Candlemas Light

In seven weeks spring will officially be here. This is hard to imagine right now as we emerge from another winter storm, this one with especially cold temperatures and wind chills. Despite the biting cold and recent snow, though, on sunny days the sunshine feels warmer than it did in early January. The days are getting longer, and once we pass Candlemas, which is today, the increasing light will become more obvious.

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. Simeon says this child is “a light for revelation to the Gentiles”. This day is also known as Candlemas and as the Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin. Some churches still bless new candles on this day or have a special candlelight procession.

This point forty days after the Nativity is nearly 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 in a normal year can seem like the beginning of spring. Sometimes even here in Nebraska we can sense spring coming on this date.

Luke tells us that Simeon looked forward to “the consolation of Israel”. Despite the darkness of many things in his world, Simeon had faith that he would see the Messiah before he died. When he saw the infant Jesus, he knew that this was the light for which he had waited. Until the Holy Spirit guided him to the temple that day, Simeon didn’t know where or when or how he would see the Messiah, only that this would happen before he died.

In this week of extreme weather here in the United States and in other places, most notably Queensland, where a huge cyclone named Yasi threatens an area already devastated by floods, it’s sometimes hard to find faith that we will see the light. There is some expectation that Cyclone Yasi may be the biggest cyclone ever to hit Australia. Given that these sorts of mega-storms are exactly what climate scientists predicted would happen as global temperatures rise, what we are experiencing in our northern hemisphere winter and in the southern summer may well be the new normal. It’s sometimes very hard to find hope that we will find our way out of the dark future we would face if global warming is generally ignored and allowed to continue to accelerate.

For people of faith, though, there is always a light of hope even if we can’t imagine how or when we will see the changes for which we are waiting and for which many of us are working. Just as most of the people in the temple that day didn’t recognize that Mary’s baby was different from any other baby brought to the temple forty days after being born, it may be that most of us won’t recognize it when things begin to change for the better. But we continue to pray that there will some shift in political will or in the consciousness of enough of the world’s people that we can learn to live together on this planet with clean air and water, oceans that can support living things, and a global climate that is stable enough to sustain civilized human life.

Meanwhile, while we wait and pray and work this month in the northern hemisphere, we will see more light with longer days and the sun a bit higher in the sky. May this be a sign of hope for us and give us faith to do the joyful work of caring for our world!

Anglican Primates' Statement on Climate Change

Last week the primates (senior bishops such as chief archbishops or our presiding bishop) from most of the provinces of the Anglican Communion met in Dublin. Primates’ meetings are an opportunity for these leaders to meet in order to pray, think, and talk together about various issues. Climate change was one of the discussion topics for this meeting.

At the end of the meeting, the primates issued a statement on climate change . The document includes this paragraph:

We encourage all Anglicans to recognise that global climatic change is real and that we are contributing to the despoiling of creation. We underline the increasing urgency of this as we see the impact of climate change in our provinces, especially in the Pacific region.

Among my prayers of gratitude this chilly last day of January is thanksgiving that this group of leaders from around the world named climate change, acknowledged our role in it, and noted that the impacts of climate change are already evident some places, especially in the Pacific region.

It’s difficult for people from some of the places affected, such as small island nations, to be heard by the rest of the world. When the church hears the cry for help from people who are easily overlooked, we are truly following Christ, who noticed, healed, and fed people who were poor or outcast, and who instructed his disciples to do the same.

Doing Justice

Epiphany 4A

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

Sun Come Up is one of this year’s Oscar nominees in short documentary films. It’s a story from Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific about the Carteret Islanders relocating to a new home on Bougainville, fifty miles across the open water. The Carteret Islanders are among the growing number of climate refugees in our world, people who must leave their home because the effects of climate change are making it uninhabitable. These people have a language and culture unique to their islands, but must now go live in a different place because their islands are disappearing due to rising sea levels and erosion. This film tells the story of these people and the people of Bougainville who, despite their own hardships after ten years of civil strife, welcome these refugees. Here’s the trailer of the film:

Sun Come Up Trailer from Sun Come Up on Vimeo.

Tomorrow’s lectionary includes Micah 6:1-8. Micah’s message from God tells us that God wants us to do justice. A big piece of doing justice in today’s world is paying attention to people like the Carteret Islanders who are losing their homes. Doing justice also involves working not only to ensure there are welcoming places for them to resettle, but working to bring the levels of carbon and other greenhouse gases down to a point where the effects of climate change can be kept to a minimum. The longer we live with carbon levels above 350 ppm, the more severe will be the effects of climate change. (The December 2010 reading from the Mauna Loa observatory was 389.69)

The kindness of the Bougainville Islanders is extraordinary. As the synopsis of the story on the Sun Come Up website explains:

Many Bougainvilleans remain traumatized by the “Crisis” as the civil war is known locally. Yet, Sun Come Up isn’t a familiar third world narrative. Out of this tragedy comes a story of hope, strength, and profound generosity.

Verse 5 of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-12), tomorrow’s Gospel lesson, is “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” The Tulele Peisa website (‘Tulele Peisa’ means ‘sailing the waves on our own’) includes some background information about the situation on the Carteret Islands . As on other Pacific Islands, their staple food has been taro. When the groundwater on islands becomes too saline due to sea level rise and rising storm tides, the taro crops fail. The conditions on the islands have certainly made the people humble, and no doubt much of the world would prefer that climate refugees be meek in all possible nuances of the word – submissive, not creating a stir, nonassertive.

In the film trailer, one of the people with whom they are negotiating on Bougainville says, “I’ve heard about you Carterets, you are easy-going people.” But while easy-going, they are not passive. They have carefully thought through their circumstances and their options, and are relocating in a way that will help their family units and some of their culture to survive and in a way that allows them to be productive people in their new home. They are gentle people, but they are not allowing circumstances to push them around completely. Without such planning, they know they would become, as some already have, “the new marginalised fringe dwellers with serious social problems and stigma” living in slums on the Papua New Guinea mainland.

Perhaps some meekness is called for on our part, in a willingness for those of us living in places that are habitable to step aside and, following the example of the Bougainville Islanders, make space for this new kind of refugee. Meekness would call for us to set aside our desire for everything to continue to grow bigger so that others can be ensured the essentials in life. Surely that is part of doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God. If we do these things, we might stand a chance for all of us to inherit the earth.

Waters of Baptism

The last two posts, Water followed by ...And More Water came out of wondering about the significance of the waters of baptism in light of a couple of big environmental issues that had been in the news around the First Sunday of Epiphany, when we remember the Baptism of Our Lord. Those issues were catastrophic floods several places in the world and plastic pollution in our oceans. Increased frequency of major flooding is one expected effect of climate change, one of the many effects that bring hardship to people around the world.

Thinking about this has brought more questions than answers to my mind. As noted in the first post about this, both the effects of climate change on people and other living things and the extent of plastic pollution and its effects on people and other living things are issues of such a large scale that it’s difficult to even comprehend the challenges we face, let alone reflect on their spiritual significance.

But the questions are persistent if still in formation, so in this post, I’m offering some first questions for reflection in hopes that we might have a conversation about the way we see and talk about the waters of baptism in a rapidly and significantly changing world.

Comments, stabs at answers, answers made in confidence of their certainty, are all welcome. (If you’re commenting on the blog, please sign your comments if you want them to be shown.)

The first question is an easy one, but serves to introduce the second: What characteristics have we traditionally associated with water that suits it to be the matter – the “outward and visible sign” -- for the sacrament of baptism? What new associations do we or will we have with water as more of the earth’s water becomes permeated with plastic and as we face extremes of flooding and drought in many areas of the planet? Will this change the experience for people witnessing baptisms?

It seems almost dishonest or as if we were in denial if, as these environmental phenomena unfold, we continue to use water liturgically in the ways we have always used it without commenting on or acknowledging what has changed. If the significance for us of something like water changes in our daily lives – if, for example, we someday find ourselves in a world where pure water is rare – what, if anything, do we say about that?

The promises we make in our baptismal covenant (Book of Common Prayer, pp. 304-305) raise questions for us as we struggle with these new sorts of issues. We promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. When our brothers and sisters around the world suffer from the effects of climate change, how can we best respond to disasters such as the floods of January? What can we do to prevent these things from happening?

We promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. We know that our actions, our comforts, are producing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, and we know that the effects of climate change are bringing hardship to many people. We know that the plastic things we use find their way into the oceans and other waterways and have an effect on living things that comes up the food chain. What is the just thing for us to do? Are we respecting the dignity of every human being if we can’t bring ourselves to acknowledge and name the problem? What changes can we make to help us better keep our baptismal covenant?

The core of these questions seems to be centered on truthfulness with one another and with God about the changes in our environment and the part our actions play both in causing those changes and in responding to their ill effects. Where does truthfulness rank in our priorities when we approach liturgy? If we are tempted to pretend the world is something other than it is, or if we deny the realities of our world, how does that affect what we do before God and God’s people?

...and More Water

Over a week ago, I started this series of posts about water by talking about floods, especially the flooding in Queensland, Australia, and in Brazil. At that time, the death toll in Brazil was 13 people. Yesterday morning that number was estimated to be at least 665. . This morning’s estimate is over 700, with the number expected to rise as bodies are found and as the region remains at risk for fresh mud slides.

While no single weather event can be linked conclusively with global warming, the floods in both Brazil and Australia are linked to exceptionally high ocean temperatures which would be expected to result in above normal precipitation. In a Reuters article Matthew England of the Climate Change Rese

arch Center at the University of New South Wales in Sydney notes that “the waters off Australia are the warmest ever measured and those waters provide moisture to the atmosphere for the Queensland and northern Australia monsoon”.

CNN reports from South Africa that at least forty people have died in flooding, more than 6,000 people have been displaced, and more heavy rain is expected. Most rivers and reservoirs in South Africa have reached their capacity, so more flooding is expected.

After a week in snowy Syracuse, New York (where there has been more than 100” of snow this season, putting them on track to break their seasonal record), we came home to more snow in Nebraska. A video found here from The Weather Channel’s Earth Watch does a good job of explaining the link between the cold and snow in much of the United States and global climate change.

Ocean Plastics

The news this month about plastics in the ocean comes in the form of good news / bad news. The good news is that the now-famous garbage patches, including the most well-known of them, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, don’t seem to be growing in size. These “garbage patches” are, in fact, not the dense and easily visible areas some reports have led the public to believe, but contain mostly small bits of plastic. Marcus Eriksen’s post on the 5 Gyres blog, Beyond the absurdity of a ‘Texas-sized Garbage Patch’ lies a larger menace of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans , says that while the idea of a big, almost solid patch of plastic real estate appealed to the sense that someone could go do something about it (or with it), the reality is “much worse”. What we have instead is a “thin plastic soup”, and that in a way is better news than a floating island of plastic trash. But the bad news is also that it’s not in a definite area; it’s everywhere. That means it’s not something we can go out and clean up. The only way to address the plastic pollution in our oceans is to quit adding to it, and clean up the bits that get spun out of the gyres and onto beaches.

Writing on the Discovery News website, Emily Sohn writes ‘Great Garbage Patch’ not so Great After All , noting that these small bits of plastic throughout the oceans pose a variety of threats, especially as fish ingest them and as they break down.

Waters of Baptism

Water, of course, still has all the characteristics it has always had, and holds all the same meaning for human beings. Water has always been both essential and potentially destructive. But with plastic pollution in the oceans and the prominence of worldwide floods brought about by torrential rains, our understanding of water as a metaphor is no doubt shifting in some way, adding perhaps some new aspects of meaning to a very traditional sign. That's the subject of the next post.

Water

Despite the less liquid form of H2O covering much of Nebraska today -- and doing that beautifully -- I’ve been thinking about water for several days. Last Sunday we remembered the Baptism of Jesus, and many parishes had baptisms that day. The prayers of thanksgiving over the water in our baptismal service remind us that along with being essential to life, water has great spiritual significance.

Personally Challenging Task

In the week leading up to the First Sunday after Epiphany (The Baptism of Our Lord), stories were popping up in the news about floods in Australia and South Africa . The floods in Australia were fairly well-covered in the news; fewer people here heard about the ones in Eastern Cape Province and KwaZulu Natal. The same week, I came across more information about the plastic in our oceans – both the extent of the pollution and more evidence that plastic is entering the food chain. Not having a lot of time to sit and process all of this, I simply didn’t write the post during the week. When Saturday came, it was even more difficult to focus on something this complex after news of the shootings in Tucson.

Since then, I’ve been looking at why it was so difficult to put these pieces together. Thinking about water brings together two environmental phenomena that I find very difficult to really comprehend because of the scale of the phenomena and the unthinkable nature of their consequences: the effects of climate change on people and other living things, and the extent of plastic pollution and its own effects on people and other living things. Thinking about the waters of baptism, reflecting on the relationship between the physical properties of water and its spiritual significance for us, is a whole different exercise when done with an awareness of the environmental realities with which we now live.

With this next Sunday’s Gospel (John 1:29-42 ) beginning with John talking about the Baptism of Jesus, the blog plan for this week is to talk about floods in this post, plastic and water in the next post, and perhaps be able after that to put together at least some of the pieces in relation to the waters of baptism.

Floods

This morning there were new headlines: Dozens missing from flooding in Australian valley and 13 Dead After Heavy Rains in Brazil. No single weather event can be connected to changes in the climate brought about by global warming; floods happen and have always happened. But two things indicate an overall connection: first, the record-breaking rainfalls and severe storms that have caused the flooding are exactly what scientists have told us will happen as the earth’s atmosphere warms and holds more water vapor; and second, there have been multiple floods in the past year with the phrases “record-breaking rainfall” and “catastrophic flooding” attached to them. If we were experiencing weather phenomena within the old norms, we wouldn’t be breaking so many records.

Remember the July floods in Pakistan? In early December, a reporter for the British Telegraph reported on current conditions in the flooded areas . A recent PBS NewsHour report tells more about the aftermath of the flooding and other water issues there:

If we find it difficult to imagine what is happening in faraway places, we might look closer to home and re\member the floods in Iowa last summer. A report on the impacts of climate change on Iowa was released January 1. It’s a good report for Nebraskans to look at to help us think about how we might best live in the next several years, and it does a good job of laying out the connections between global climate change and local weather trends. Increased precipitation and flooding is discussed in this report. An Iowa State University press release about the role of some ISU researchers in the study notes that the university itself was flooded in August 2010.

Along with concerns about flooding caused by increased precipitation and severe storms, global warming brings coastal flooding from sea level rise. Flooding of both kinds is expected to increase in the years ahead. Disaster aid to victims of floods is the sort of charitable work that churches have historically done. One consequence of increased flooding will be an increased need for aid.

I suspect this is one piece of the connection to the waters of baptism. We who have made a covenant to "seek and serve Christ in all persons" should think about how we would respond to increased flooding both close to home and far away.

Epiphany

The Green Sprouts blog first appeared two years ago on the Feast of the Epiphany. In our diocese, awareness of environmental issues and efforts to be better stewards of God’s creation have increased over the past two years. As we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany today and move into the weeks following Epiphany, we talk about Christ’s revelation to the world and about Jesus’ ministry of healing and reconciliation, and also about how we can help bring Christ's healing and reconciliation to the world.

If your parish has taken some steps to practice better environmental stewardship or to educate your parish or your community about environmental issues, if you have begun advocacy around an environmental justice issue or found ways to enrich your worship through connections to the natural world, please send a note to deaconbetsy@windstream.net so we can share what you are doing with other parishes in the diocese. In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing how things unfold at St. Stephen’s as we apply for the GreenFaith Certification Program and, if our application is accepted, begin doing the work to complete the program and become designated as a GreenFaith Sanctuary. (See the 10/14/10 post New Green Opportunity for Parishes for more about the program.)

Meanwhile, as we celebrate Epiphany, remembering the wise men following the star and Christ being revealed to the world, the last paragraphs of that first Green Sprouts post articulated some of the reasons for us to pay more attention to God’s creation and to be intentional about caring for the environment:

People who pay attention to the sky, the changing seasons, the incredible variety of life on our planet Earth, often experience joy and wonder and wholeness. Spending time outdoors paying attention to God’s creation leads us to open our hearts in gratitude. We don’t need to be able to name these experiences as ‘God’ for them to have a deep effect on us, and for us to know they point to something more. Those of us who do use traditional religious language describe such experiences as ways to connect with God. Being outdoors and taking the time to look around and listen is one of the most accessible doors or openings to the Holy. Such experiences not only give us a sense of God’s presence, but they often change us in profound ways.

As we talk about the light of the Epiphany star and connect it to the light of Christ in the world, the hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere are slowly increasing. On the plains, the angle of the sun and the weather conditions on some days combine to produce beautiful colors in the sky at sunrise and sunset. Cold, clear nights result in starry skies that make it easy to imagine following a special star night after night to see where it leads.

Launching this blog seems to me like a fitting way to mark the Feast of the Epiphany. Environmental issues directly affect the traditional social concerns of the church such as poverty, disease, hunger, and social justice. During Epiphany, the Church talks about bringing Christ to the world, about revealing Christ’s power to bring healing and wholeness. To bring Christ to a world where environmental issues have come to be understood as fundamental to all our economic, social, and political concerns, the Church needs to bring these issues into the center of our conversations and our work.