Today's News

James 4:13 – 5:6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Praying the News: Keystone XL Pipeline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resources

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

Practical Resources

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

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

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

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


Loving our neighbors

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

The Richest Resource

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

Recreation

Wonder and Action

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

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

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

Eastern Africa: Drought and Famine

Part 2

Proper 13A

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eastern Africa: Drought and Famine

^{Part I}

"Give them something to eat."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God's Earth: Tar Sands

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)