Reclaiming Rogation: Day I

The Rogation Days – traditionally the three days preceding Ascension Day – are a time for prayers of petition. The roots of these days in rural England is reflected in the timing of the days to coincide with the planting of crops in that part of the world, in prayers for the land and crops, and in the tradition of Rogation processions to bless the fields. In our current prayer book, readings and collects for the three days focus on these traditional rural concerns the first day, commerce and industry the second day, and stewardship of creation the third day.

Even though Rogation Days are ignored by many in the church today, we are blessed to have inherited the tradition of setting aside days to pray for the conditions we need to grow good crops, for industries and commercial ventures that are responsive to God’s will and that provide workers a just return for their labor, and for stewardship of creation. Rogation Sunday – the Sunday before Ascension Day – and the Rogation Days can be more than a wistful nod back to a charming tradition. This season of Rogation can be reclaimed to give us a time to talk about, think about, and pray about some vital issues.

Day I

The Collect for today, the first of the Rogation Days, is entitled “For fruitful seasons”. This Collect and the readings for today focus on a petition for harvests “of the land and of the seas” and the conditions necessary for sustaining good harvests.  This is something we understand in Nebraska, where our economy is based on agriculture! Climate stability, clean and plentiful water in our rivers, creeks, and aquifer, and soil conservation are all part of what we pray for when we pray for good growing conditions.

In one of the options for the Old Testament lesson for this Rogation Day (Jeremiah 14:1-9), Jeremiah describes the effects of a severe drought. The drought affects people – “the farmers are dismayed” – and wildlife – “Even the doe in the field forsakes her newborn fawn because there is no grass.” The passage ends with a plea for God’s help and a reminder of God’s presence. In a similar way, the passage from Romans (Romans 8:18-25) talks about living in hope while "the whole creation" is groaning. Paul reminds the Romans that hope is hope only when we can’t see the very thing for which we are hoping: “Now hope that is seen is not hope.”

In a time when severe weather events have been increasing, when the amount of greenhouse gases associated with climate change is increasing, and when the aggressive extraction of fossil fuels threatens not only our water and the Sandhills eco-system in Nebraska, but also water, land, and air quality in many places, these passages can remind us that we can live in hope even when the chances of turning things around seem to be slim.    

For fruitful seasons

Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth: We humbly pray that your gracious providence may give and preserve to our use the harvests of the land and of the seas, and may prosper all who labor to gather them, that we, who are constantly receiving good things from your hand, may always give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer, pp. 258-259)      

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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.

Pipeline and Pie at St. Stephen's

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.

Praying the News: Keystone XL Pipeline

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.

God's Earth: Tar Sands

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)

Water

Blog Action Day

Today bloggers around the world are participating in Blog Action Day, an annual occasion for bloggers to talk about a selected topic from each blog’s unique perspective. This year's topic for Blog Action Day is water.

Nebraskans know the importance of water. We are blessed with the Ogallala aquifer as a source of water for drinking and irrigation. We treasure our rivers and appreciate our lakes and ponds for fishing, boating, and watering livestock. Wetlands are an important element of our ecological system, and take on special importance when migrating birds, including the Sandhill cranes, come through along the central flyway.  Pollution and depletion of water resources is a constant concern for Nebraskans desiring a healthy, sustainable environment. The current controversy about a proposed TransCanada pipeline crossing the Nebraska Sandhills has highlighted the importance of these wetlands and of the Ogallala aquifer to our economy and our way of life.

Christians know the importance of water. The water of baptism is central to our liturgy. During the Thanksgiving over the Water in our baptismal liturgy, the celebrant recounts some of the events of the salvation story in which water was a central element: the creation story, the Exodus through the Red Sea, the baptism of Jesus.

The Episcopal Church is committed to the Millennium Development Goals, and our concern for the environment springs in part from that commitment. Along with being a piece of the goal of environmental sustainability, access to clean water is a key piece of the goals related to children’s health, maternal health, and preventing diseases.  If we care for the poor, we will care about having clean, sustainable water resources around the world. Jesus said, “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” (Matthew 10:42)

Burning Water

This morning's news includes a report that the Coast Guard is considering burning the oil slick on the Gulf of Mexico. Choosing the controlled burn seems to be the sort of option I often discuss with my students in ethics class: what do we do when faced with two or more options, none of which are desirable? In this case, if the oil slick isn’t burned, forecasters think it will be reaching the Gulf shore, covering birds and beaches with oil and creating a disaster for both wildlife and for people whose incomes depend on tourism along the shore.

The irony of learning that what was left of the oil rig fell into the Gulf of Mexico on Earth Day is compounded by this latest development. Seth Borenstein’s Earth Day article that ran in many newspapers and that I mentioned in my post The Day After looked back at the sorts of environmental issues that were the impetus for the first Earth Day, including the infamous flammability of the Cuyahoga River. So we have come full circle in these forty years. There’s still concern in the United States about offshore oil spills, and there’s still talk of water burning. This time, though, instead of river pollution accidentally catching fire, we are talking about a controlled burn in the Gulf of Mexico as a possible best option.

For Christians, water is a symbol of cleansing, of new life in baptism. Last Wednesday at Hastings College we held an outdoor chapel service designed by students. We started with a water liturgy, pouring water into a container while talking about its meaning for us throughout Scripture and especially in our baptisms. Dr. Dan Deffenbaugh preached about the river of the water of life, using Revelation 22 as the text and reminding us of the wonder and sacredness of the great Ogallala aquifer beneath our feet. At the end of the service, we used smaller containers to take water from our “font” to the trees and flowers around us.

Coming soon after our celebration of the Great Vigil of Easter, when we talk about water in the story of creation, in the Exodus from Egypt through the Red Sea, and in our baptisms, this Earth Day service reinforced for me the sense of the holy meaning of water for Christians.

I wonder today, then, what meaning we give to burning water. What might it say to us on a deeper level if later today we do see images of the huge oil slick burning in the Gulf? What does it mean to have burning water become a recurring image in the United States? What does it mean when setting the water on fire -- and adding to the pollution of our air -- looks like our best option? And I wonder how we can make a connection with the reality of burning water in our liturgy, how we can acknowledge and find hope and redemption in the image of the water that cleanses us and gives us life being so contaminated that it burns.

Extra Bits: Ogallala Aquifer Report

The print edition of today's Lincoln Journal Star carries this headline for a story about a new U.S. Geological Survey study of the Ogallala Aquifer: “Aquifer’s OK…for now”. The report basically says that the water in the aquifer is generally acceptable for human consumption, irrigation, and livestock watering. That’s the good news, and it’s very good news considering our dependence in Nebraska on this great water source.

However, the study warns that heavy use of the water is resulting in gradual increases in contaminants such as nitrates that, if continued, will make the water unusable. Because of the nature of the aquifer, reversal of such contamination would be extremely slow. The report is available at pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1337 .

Good stewardship of water resources is vital! God has given us many gifts, many resources, including this great water resource in the middle of our continent. If we care for them and use them wisely, they will bless us for many more generations to come; if we use them carelessly, future generations will not know the quality of life that we are privileged to know.