power and Light’s table at the Omaha Earth Day celebration. Meanwhile, along with posts about Easter celebrations and reflections on the end of Holy Week and the beginning of Easter, my Facebook feed has been full of the news that the State Department announced a delay in a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline permit. The delay is at least in part due to a case Nebraska landowners brought against the pipeline that is now going to the Nebraska Supreme Court.

Last April, Easter was on March 31. The post I wrote on the blog that week talked about hope in the face of despair. Along with the celebration of Easter, the occasion for this reflection about hope was a planning meeting is to help pipeline opponents be well-prepared to testify at the State Department hearings later in the month. That was a year ago; the pipeline permit has still not been approved, and now we know there will be another delay in a decision. This is good news that brings hope with it. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy reading the post below from a year ago expressing hope in our ability to stop the pipeline despite incredible odds being against us.

Easter Week: Mistaken Identity, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Alleluias

In the Gospel lesson for the Tuesday in Easter Week (John 20:11-18), Mary Magdalene is so caught up in her grief over Jesus’ death and her despair over the disappearance of his body that when she turns around and sees Jesus, she doesn’t recognize him. Instead, she mistakes him for the gardener. She comes out of her grief and despair enough to see what is right before her eyes when she responds to hearing the risen Jesus call her by name.

We can get so deeply into grief and despair that we miss signs of hope that are right in front of us. Just as the mismatch between the sorts of hopes and expectations Mary Magdalene had imagined and the reality of Jesus’ resurrection led her initially to fail to recognize the wonderful reality standing before her, the mismatch between our imagined expectations and a wonderful reality can keep us from recognizing that reality even when it is unfolding. Those of us who pay attention to the degradation of the earth and particularly to the discouraging math of global warming find ourselves at times grieving the plants, animals, eco-systems, and way of life we know and love that are beginning to disappear or change, and we can feel despair when we see the enormity of the challenges we face compared to the lack of political will to do enough soon enough to make much of a difference to a our future.

One of the many joys of Easter in our tradition is the restoration of the alleluias that disappear during the somber Lenten season. Some parishes do a sort of ceremony of burying the alleluias on Ash Wednesday to help children grasp something of our Lenten practices. When Lent ends, our alleluias at the fraction and at the dismissal bring notes of joy and hope and renewed energy that can remain with us as we go into the week to love and serve Christ.

Most of us experience the return of the alleluias as a welcome return to a spiritual norm of joy, while others, especially in times when we have faced a great loss or difficult challenges, when we are grieving or in despair, may find ourselves more in tune with the quieter but no less faithful wilderness walk of Lent. But Easter comes along whether or not we are ready for it, even when we are so deeply into grief or despair that we can’t imagine finding hope or joy again.

Yesterday evening I attended one of the planning meetings for people opposed to TransCanada being given a permit to build the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to transport Alberta tar sands through the central United States, including Nebraska, to Gulf Coast refineries. The purpose of these planning meetings is to help pipeline opponents be well-prepared to testify at the State Department hearings scheduled to be held at the Heartland Event Center in Grand Island on April 18.  The pipeline fighters face huge odds given the money and political power of the oil industry. It’s one of those daunting challenges that could make the alleluias ring hollow.

And yet when I listened to leaders from the Sierra Club and Bold Nebraska , and when I heard the discussion by those who plan to be at the hearings either to testify against the permit or to support those testifying against it, it felt like an alleluia response. We know that grassroots opposition to the pipeline has delayed its construction so far. We know that landowners, environmental activists, people of faith, and others will keep fighting the construction of this pipeline and the expanded mining of the Alberta tar sands. There is something very good and life-giving here.

Even if President Obama denies the permit to build this pipeline, the challenge of keeping greenhouse gas emissions to a level that gives us a chance of a sustainable future is a huge challenge. If our expectations and hopes are of a future that resembles today’s business as usual, we may not recognize whatever signs of a realistic hope we might encounter. That doesn’t mean that hope isn’t there; it doesn’t mean that grief and despair are the only valid responses to our situation.

When Bill McKibben’s Do the Math tour visited Omaha, he said that he became discouraged at first when people pointed out that he was involved in a David and Goliath situation, but then he remembered how that story ends. Easter tells us the end of the story, and it calls for an alleluia response.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

****

For another dose of hope, come to Nebraska Interfaith Power and Light's conference on religious environmental work next Saturday at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln. The theme is Creation Care for Congregations. More information and online registration is available on the Nebraska IPL website.

Loaves and Fishes and Environmental Impact Statements

Today’s Daily Office Gospel reading (John 6:1-15) was John’s version of the familiar story of the feeding of the five thousand. John writes that when a huge crowd of people was approaching, Jesus asked Philip “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus knew what he would do to feed the crowd, but he wanted to see what sort of an answer he got. Philip’s answer is a non-answer, understandable under the circumstances. He points out that even if they had the equivalent of six months’ wages to spend, it would barely give everyone in the crowd a little bit to eat. The unspoken assertion is that they do not have money like that to spend anyway. Then Andrew says, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?”

We know the rest of the story: Jesus blesses the loaves and fishes and the disciples distribute them. Everyone eats, and at the end they fill twelve baskets with leftovers.

People puzzle over this miracle story or simply marvel at it. What struck me reading it early this morning, though, was the contribution of the unnamed boy. I imagined Jesus talking to the disciples, having this adult conversation about how to do something that looked difficult to impossible to do, and a little boy standing there listening. A child knows little about the marketplace and probably has an even harder time comprehending the size of the crowd than do the disciples. But a child with five loaves of bread and two fish probably thinks he has a good amount of food! He doesn't know it isn't enough; he knows that he can help to feed the crowd, and he offers what he has.

The story from this point of view is less about the miracle or the lack of faith of the disciples than it is about the faith and generosity of a child who isn’t afraid to try to solve the problem. The disciples see what won’t work with the solution of buying food or of using what is at hand; they see failure as the only possibility because the chances of feeding that big a crowd with that amount of food are slim to none. I imagine the child, in contrast, brightening with the hope of being able to solve the problem.

For some reason I paid attention this morning when this aspect of the story surfaced.

When I sat down to check the day’s news, I saw that the State Department’s Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL Project was expected to be released today, and later in the day it was indeed released. The report finds that the impact on climate change is not significant; at the same time the report does say that there are greater emissions of greenhouse gases from the cumulative “well-to-wheels” effects of tar sands crude as compared to crude oil from other sources. (Executive Summary, Section 4.1.1) There is an underlying assumption that the tar sands will be mined with or without the pipeline.[i]

Environmentalists opposed to the Keystone XL project for a variety of reasons had hoped the report might clearly report that approval of the project would result in a significant and harmful increase in greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama had said that the effect on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change was a critical piece of his decision-making on the pipeline. Many news sources say that this report opens the way for President Obama to approve the pipeline.

There are, of course, many reasons to oppose this pipeline, and people who are concerned about the environment we are leaving as our legacy are not convinced that this is a harmless project. (See, for example, this statement from the Sierra Club, this by climate scientist Michael Mann, or these responses from Nebraska leaders in the movement to stop the pipeline.) While leaders have talked about the need to keep fighting, there has been some despair from the environmental community and concerned citizens in general today because it looks as if the oil industry with its huge amounts of money and the power and political influence that seems to be able to buy has the less moneyed, less powerful environmentalists in a corner. There has been an adult conversation today about how to do something – stop the Keystone XL pipeline -- that looks difficult to impossible to do.

But I heard Andrew say, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” And I began seeing what we have. Look over here -- there is a solar and wind powered energy barn - that has been built in the path of the pipeline. And over there are First Nations people in Canada who know the effects of the pollution from tar sands mining, and people on Indian reservations in the United States in the path of the pipeline who stand in solidarity against it. There are men and women who write regularly to elected officials and call the White House and talk to their neighbors about what is happening. There are grandmothers in Lincoln who bake apple pies to give to officials who do the right thing, and who encourage others to act in positive ways to counter despair. There are farmers and ranchers over there ready to stand their ground. And right here are people of faith who pray and preach and teach because we are people of hope and faith who know the outcome of the David and Goliath story and the Easter story.

We don’t know how all of this will work out, but we do know that when we offer what we have and put our eagerness to help ahead of our worries about our chances for success, God can find a way where we see little chance of one. When I pray about the pipeline in days ahead, I will keep in front of me the image of the little boy offering his loaves and fish to feed the crowd.

---

[i] In Section 4.1.3, the report includes this chillingly factual account of climate change impacts that can be expected once the pipeline is built:

However, during the subsequent operational time period, the following climate changes are anticipated to occur regardless of any potential effects from the proposed Project:

                        Warmer winter temperatures;

                        A shorter cool season;

                        A longer duration of frost-free periods;

                        More freeze-thaw cycles per year (which could lead to an increased number of episodes of soil contraction and expansion);

                        Warmer summer temperatures;

                        Increased number of hot days and consecutive hot days; and

                        Longer summers (which could lead to impacts associated with heat stress and wildfire risks).

                         

The report concludes that the risk of spills from any of these climate impacts is less than the risks of spills from other causes.

Advent 3: Visions of Hope

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” (Isaiah 35:1-4)

Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. (Matthew 11:4-5)

Each week seems to bring new information about climate change, its effects, and the pace at which those effects are unfolding. How hopeless is it?

This week’s climate news included a report of a research project by a US Navy scientist that predicts an ice-free Arctic Sea by fall of 2016 (plus or minus three years -- which means sometime between now and 2019). How hopeless is it?

We know we have passed the point where lowering our emissions of greenhouse gases can prevent global warming. The warming that has already taken place has set feedback loops in motion that will cause some level of warming to continue even if we suddenly do the politically improbable and manage to lower the level of greenhouse gas emissions by a significant amount. The aim now is mitigation: lessening global warming and its effects as much as possible given the physical and chemical reality of our situation. 

Sign on the way to church last Sunday

Our lesson from Isaiah (Isaiah 35:1-10) for the Third Sunday in Advent describes a beautiful time when all of nature is full of joy, when flowers bloom in the desert and God’s unmistakable presence fills the world. It describes not a picture of what is but a vision of God’s possibilities. The prophetic visions of Scripture came to men and women well aware of the realities of their times and places. There are words of warning as well as words of promise. The visions were not a denial of reality; instead, they were rooted in that reality, a reality that the prophets saw more clearly than those around them. The prophetic visions provided a dream of new possibilities and an ideal by which to measure the present reality. The prophetic visions were an opening up of a new reality that could begin to unfold if people radically changed their way of life and returned to true worship that would remove the internal and external barriers to the unfolding of the vision.

While visions of hope are hard to find in climate science reports that document an accelerating warming and predict catastrophic results if we remain on our current path of greenhouse gas emissions, there are signs of change. In Jesus’ time and place, there was plenty of sickness, poverty, and oppression even though Jesus was healing. John the Baptist asks whether Jesus is the one they've been waiting for or if there is another. Jesus says (Matthew 11:4), “Go and tell John what you hear and see”, and lists signs of hope. We can look at signs of something changing – e.g. several coal-fired power plants shut down various places including Massachusetts and Chicago, solar energy use on the increase worldwide, decreasing use of automobiles in younger Americans, the wind- and solar-powered barn built in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline here in Nebraska. These things alone aren't enough to prevent catastrophic warming, but they may be signs of bigger changes that are coming to be.

This Third Sunday of Advent there is hope. We don’t know what shape hope takes in our generation. Authentic hope is not naïve; hope doesn't say everything will be fine, and it certainly doesn't say that everything will be just the way it was before humankind spewed enough greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to warm the planet to the point where feedback loops accelerate the warming.

Our hope means that we know that God is with us and God is faithful. It means that there is a bigger picture we simply cannot see from our little corner of the universe and our tiny point in history. It means that there are visions of what might be that we might be able to see if we turn away from our accustomed way of living and open ourselves to something new. As we are reminded especially during Advent, hope means God is with us no matter what.

Faith in Action: Comment on Keystone XL Pipeline

Tomorrow is Earth Day; in our liturgical calendar, today was the Fourth Sunday in Easter. In the Gospel reading for today (John 10:22-30), Jesus answers a question about whether he is the Messiah by pointing to his actions: “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me”. He goes on to talk about his followers, his “sheep”, those who know who he is. Jesus says his sheep hear his voice and follow him. Just as Jesus’ identity was revealed in his actions, our identities as Christ’s own are revealed in our actions, in our following him. Our actions are important.

Tomorrow is also the deadline for submitting comments to the State Department about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Many people testified in opposition to the pipeline before a State Department hearing in Grand Island on Thursday. Written comments are still being collected.

Bold Nebraska has a page devoted to collecting comments to send to the State Department; the page includes links to background resources to help find a focus for your statement and check the facts before writing, and also includes a form that makes it easy to submit a comment.

Anyone can submit a comment. Doing so would be a fine way to observe Earth Day, and doing so to defend the integrity of God’s creation and the welfare of God’s people is a fine way to put our faith into action.

My statement is centered on moral and spiritual issues; others are writing about particular concerns about the impacts on land, water, and agriculture, about landowners’ rights, and about other issues. Focus on whatever piece of this project strikes you the most. Here’s what I wrote:

Statement of Opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline
  

I’m a resident of Hastings, Nebraska and an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church serving as Deacon at St. Stephen’s Church in Grand Island, Nebraska, and as Archdeacon of the Diocese of Nebraska. My general area of ministry is environmental stewardship and how that connects with our spiritual and physical well-being. As the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere increases, the amount of Arctic sea ice decreases, and as we continue to extract more fossil fuels from the earth, my ministry focuses increasingly on the moral and spiritual aspects of the climate crisis caused by our ongoing use of fossil fuels. The effects of climate change, including droughts, extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and melting permafrost all have ill effects on people, often on some of the poorest people in the world who can least stand these added stresses. These effects along with the disregard for the integrity of God’s creation bring this argument into the sphere of religion and ethics.
 

Our existential denial of global warming – accepting the science intellectually but going on with life as if climate change were not happening – is one of the puzzling responses that point to a spiritual danger.  If we know what causes global warming and what we need to do to mitigate its effects and how very soon we need to stop burning fossil fuels, how can we even entertain the thought of building something to enable the release of the amount of carbon in the Alberta tar sands? What does the fact that we are considering approving the project say about the state of our souls and the state of our national climate policy?  The very real effects of extracting, processing, and burning the tar sands on humans and on the ecosystems that sustain all life on this planet is reason enough to deny a permit for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
 

Reading the Environmental Impact Statement, I’m struck by a sense that this study was carried out in a state of existential denial about climate change and many other things. That there are real people living in Nebraska whose livelihoods depend on the integrity of the land and water that they have conserved and protected for generations because their lives depend on doing so seems to be another reality that is ignored. It’s as if the EIS were developed in a world where fossil fuels area the ultimate good, the only thing worth considering, while they are in fact the biggest threat to the future of humankind.
 

We are well aware that there are always people who will do just about anything – even sell their own souls – if they’re offered thirty pieces of silver, even if the offer of the silver turns out to be an empty promise. I’m proud to live in a state where our ranchers and farmers keep their priorities straight and stand up for the stewardship of our land and water that Nebraskans have practiced for generations. The land and water not only sustain our agricultural economy, but they ground us spiritually. The threat of this pipeline to our land and water is reason enough to deny a permit for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Even though people opposed to the pipeline talk about climate, the Ogallala aquifer, the fragile Nebraska Sandhills ecology, tribal rights, and the rights of landowners, when we talk about a project of this nature we are in the end talking about ultimate things. We usually look to theology to figure out what we believe about ultimate things, but when we consider projects that put profits and the possibility of some short-term gains for a few ahead of all else while pushing the agricultural economy of Nebraska and the survival of life as we have known it on this planet toward the brink of disaster, we can look at our political decisions to learn about our true beliefs about ultimate things. It comes down to a moral question, perhaps the most important moral question humankind has ever had to ask ourselves: Will we set aside business as usual and do all we can to mitigate the warming of our planet, or will we continue to act as if the will of the fossil fuel industry is the ultimate authority in our lives?
 

We have a choice to make between death and life. Deny this permit and choose life so that we and our descendants may live.


Respectfully submitted,

The Ven. Betsy Blake Bennett
Hastings, Nebraska

  

Easter Week: Mistaken Identity, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Alleluias

In the Gospel lesson for the Tuesday in Easter Week (John20:11-18), Mary Magdalene is so caught up in her grief over Jesus’ death and her despair over the disappearance of his body that when she turns around and sees Jesus, she doesn’t recognize him. Instead, she mistakes him for the gardener. She comes out of her grief and despair enough to see what is right before her eyes when she responds to hearing the risen Jesus call her by name.

We can get so deeply into grief and despair that we miss signs of hope that are right in front of us. Just as the mismatch between the sorts of hopes and expectations Mary Magdalene had imagined and the reality of Jesus’ resurrection led her initially to fail to recognize the wonderful reality standing before her, the mismatch between our imagined expectations and a wonderful reality can keep us from recognizing that reality even when it is unfolding. Those of us who pay attention to the degradation of the earth and particularly to the discouraging math of global warming find ourselves at times grieving the plants, animals, eco-systems, and way of life we know and love that are beginning to disappear or change, and we can feel despair when we see the enormity of the challenges we face compared to the lack of political will to do enough soon enough to make much of a difference to a our future.

One of the many joys of Easter in our tradition is the restoration of the alleluias that disappear during the somber Lenten season. Some parishes do a sort of ceremony of burying the alleluias on Ash Wednesday to help children grasp something of our Lenten practices. When Lent ends, our alleluias at the breaking of the bread in the Eucharist and at the dismissal bring notes of joy and hope and renewed energy that can remain with us as we go into the week to love and serve Christ.

Most of us experience the return of the alleluias as a welcome return to a spiritual norm of joy, while others, especially in times when we have faced a great loss or difficult challenges, when we are grieving or in despair, may find ourselves more in tune with the quieter but no less faithful wilderness walk of Lent. But Easter comes along whether or not we are ready for it, even when we are so deeply into grief or despair that we can’t imagine finding hope or joy again.

Yesterday evening I attended one of the planning meetings for people opposed to TransCanada being given a permit to build the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to transport Alberta tar sands through the central United States, including Nebraska, to Gulf Coast refineries. The purpose of these planning meetings is to help pipeline opponents be well-prepared to testify at the State Department hearings scheduled to be held at the Heartland Event Center in Grand Island on April 18.  The pipeline fighters face huge odds given the money and political power of the oil industry. It’s one of those daunting challenges that could make our alleluias ring hollow.

And yet when I listened to leaders from the Sierra Club and Bold Nebraska, and when I heard the discussion by those who plan to be at the hearings either to testify against the permit or to support those testifying against it, it felt like an alleluia response. We know that grassroots opposition to the pipeline has delayed its construction so far. We know that landowners, environmental activists, people of faith, and others will keep fighting the construction of this pipeline and the expanded mining of the Alberta tar sands. There is something very good and life-giving here.

Even if President Obama denies the permit to build this pipeline, the challenge of keeping greenhouse gas emissions to a level that gives us a chance of a sustainable future is a huge challenge. If our expectations and hopes are of a future that resembles today’s business as usual, we may not recognize whatever signs of a realistic hope we might encounter. That doesn't mean that hope isn't there; it doesn't mean that grief and despair are the only valid responses to our situation.

When Bill McKibben’s Do the Math tour visited Omaha, he said that he became discouraged at first when people pointed out that he was involved in a David and Goliath situation, but then he remembered how that story ends. Easter tells us the end of the bigger story, and it calls for an alleluia response.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Little Gods: "We get our wealth from this business."

Part of today’s lesson from Acts (Acts 19:21-41) has echoed throughout the day as I've caught up with the news, especially about the news about the protests in Texas where TransCanada has begun building the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline.

In this passage from Acts, Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines (evidently miniatures) of Artemis gathered his artisans and others who made and sold gods and riled them up, saying:

Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business. You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods. 

Then Demetrius suggested that Paul’s words might very well cause people to disrespect the temple of Artemis, depriving her “of the majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.” This caused a riot that went on for hours until the town clerk persuaded the crowd to settle this in their regular assembly so they would not be charged with rioting.

Paul was right, of course: gods made with hands are not gods! Given a choice between gods made with human hands and the Living God Paul worshiped, the only wise choice is God. There is only one God, even when making smaller gods and keeping a temple to a false god create wealth.

One reason it’s so hard to address environmental issues in our nation is the power of the fossil fuel industry. The executives of these corporations get their wealth from this business, and use of cleaner sources of energy such as wind and solar energy threaten their profits. Given a choice between energy from fossil fuels that creates the carbon emissions that have contributed greatly to our climate crisis and cleaner energy that can help keep our planet livable, the only wise choice is clean energy. But those profiting from fossil fuels choose wealth over life.

In Texas, protesters have been trying to stop construction of the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. Unlike the resistance in Nebraska which is largely based on local – and very legitimate – concerns about the land and water in our own state, many of these protesters are concerned with the effects of the entire project, from the pollution and forest destruction where the tar sands are mined in Canada to the environmental dangers along the pipeline route to the vast amounts of carbon that will be released if the tar sands are refined and burned.

Among the protesters this week have been tree sitters – people sitting in trees that TransCanada is clearing for the pipeline. To help protect the people in the trees, two protesters on Wednesday locked themselves to logging equipment. Bill McKibben wrote about it in the Huffington Post. (See TransCanada Turns Sadistic in Texas:Keystone XL Protestors Tased and Pepper Sprayed ) Reading the reports about what the police called in allegedly did to the protesters is very difficult: chokeholds, pepper spray, and tasers.

Violence against environmental activists in other parts of the world has been on the increase. In June, the group Global Witness reported that over the past decade, 711 activists, journalists, and community members defending land and forests had been killed. In 2011, the total was 106 people.

When wealthy industries are threatened by people advocating for care of the earth, their reaction is often to bully the activists in some way, sometimes to the point of death. Like the makers and sellers of little gods in Ephesus inciting the crowd to riot against the Christians, those whose god is profit use violence against those speaking their truth about caring for God’s creation and defending the living things that depend on climate stability.

O God, our Father, whose Son forgave his enemies while he was suffering shame and death: Strengthen those who suffer for the sake of conscience; when they are accused, save them from speaking in hate; when they are rejected, save them from bitterness; when they are imprisoned, save them from despair; and to us your servants, give grace to respect their witness and to discern the truth, that our society may be cleansed and strengthened. This we ask for the sake of Jesus Christ, our merciful and righteous Judge. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 823)

Tar Sands: The View from Canada

I've just returned from a few days in Vancouver, British Columbia, where our son was participating in a conference. On Sunday, we visited Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver. Among the many exciting and inspiring things going on there was an announcement from The Environmental Group. They were inviting parishioners to join them for a “Compassion for Creation” discussion following a showing of a video from TEDxVictoria (November 19, 2011) by photographer Garth Lenz on the tar sands. 

The video contrasts the beauty and value of the boreal forest ecosystem with photos of the tar sands mining project and the threat it poses to the ecosystem and to the value that Canadians have traditionally placed on the forest and the people, plants, and animals that call it home. Garth Lenz says that the tar sands project represents “the antithesis” of these values.

As Nebraskans, our greatest concern about the tar sands mines has been the possibility of the Keystone XL pipeline coming through our Sandhills region and endangering our land and water. This video talks about that pipeline crossing this rich agricultural region as one of many concerns about plans to continue increasing the mining of the tar sands and production of oil from the bitumen. Because of the way oil is produced from tar sands, use of this oil results in more greenhouse gas emissions than those from any other source of oil.

It’s good to know that our Anglican sisters and brothers in Canada are also concerned about the tar sands, and it’s good for us in Nebraska to know that the effects of this project go way beyond the concerns we have about the proposed pipeline crossing particular parts of our state. Whatever route is proposed next, the environmental costs of tar sands oil are too great.

Garth Lenz talks about the effects of tar sands mining experienced by people living downstream from this area, then adds: “We all live ‘downstream’ in the era of global warming and climate change.” Please watch the video of his talk and pray that all of us might hear what God is calling us to do. 

The Fire Next Time (2)

First Sunday in Lent, Year B

Part II

In the story of Noah, it’s clear that we make our moral choices in the context of the web of relationships among God, humans, and all of creation. The rainbow set in the clouds as a sign of the covenant between God and all the creatures of earth has become for us a sign of God’s promise and a sign of hope.

Christians live in hope, and hope is one of the gifts we bring to discussions of the climate crisis.  Hope that discounts reality is not hope; it is self-deception or denial. To live in Christian hope does not mean living in denial with some vague idea that God will somehow keep us from the consequences of our actions. (To the contrary, a reading of the Hebrew prophets will remind us that God, like a good parent, allows us to experience the consequences of our actions, both good and bad.)

Our hope is that no matter what else, ultimately all will be well. Our faithfulness to God and God’s promises will not be in vain. As the global warming situation grows more dire and signs of climate change become less subtle, hope requires a deeper faith to sustain it.

In Nebraska, the threat to our land and water has made us aware of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and, to a lesser extent, aware of the mining of the tar sands and the environmental problems associated with it. Bill McKibben published a piece on Friday called Beyond Keystone that puts the issues around the mining of the tar sands within the perspective of fossil fuels in general:

If you burned all the tarsands we know about now, you'd raise the planet's temperature more than half a degree -- i.e., half again as much as the global warming we've already seen, which has been enough to make the seas 30% more acid and cut Arctic sea ice 40%. But if you burned all the coal we know about it, the temperature would go up 15 degrees. 

At a certain point, I suppose, it doesn't matter -- most scientists think anything more than two degrees Celsius puts us into a zone of extreme danger, and we're already halfway there. Fifteen degrees would be just gilding the lily.

 Fighting the pipeline has required a lot of time, energy, and resources from many Nebraskans. Fighting the environmental hazards of expanded coal projects, like the “truly massive new coal port in Washington State that would take eight mile-long coal trains a day from the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming and ship them straight to China” described in McKibben’s article, is a huge task.

Our hope is that there is some sense in trying, some sense in being Davids standing up to the Goliath of powers that would extract and burn as much coal and oil and tar sands as possible from the earth. While the idea of hope might seem impractical, even foolish, real hope is very practical; hope can keep us doing what needs to be done. It makes the best of the slimmest of possibilities, maximizes the odds of reaching a good outcome, and gives us our lives meaning and dignity no matter what the outcome.

The February 22 issue of Christian Century quotes Vaclav Havel’s differentiation between hope and optimism (p. 8). Hope, he said, is “an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed…[Hope] is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Being in good relationship with God, one another, and all of creation makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. “God gave Noah the rainbow sign; ‘no more water, the fire next time.’” Even if this turns out to be “the fire next time”, God still gives us the rainbow sign.

Time and Hope

Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year B

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

While time has passed, I’ve been thinking about time in relation to global warming, struggling to process where we find ourselves in January of 2012 and how to begin to articulate a response. We know how urgent this crisis is, yet our actions and those of our leaders seldom reflect that urgency. We know that our present course leads in this century to mass extinctions of species, to mass migrations of people from areas of flood, drought, and famine, to increased risk of tropical diseases, to major cities dealing with rising oceans, and to island nations disappearing. We know that our present course eventually leads to the end of life as we have known it, bringing a sobering eschatological element into the discussion.

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

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

 This week’s Scripture readings all address questions of time and 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 of these lessons suggest something for Christians to consider as this new year in this still young century begins and we wonder about how to go about caring for God’s creation 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 the city in forty days. Much to his surprise, the Ninevites heed the warning and repent. Seeing their penitence, God spares them. The Ninevites might very well have either ignored Jonah and denied the truth of what he told them, or believed him but decided their doom was inevitable and so did nothing.  In our world, there are people in denial about global warming, people so deep in despair that they see no point in acting, and others who continue to work to address the issue even though we don’t know 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 thing for a morally awake person to do when the worst thing that’s ever happened is happening is try to change those odds.”)

Psalm 62 reminds us that power belongs to God. “For God alone my soul in silence waits” because God is the only thing worthy of our complete trust. Working for a healthier planet while all the power and money of fossil fuel corporations seems to be working in the opposite direction is discouraging, but compared to God’s power, their power is nothing. “On the scales 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 with the world” as if we have no dealings with it, to put the urgent matter before business as usual. This is something to consider, given that so many of the arguments in our country against addressing global warming have to do with our inability 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 is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near”, then goes about ministry in a very concrete, straightforward way. He approaches ordinary men who are fishing or mending nets and invites them to follow him. They in turn will go out to invite others to join them in following Jesus. We in Nebraska learned this past year about the power of ordinary power doing ordinary things – speaking with neighbors, writing letters to elected officials and hometown newspapers, telling our stories and the story of our land and water – that resulted in something extraordinary: keeping the Keystone XL pipeline out of the Sandhills. When we realize that we are living in an extraordinary time, our best response might be to 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 invite others to join us.

This week’s lessons point to this: The best way for Christians to live in a time like this is to live in hope with our eyes wide open. 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.

Praying the News: November 13 2011

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

  

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.

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

Please pray for:

Wise leaders.  With this week’s IEA report stating that “the door is closing” on the opportunity to hold global warming to 2°C (see Numbering 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: “Current limited global ambition means that children around us today could be living through this ‘worst case scenario’. We have to take responsibility now. We know what we have to do and we have the solutions – we now need the leadership and commitment necessary to tackle this global problem before it is too late.”

The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF). The CVF is a group of nations that already are heavily affected by climate change. They are meeting now in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to prepare for the upcoming COP17 conference in Durban, South Africa. 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 for Africa 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 to advocate for climate justice. Pray for their voices to be heard.

Protection for those affected by severe weather and sound understanding. Last week’s severe weather included 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 the relationship of these events to climate change.

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

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

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.

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

Praying the News: November 5 2011

Theologian Walter Wink says this about intercessory prayer:

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

History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being. If this is so, then intercession, far from being an escape from action, 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 the earth in this way, we pray in a spirit of hope and with a commitment to do the work God gives us to do. In that spirit, here are particular topics for prayer from this week’s news.

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.

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

Please pray for:

The special sessionof the Nebraska Unicameral. The purpose of the special session is “to find a legal and constitutional solution to the siting of oil pipelines within the state”. The immediate issue that resulted in the decision to hold a special session is, of course, the proposal for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to cross 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: “The task, as always, will be to find enough common ground for an outcome that takes the global community of nations forwards, if only by a few steps, rather than backwards. Such steps as there may be are likely to be small ones.” Pray for progress; pray for those involved in the conference and those they represent to remain aware of the reality of the consequences of climate change on people and other living things.

Gulf oil spill cleanup workers.  Health problems linger for people who were hired to help with cleanup from the Gulf oil spill. Pray for these people and for justice to allow them full access to continuing healthcare and fair compensation.

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

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

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

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.

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

Clergy opposed to Keystone XL pipeline

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

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.