Exsultet! Rejoice!

The Great Vigil of Easter is celebrated between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter morning. The determination of the time of the service according to the times of sunrise and sunset is significant, as the entire liturgy in its lessons and prayers and use of light, water, oil, bread, and wine points to the integration of spiritual things with the order of nature.

This first service of Easter Day begins with the lighting of the Paschal candle from the new fire. The deacon carries the Paschal candle into the church, and then sings the Exsultet (beginning on p. 286 of The Book of Common Prayer): “Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels…” As a deacon, I practice the Exsultet throughout Lent, and get very familiar with the words – a necessity when singing an important piece of liturgy by candlelight. The Exsultet is in my head and on my lips as spring begins, the days get longer, and the first tiny green leaves appear on bushes and trees. “Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth, bright with a glorious splendor, for darkness has been vanquished by our eternal King.”

Some of my non-Episcopalian friends, both believers in other traditions and non-believers, comment on the connections to the Earth season as if they suspect that either our joy in the coming of springtime might somehow eclipse or diminish the appreciation of the Resurrection, or that the Gospel story is a sort of culturally approved and maybe even a slightly shady cover for a pagan celebration. What this tells me is that there are lots of people both in the Church and outside of the Church who want to keep the physical and the spiritual well separated: dualism has many devotees in today’s world.


Among the many gifts of the Holy Night proclaimed in the Exsultet is this one: “How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and [we are] reconciled to God.” That image of the realms of earth and heaven being joined together in unity, and the linking of that joining to the restoration of a good and holy relationship between God and humankind get to the depths of the Easter message: in Christ, the chasm has been bridged. All of creation is infused with God’s Holy Spirit; the spiritual and the physical are intertwined. That’s why the things around us can serve as signs of God’s grace; it’s why we believe in the sacraments, and also in sacramental living in a wider sense.

The Exsultet ends with an entreaty for God to accept the offering of the Paschal candle: “May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning – he who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”

May we remember throughout the year that Earth and heaven are joined, and that the world around us is God’s good and holy creation.

Extra bits

The Episcopal Ecological Network has sent out two messages since Friday: one about the Arctic sea ice melting faster than had been expected, and the other one about the ice bridge that held the Wilkins Ice Shelf in place in Antarctica shattering. Both are dramatic changes; both are very sobering. The reality of global warming seems to be hitting us much sooner than scientists had predicted. As ice is lost from both poles, there is more open water, which accelerates the warming of both the air and the oceans.

Our unseasonably wintry weather on the Great Plains this weekend makes it easy to pretend that Earth’s overall climate isn’t warming. Some people joke about needing more global warming but really do understand the bigger picture; others really don’t understand that cold snaps can occur as part of an overall warming trend. (The Dot Earth blog had a useful post on April 3 about temperature fluctuations within an overall warming trend.)

Economic, social, and political instability have dominated the news this week. Some of these issues seem closer to hand for many of us, and may seem more urgent than environmental issues. But without environmental stability, the resources we spend in an attempt to create economic, social, and political stability can’t do their job, and ultimately won't matter. These two news stories from the opposite ends of our planet are a sign that things are changing fairly quickly and dramatically. We live far away from these regions, far away from any seacoasts, but we do live on the same planet, where everything is interconnected – all sorts of places, and all sorts of systems from the economy to personal relationships to the environment.

As many of us spend extra time in prayer and reflection this Holy Week, let's remember our Earth and the work of stewardship that God has given us. Let's remember our brothers and sisters who are most immediately vulnerable to climate change, and pray for people who are working to repair the damage to our atmosphere and restore overall environmental stability.

Early Spring Abundance

Spring officially began a little over a week ago, and in that short time there has been an abundance of blessings pertinent to creation care for Nebraskans. All of these events took place against a backdrop of typical spring weather, with cold, cloudy, and even snowy weather alternating with sunny days that helped the earliest spring flowers to bloom. A variety of songbirds, including robins, wrens, meadowlarks, and red-winged blackbirds, are making it sound like spring even when the temperature feels more like winter. Here’s a glimpse at some pieces of that abundance.

Dinner in Abraham’s Tent
The Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska has partnered with Temple Israel and the American Institute of Islamic Studies and Culture to form the Tri-Faith Initiative. Friday evening at the Qwest Center in Omaha was Dinner in Abraham’s Tent: Conversations on Peace. It was a wonderful evening to share our worship experiences, make new friends, and hear an outstanding conversation about peace.

The spirit of this event was very much like the spirit I’ve experienced at GreenFaith gatherings. GreenFaith is an interfaith organization that “inspires, educates and mobilizes” people of different faiths for environmental leadership. In working with GreenFaith in their Fellowship program, I’ve found that working on creation care can build bonds among people of different faiths and different Christian perspectives. All of us recognize the Earth as God’s creation, all of us feel closer to God when we experience the wonders of creation, and all of us realize that we have a moral responsibility to help care for God’s creation.

As I described my ministry to our dinner companions on Friday evening, there seemed to be an understanding that creation care would be something that people of faith should be doing. As we Episcopalians become more aware of how environmental issues fit into our religious lives, we might very well find a strong common bond with people of other faiths who are also beginning to recognize the connection between faith and the environment.

Crane Sunday at St. Stephen’s, Grand Island
Our liturgical celebration of the crane migration on March 22 went well. Parishioners brought in beautiful paintings and photos of the cranes to share; we had a crane banner and many, many origami cranes in the church itself; our music director tailored the music to the occasion; a parishioner worked with Rowe Sanctuary to provide a fact sheet about cranes that we included with the bulletin. The sermon articulated some of the connections between this migration that marks the Earth season and what is happening in our liturgical season. People seemed very pleased that we recognized the experience of the crane migration as a spiritual experience.

A Pastoral Letter
Right before the first day of spring – but after the last Green Sprouts post – the House of Bishops issued a pastoral letter. It starts out talking about the world financial crisis, then goes on to link it to the environmental crisis. The Bishops say that God is calling us to repentance for our preoccupation with internal affairs and for our narrow focus that has kept us from addressing the concerns of suffering people in our own country and around the world. It’s a remarkable and timely letter, one that speaks clearly about the links between environmental concerns and traditional justice concerns.

Extra bits
Posts to this blog have been biweekly. The plan is to continue regular posts on alternate Tuesdays, but also to supplement these longer posts that often center on the liturgical cycle or the Earth season with “extra bits” as they come along. These will be posts about recent events, or highlighting items culled from the abundance of material related to religious environmentalism -- items such as the letter from the House of Bishops, or environmental news such as the recent report that one-third of all bird species in the United States are endangered. (The report is hopeful since it tells about some things we all can do to help these species survive.)

A Lenten Celebration

Since the last Green Sprouts post, the number of migrating sandhill cranes stopping in the Platte River valley has increased dramatically. The cranes are now easily spotted in fields during the day and on the river at sunset and at dawn.

Last Thursday I was driving home from Grand Island in the late afternoon, and had the delight of seeing cranes very near the road where I was driving. Several of them were dancing, jumping up into the air and spreading their wings.

This sight always thrills me and lifts my sprits. I’ve been thinking about why so many of us have this same reaction to the cranes, and I suspect it’s a combination of factors that make these birds so special to us. Their time with us each year is comparatively short, only six weeks or so; since their company is comparatively rare, we learn to value it. Their size coupled with the surprising grace with which they dance fascinates us. The sound when they gather at the river in the evening or when they take off in huge groups in the morning is surprisingly loud and difficult to ignore. They are a reliable sign of spring in our part of the world, an assurance that winter is nearly done.

For me, though, the biggest awe factor may be the history of this migration. According to the Rowe Sanctuary crane facts, the cranes have been making this annual trip for over nine million years. The Platte River itself is 10,000 years old, a short time in comparison. Moreover, they look ancient, like something that stepped out of a prehistoric diorama at a natural history museum. People who visit places like the Holy Land or ancient Greece or the ancient Celtic sites in Ireland are awed by the knowledge of the age of these sights and what that says about the human journey. The cranes are so much older than any of these things that we can’t even conceive of this length of time.

When people describe their experiences of seeing the cranes, they use words like ‘awesome’, ‘breathtaking’, ‘like nothing else I’ve ever experienced’. As they talk about these experiences, it becomes clear that crane-watching is a spiritual experience for many people, though they might never use that language to describe it. When we connect with these ancient birds, we somehow also connect with the Holy, with God.

The crane migration is observed in south central Nebraska with crane viewing tours, art shows, lectures, literary readings, and sporting events. At St. Stephen’s in Grand Island, we decided that it was time for the church to be involved in the celebration, to name this spiritual experience for what it is. To do so, we are planning a liturgical celebration of the sandhill crane migration for this Sunday. Since we are in the middle of Lent, we are planning carefully, balancing between the solemnity of Lent at this point of the liturgical year, and the joy of our experiences in the fields and along the river at this point of the Earth year.

Most Americans know how to have fun celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day during the season of Lent, wearing a lot of green as the earliest green shoots appear in fields and gardens. Healthy spirituality seeks a balance. Our liturgical year provides much of the balance, but being aware of tensions like those between our observance of Lent and the urge to celebrate these early signs of spring in our part of God’s creation keeps us from a narrow, rigid focus that is not especially healthy for our spirits.

You can share some of the joy and awe of crane-watching, especially at sunrise and sunset, through the web camera provided by the Rowe Sanctuary. You Tube has several videos of dancing cranes, including this one. And visitors are very welcome to join us at Saint Stephen’s in Grand Island at 10:30 this Sunday, March 22, for the Fourth Sunday in Lent and a liturgical celebration of the migration of the cranes.




Our text for this Sunday is John 3:14-21 – “For God so loved the world…”

Wilderness Walk

The First Sunday of Lent, our Gospel reading is about Jesus going into the wilderness for forty days. This Gospel wilderness is something different from the notion of wilderness some of us have; the Gospel wilderness is an empty, desolate place, not the pristine forests, meadows, and waterways some of us picture when we think about how good it would be to get away to a wilderness area for a few days.

If the Gospel wilderness is a place of desolation, what counts as a Lenten wilderness for us today? Where do we encounter desolation that calls us to follow Jesus’ example of faithfulness on a journey through the wilderness? We don’t have to look far to find situations in our lives, both personal and communal, that can set us on metaphorical journeys through desolate territory.

People sometimes ask me how I can bear thinking about the things environmental activists need to think about. Last month, when Dr. Chris Field from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) both contributed to an update on global warming science to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and also spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago, he suggested that earlier predictions about climate change might have underestimated the severity of global warming in coming years. Earlier estimates didn’t account for things like the amount of carbon dioxide stored in the permafrost of the Arctic tundra that would be released into the atmosphere as the permafrost thaws.

This has been on my mind, and I know it has been in the news. Yet several people to whom I mentioned these reports said they didn’t know how I could think about it; they knew this was important, but couldn’t let themselves really listen to it or think about the possibility that these latest predictions might be sound. And a couple of people asked me point blank how we can think about such things without falling into despair.

Dealing honestly and openly with these issues, looking at them instead of running away from them, gives us an opportunity to follow Jesus’ example of how to walk through a desolate wilderness. This sort of journey calls for faithfulness; it calls us to do the hard work of wrestling with these issues while remaining hopeful. As followers of Jesus, we know how to say no to the temptation of despair; we know how to keep going when it would be tempting to give up and pretend everything is fine. We know how to keep focused on the light, and we know the darkness will not overcome it. Living in hope doesn’t mean ignoring problems; it means trekking through the desolate places with grateful hearts, trusting that our faithfulness will get us through.


March began here on Sunday with frigid temperatures and snow on the ground, but there are signs of spring there for the seeing. The sun had enough warmth to have melted the snow in some places, while in other places the sun’s warmth on icy ponds made water vapor visible in the cold air. There are shoots of early spring flowers coming up through the snow, and flocks of birds responding to the lengthening days. Yesterday a flock of robins arrived in our yard, and some of them were singing as if it were a warm day in April.

The month of March, when winter ends and spring begins, is a time of contrasts. ‘Lent’ comes from the Old English word for spring, for the lengthening days. Lent, too, is a time of contrasts; a time of desolation mixed with hope and joy. It’s a time to experience a wilderness walk with Jesus, relying on Christ to help us get past the temptations that would make us turn around and quit walking, and learning the faithfulness that brings hope into the most desolate of situations.

Scientists, economists, and other experts contribute analysis of data to help us understand what is happening in our world. People of faith have something else to contribute to the conversation, a voice of hope that helps us make hard choices and do the work that lies ahead of us.

Looking for Nature

Here in Nebraska we have had a variety of weather the past couple of weeks, with some days inviting us to spend time outdoors, and other days leaving us happy to shelter indoors.

On one of those more inviting days, my daughter and I decided to walk at Lake Hastings, an artificial lake surrounded partly by both residential property and some city parkland. I took my camera along hoping to snap some “nature” photos – trees in early bud, birds, and so forth.

Now we weren’t walking in “nature” as I might usually think of it; we were in a city park walking on concrete, and it was difficult to get a photo without catching some bit of a park bench, disc golf basket, or sidewalk in the photo. I said something offhand about not being able to take “nature” photos there because of all the stuff made by human beings, and that got us into a discussion of what we mean by ‘nature’ and ‘natural’.

If I’m walking along a creek bed and come upon a beaver dam, I consider that an interesting part of a nature walk. Why not view the dam that human beings built to create this lake in the same way? Why distinguish human beings and our creations from everything else in the world? After all, human beings are part of God’s creation.

Human Beings and “Nature”
Setting us and our products apart from other living things tends to dispose us toward just the sort of thinking that most “nature-lovers” want to avoid, the sort of thinking that sees the rest of creation as resources for us to use however we choose for whatever human purposes we choose. It makes it easy to abuse the resources at our disposal to the point where we find ourselves now, slowly waking up to the real limits of certain resources and the negative consequences of our often careless treatment of creation. Alternatively, this distinction between human products and everything else can lead to the sort of thinking that romanticizes “nature” to the point of ignoring the needs of human beings, setting up a clash between environmentalism and issues of human justice.

We do, in fact, use words like ‘nature’ and ‘the environment’ to categorize certain experiences and issues. Even if the impact of human beings on the air, water, and web of life on this planet can now be considered to be all-pervasive, it’s still useful to be able to have words that somehow name the idea of something untouched by human activity. On the other hand, it seems very important to remember that the distinction that such words seem to describe is an artificial one. I first heard the phrase ‘built environment’ from my green architect friend Sara Sweeney, and that seems a useful way to name the distinction; it reminds us that what we have built is indeed a part of that interconnected web of everything around us that is our actual environment.

Caring for Creation and One Another
When used carefully, the phrase ‘creation care’ can point us in the same direction, reminding us that Christian stewardship extends to all of creation, including human beings and the things we produce. Caring for creation includes caring for one another. Looking at the eight Millennium Development Goals that are aimed at halving extreme poverty and disease by 2015 is one way to remind ourselves that everything around us makes up our environment; those issues we place in the environmental category when we are speaking more casually are in fact intertwined with several other issues that we might not initially place in this category called ‘the environment’. MDG #7 is the goal of ensuring environmental sustainability in the ordinary sense of the world – reversing the loss of natural resources and increasing the amount of clean water on our planet. This goal impacts other goals related to improving human health and economic development, and the way we achieve those goals will in turn impact environmental sustainability.

The Church has traditionally worked to relieve the suffering of people who are hungry, sick, or living in poverty. In today’s world, working to ensure environmental sustainability is a necessary piece of that traditional church work, and effective work in those traditional areas will include attention to environmental sustainability. When we are being careful with language and using our words with precision, we realize that religious environmentalism is a new perspective on some very traditional concerns of religious folks. And still, when it’s time to relax and retreat and look for God in the world around us, we all know what a “nature walk” is, and we know that it might be just the thing to remind us of the presence of the Creator of all that is in everything around us.

As for my photos that day at Lake Hastings: I ended up with a series of pictures from the edge of the lake. Over the winter, all sorts of plastic objects have been washed up along with the more “natural” debris of sticks and dead fish. The number of bottle caps, pieces of plastic cups, drinking straws, and bits of plastic toys was shocking, and made me wonder what effect all of this has on the fish, birds, and other living things in and around this little lake, and what effect all of that has on the human community. The plastic bits along the shore of our local lake are as much a part of our environment as are the beautiful sunsets and the snow geese that have arrived this week. Removing them from the picture too often allows us to deny the reality of the consequences of our choices, and the reality of the work we have been given as stewards of creation.

Ecology and Homekeeping: Gladdening our Hearts

Most Americans think of February 2 as Groundhog Day. Much is made of Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil and whether he sees his shadow. Here in Nebraska, where we are often blessed with some noticeably warm sunshine at the beginning of February, we have our own Unadilla Bill. Even if it leads to a prediction of six more weeks of winter, it’s hard to feel bad about a sunny Nebraska day at the beginning of February.

In the Church, February 2 is the Presentation of our Lord, when we remember Mary and Joseph presenting the baby Jesus at the temple forty days after his birth. Luke’s account of this event tells about Simeon and Anna recognizing the baby as the Savior, the Messiah. This day is also known as the Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin, and as Candlemas.

This point forty days after the Nativity is midway between the dates we use now for the beginning of winter and the beginning of spring. Some old calendars considered this to be the beginning of spring, and in places with milder winters, early February does seem like the beginning of spring. Even here in Nebraska, we begin to see the earliest signs of winter’s end. Flocks of geese were in the sky around Grand Island on Sunday, and we know the first migrating cranes will arrive soon. The days are noticeably longer, the sunlight feels warmer, and sunny days usually bring about some thawing of ice and snow.


Homekeeping
The folk traditions around this time of year involve not only trying to predict exactly when winter will end and spring begin, but also have some elements of purification and preparation for new life. We think of spring cleaning as something to do when winter is definitely gone, but the tradition of spring cleaning probably shares it origins with the early February blessing of new candles and preparation for spring. Spring cleaning is something we no longer practice with the gusto of previous generations, but it wasn’t long ago that the work of thoroughly cleaning and airing everything in the home was essential after a long winter in close quarters heated by coal, wood, corn cobs, or dung. Good homekeeping was necessary for both survival and comfort.

The root ‘eco-‘, as in ‘ecology’, refers to an environment or habitat, and comes from the Greek root for house or household. The question of the relationship between human beings and our natural environment, God’s good creation, is in a way a question of housekeeping or homekeeping. A spirituality of how we live in our environment is a wider application of a spirituality of homekeeping.

I think about the women who were homesteaders in Nebraska, living initially in sodhouses that were very different from the sorts of homes they had known “back East” or in Europe. The winters must have seemed terribly long. What joy they must have felt when they saw the first signs of winter’s end! Our challenge in thinking about human beings and the environment is not really very different from the challenge of these homekeepers on the prairie: Given where we find ourselves, given what is, how do we maximize the beauty and comfort of our home so that we not only can survive, but also can nurture the total well-being and health of those living in our home?

Beyond sustainability
There is today a lot of talk of sustainability, of stopping and reversing the damage to our environment so that we can continue to survive. But good ecology, good planetary homekeeping, points beyond mere survival to supporting an environment in which we can thrive and flourish, living fully as God’s sons and daughters. One of the table graces in The Book of Common Prayer (p. 835) says “Blessed are you, O Lord God…for you give us food to sustain our lives and make our hearts glad.” God’s gifts are meant not only for our sustenance or survival, but to gladden our hearts, to give us joy. A well-prepared, nourishing meal shared with good company feeds more than our bodies!

What other sorts of practices in our homes, parishes, and communities lead us to care for creation and one another in ways that help us to go beyond mere survival to thriving and flourishing? What nourishes both body and soul, making our hearts glad? Please click on Comments and share something that sustains both body and soul.