Faith in Action: Comment on Keystone XL Pipeline

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

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

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

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

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

Statement of Opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline
  

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

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

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

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

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

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


Respectfully submitted,

The Ven. Betsy Blake Bennett
Hastings, Nebraska

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alleluia! Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

St. Stephen's Crane Celebration

Traditionally the Fourth Sunday in Lent has been a time to remember that the discipline and somber tone of Lent is in preparation for the joy of Easter. We call it Rose Sunday or Refreshment Sunday. A little over halfway through Lent, it’s a time to look through Lent to Easter. Once again this year, what has become an annual crane migration celebration at St. Stephen’s in Grand Island falls very appropriately on Rose Sunday.

A couple of days of predicted warmer weather before the weekend should bring more of the Sandhill cranes into our area by the weekend. St. Stephen’s worship on March 10 at 8:00 and 10:30 is planned to help us celebrate the wonder of the cranes’ return and to reflect on the spiritual meaning of this and other wonders as we prepare for Easter.

Sunday’s Gospel text (Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32) is the parable of the prodigal son. In this parable, the repentant prodigal son returns home, where his father welcomes him warmly and extravagantly simply because this is his long-lost son and he has come home. The parable illustrates God’s unconditional love for all of God’s children; simply because we are God’s children, God loves us and rejoices when we return to God.

The parent-child relationship is deeper and stronger than any circumstances or conditions that strain that relationship. The prodigal son’s father cares very much about this young man who has strayed, but has no special concern for other young men who bear no relationship to him. We care most for those with whom we have an established relationship. Going out and becoming acquainted with the world around us, including the birds migrating through the Platte valley in the spring, establishes a relationship between us and the land, water, plants, birds, and other animals in our ecosystem. As we spend more time outdoors, that relationship grows, and our care for the environment deepens. Since all of this is God’s creation, strengthening our relationship with the natural world around us also strengthens our relationship with God.

Weather permitting, the St. Stephen’s Green Team invites you to join them on Saturday evening, March 9, at the Crane Trust Nature and Visitor Center (just south of the I-80 Alda interchange) at 5:00 for a guided footbridge tour to view the cranes on the Platte River at sunset. The tour is open and accessible to everyone ages 12 and up. People are free to leave the tour at any time, but cannot go back to the bridge once they have left. Cost is $15 plus tax. These tours fill up on weekends, so reservations should be made as soon as possible by calling 308-382-1820.  We will begin gathering at 4:00 for a short evening prayer service at the nature center, either outdoors on the patio area behind the building or indoors in their conference room.

Letting Our Little Lights Shine

Forward on Climate Rally

“They report the number at the rally, but seldom mention the number who will starve to death, who have no voice other than ours.”

Among the thousands of people gathered in Washington, DC, for the Forward on Climate rally last Sunday were Chuck and Nancy Peek. Below, Fr. Peek and Nancy graciously share some of their impressions of the rally and some reflection on their reasons for being there.

Jesus taught us not to hide our lights under a basket, but to let them shine out into the world. In our culture, many voices encourage us to hide our lights, telling us it is futile or destructive or dangerous to let our lights shine. The Peeks counter those voices, telling us why it’s important to let our lights shine in this warming world.

                       Braving the Cold to Stop the Fatal Warming 

                                     By Chuck and Nancy Peek

         “Read My Lips, No New Carbons” (sign at D.C. rally)

One person told us there were as many reasons for joining the Forward on Climate Rally as there were people there.  So maybe there were 35,000 reasons, maybe there were 50,000 reasons.
 

However many the slope from the Washington Monument down to the Ellipse will hold…it was full.  It was full of cold people, with temperatures under 20.  It was full of bold people, with a message that only their presence could speak.  Some of them were from Bold Nebraska.
 

Many had come with a smaller carbon footprint by joining together for the grueling ride on the Nebraska bus.  Some of the reasons arose from love of the created world. Others’ reasons arose out of the politics surrounding global warming.
 

The Sierra Club’s Michael Brune, the good cop, there because the President’s inaugural said, in effect, come help me do the right thing.  Bill McKibben, from 350.org and fresh from his arrest, the bad cop, challenging the President to stand up and be counted, to act.
 

There were religious reasons that brought Sojourners and Green Faith and churches and their signs.  Several of the “occupy” this or that movements.  Defenders of property rights.  Hispanic leaders and advocates for women and children.  Tribal elders and ranchers…the new CIA (Cowboy-Indian Alliance).  A polar-bear-clad marcher trying to save the arctic (See Deacon Betsy Bennett’s Green Sprouts February 16 post for more about ice)  

If the pipeline goes through – No! No!—IF the pipeline goes through—No! No!—IF, IF the pipeline goes through, Nebraska becomes the center of the environmental universe! 

Solar advocates, wind proponents (“windmills, not oil spills”), vegans, seekers of truth in government, the end of grid-lock—old, young, and in between.  Many too young to be remembering civil rights or anti-war marches, many too old to be without environmental sin.  The two of us remembering how Jane Kleeb and Randy Thompson spoke at St. Stephen’s Episcopal and, unbeknownst then to any of us, started us on the road to this rally. 

A movement of people meeting people:

    Hi, I’m Juanita Rice from Fairmont. (Hadn’t she been in theater when we  were in school?)
 
    Are all of you students from Wesleyan?
 
    Brit with his new adventure in filming events, whose daughter studies prairie restoration. 
 
    Brock, the Omaha Marathon runner, from our hometown.
 
    Shelley Clark, poet and teacher—some of her students were there.
 
    Our good friend from New York, Tom Gallagher.
 
    Someone in former Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s Halloween Costume—a packing barrel looking like a leaky pipeline. 
 

From the far-off stage, or over the jumbotron, the extraordinary wit and zeal of the Hip-Hop Caucus emcee, The Rev. Lennox Yearwood, kept a freezing crowd moving.  Next to us it was up with the blanket and the children’s snacks and the children, then hip, hop, move; hip, hop, move. 

More speeches, more moving, clear from near 14^th Street until we were centered on the White House. 

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island urging his colleagues to listen to the science, to start acting.  (Why can’t we all have Congressional representatives who care about the future?) Billionaire investment counselor Thomas Steyer explaining why wind and solar are smarter investments.  The challenge to President Obama—be the first world leader to say “no” to a project simply because it is bad for the environment.
 

Then finally off down the slope to Constitution Avenue, following the banners, where a band of drums and tubas and trumpets joined us and soon attracted a dancing second line. Over to 17^th, up 17^th, to Pennsylvania Avenue, then down to the White House, shouting our slogans.   “Hey, hey, ho, ho; the XL Pipeline’s got to go.”  “We are unstoppable, a better world is possible” soon morphed into “We are responsible, a better world is possible.”  

The band struck up “This Little Gospel Light of Mine” just as we got to the inauguration viewing stand.  All around the whole wide world: the homes of family and friends where we were graciously hosted for dinner in the DC area, back in Nebraska where friends and family were cheering us on, down to Florida where the President was golfing with Tiger Woods, clear to Bangladesh where, if we don’t act now, there will be 40 million victims of climate change by 2050. 

They report the number at the rally, but seldom mention the number who will starve to death, who have no voice other than ours. 

We gave them our voice in speeches and slogans and songs.  We had done what little we could to make our little light shine.  As Senator Whitehouse said, “We are going to look at our grandchildren and say, ‘Yes, we did!’” If Van Jones was right that 20 years from now this will be the only presidential decision anyone remembers, then we thousands there and tens of thousands at home can say, we helped the President make the right decision. 

At the pub that hosted our evening preparations for the Sunday rally, a writer from Minnesota (seems they are building or expanding pipelines everywhere these days) said, “This is not a battle.  It’s the last battle.  Lose now, and we are all lost for good.”  All around the whole wide world.  

Praying the News

February 16, 2013

In our prayers, we thank God for the wonders of creation, pray for those parts of creation that need repair and healing because of our carelessness, and ask for the wisdom, will, and courage to preserve and protect the biosphere that makes human life both possible and rich.

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

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

Please pray for:

Relief from the ongoing drought on the Great Plains.  This week’s US Drought Monitor report shows some improvement in this part of the country, but as their map shows, most of Nebraska remains in extreme or exceptional drought conditions. Coupling prayers for seasonable weather with prayers of repentance for our part in creating the greater issue of climate change might help us find our way forward.

The Arctic sea ice and eyes to see and minds to understand the significance of the loss of ice. The UK’s Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) has confirmed earlier estimates of a collapse of the sea ice in the Arctic. Total sea ice volume in the Arctic is one-fifth what it was in 1980. Analyst Andy Lee Robinson has put the data in graphic form that shows the spiraling collapse of the sea ice:

From http://haveland.com/share/arctic-death-spiral-1979-201301.png

 People in Washington, DC, for Sunday’s Forward on Climate rally. Thousands of people are expected to rally in Washington tomorrow to ask President Obama to lead on addressing climate change, beginning with denying a permit to complete the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Several Nebraskans will be part of this, carrying with them our concerns about the this pipeline that would cross Nebraska. Pray for protection as they travel and rally, for peaceful hearts and effective voices, and for wise leadership from our President and other leaders; and offer prayers of thanksgiving for these people willing to speak with their voices and their presence at this gathering.

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer In Times of Conflict (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 824)

O God, our heavenly Father, you have blessed us and given us dominion over all the earth: Increase our reverence before the mystery of life; and give us new insight into your purposes for the human race, and new wisdom and determination in making provision for its future in accordance with your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer For the Future of the Human Race (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 828)

As we pray for others, we might also pray for our own hearts to be open so we can see the needs in the world around us and gladly respond to those needs:

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

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

Keeping Lent

The Presiding Bishop’s Lent message for 2013 encourages us “to pray, to fast, to act in solidarity with those who go without. Learn more, give alms, share what you have. Be conscious about what you eat.”

Awareness of worldwide hunger and how addressing that is tied together with our own spiritual healing is the theme of Episcopal Relief and Development’s Lenten meditations. The meditations are available as daily e-mails or in booklet form.

Awareness of what we eat, of how it is produced, packaged, and transported is intertwined with all sorts of environmental issues, and hunger around the world is exacerbated by the increase in extreme weather events resulting from climate change.

The Gospel teaches that the way we treat those in the greatest need is the way we treat Christ; our relationship with Christ is tied to our relationship with the hungry, the poor, and all those who are marginalized.  And even the most perfunctory Lenten disciplines – meatless Fridays or giving up sweets – are taken on with some sort of awareness of a relationship between our spiritual well-being and what we eat.

We are spiritually healthy when we are in good relationship with God, one another, and God’s creation. Being conscious about what we eat – or being intentional about just about any part of life – helps us become more aware of the web of connections in which we live. That awareness helps us see that when we desire to grow in our relationship in Christ, we can’t approach life as if our daily decisions affected no one but ourselves. That’s why stewardship, including environmental stewardship, is an essential piece of discipleship.

Robert Herrick wrote “To Keep a True Lent” in the 17^th century, but the core idea of the poem is very much in keeping with what Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Episcopal Relief and Development say to us as we begin Lent in 2013.

TO KEEP A TRUE LENT.
by Robert Herrick

Is this a fast, to keep
                The larder lean ?
                            And clean
From fat of veals and sheep ?

Is it to quit the dish
                Of flesh, yet still
                            To fill
The platter high with fish ?

Is it to fast an hour,
                Or ragg’d to go,
                            Or show
A downcast look and sour ?

No ;  ‘tis a fast to dole
                Thy sheaf of wheat,
                            And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife,
                From old debate
                            And hate ;
To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent ;
                To starve thy sin,
                            Not bin ;
And that’s to keep thy Lent. 

Joy: Twelfth Day of Christmas

Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her king;

Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing.

With “Joy to the world” in our hearts and minds, I invite you to join me in looking each of these twelve days for instances of the joy that runs through all of creation, especially through experiencing the beauty and wonder of God’s world.

Today’s joys included two sights that seemed just right for the last day of Christmas and the day before Epiphany.

At Christmas we talk about the true light coming into the world, and at Epiphany we talk about that light being manifested to the whole world. There have been several striking sunrises and sunsets during these twelve days of Christmas, and this morning’s sunrise seemed to be all about the light:

Right before Christmas I made a batch of date-nut cookies, cutting them into star shapes. When I took one of the sheets of cookies out of the oven, three of them fell onto the floor. While they were still warm, I poked holes in them to hang them by string for the birds and squirrels. The two stars that had been hanging from a birdfeeder disappeared, though I never saw who had eaten them or if they had simply fallen. Late this morning, though, a squirrel climbed up a trellis where I’d hung the third star and carefully removed it. Then, carrying it in his mouth, he ran up into a tree for a Twelfth Night feast.

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let us our songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, repeat the sounding joy.