Earth Day Reflections
April 20, 2008
In place of a sermon from Rev. Zenka this week, we asked some of our members to reflect on what Earth Day means to them and how their Christian faith informs their relationship to the Earth and all its inhabitants.
God’s Creation
Hedy Telfer
Good morning!
I’m going to talk about God’s creations for life on Earth, and what I see as His intentions for their care as written in the Bible.
The pleasure of laughter nurtures us, one of His creations. Genesis 3:19: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Once upon a time there was a little boy who knew the phrase, dust to dust, and one morning, after looking under his bed, he ran excitedly to his mother.
“Mama, Mama,” he cried. “Come quick! Look under my bed! Either someone is coming or someone is going!”
I believe in Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. As a former librarian, I also look to a recent, good dictionary. I believe in the true meaning of words and the great power of words. I’m going to focus on the word, “dominion,” and the phrase, “in His image.”
Genesis tells us that God took six days for creation. In the first three days, He created light, sky, division of waters, land, and plants. In the last three days, He created heavenly lights, water and sky animals, and land animals and humans, with plants as their food.
God gave us a weekly blessing with His next creation. He rested. As He is God, I don’t think He did it because He was tired! He was sending us a message. God blessed and hallowed the unique seventh day, the first sacred thing. With a day each week to be refreshed by the cessation of work, we can praise Him, we can reflect, and we ourselves
are nurtured. It’s a good thing! I think He wants us, His creation, to take care of ourselves. We have time to play with the kids, read a joke book, take a walk, take a nap! But in the fast paced U.S., it’s hard after church to remember... to go home and not work.
In Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, God empowered His last creation, us, with “dominion” over earth and its creatures as the earthly representative, the “image of God.” "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’”
If you look up the word “dominion” in the dictionary, it does not say “use,” or even “use up,” though many people for many generations have acted as though it does. In the dictionary, “dominion” means “control or the exercise of control.”
Putting Genesis and the dictionary together, I understand that our “control” over God’s creations are to be done “in His image.” And it makes no sense to me that He would want us to pollute or destroy what He has created.
Church people loving God and acting “in His image,” in my opinion, should be active in the “green” message of God the Father. It's like parents nurturing their children, their creations, so should we nurture each other and the world, God the Father's creations.
With "dominion," God has given us a great responsibility.
I don’t think He would approve of us harming His creations. I don’t think He would approve of us exterminating into extinction, life on earth. Our hope is in remembering to live and act “in His image.” And according to the vast majority of scientists as they
have studied global climate change, we need to act promptly, or it will be too late.
Sustainability Testimony
Shenandoah Sowash
I am new to the green movement, which is to say that I am green in the green movement, to the very idea that my way of living has a substantial impact on the earth.
As a child on long car rides, my father frequently pulled over to let we children stretch our legs, drink some juice and release some of our abundant energy. Occasionally during these breaks, my father would ask us to gather around and study a bit of grass determinedly growing between two slabs of concrete.
“You see?” he’d say. “Nature is in charge. Even when we try to control her, she grows back up again.” Such a statement was both elating and terrifying for me. I imagined large slabs of pavement smashing the earth and a battle between trees and machines.
As a child, I picked blackberries. I played outside each day and built elaborate altars in the woods behind my house, a habit that now strikes me as distinctively pagan. I see now that my daily walks in the woods and the blackberry picking were practices, rituals by which I remained connected to nature, to something larger than myself.
I have since lived in four cities where I had virtually no conscious relationship to nature. Sadly, such is the fate of many urban dwellers. Only in recent months of walking the dogs, wandering through the snow and sitting outside have I begun anything resembling a new practice.
Many have argued that Christianity lacks a daily practice, that the faith is lofty and vague. I admit that I have often left church and thought, “Wow. That was meaningful. Now if someone would just tell me what to do.”
I’ve noticed that people with a daily practice involving nature (farmers, gardeners even house plant enthusiasts) are inclined toward sustainability. I believe that everyone must have a practice that connects one to the planet if they are to be invested in its salvation.
For me, it was blackberry picking and building altars in the woods. For others, it may be a deliberate and close look at the ingredients of grocery store products. For others still, it may be weekly trips to the farmer’s market, the campus garden or even the local potato farm. It is not enough to tell people, “Love the earth.” Would it were so easy. We must come to love and honor nature in our own way.
Still, it is dangerous for people to assume ownership over the earth. Rather, I believe a ritual, a practice is the beginning of getting people involved in the green movement.
In her classically elegant and cryptic manner, Emily Dickinson addresses the need for reverence, even blissful madness, toward spring, toward nature, in this poem:
A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown --
Who ponders this tremendous scene --
This whole Experiment of Green --
As if it were his own!
I, for one, remain a clown, often considering the role of nature in my life rather than my role in nature. Still, I am green and growing in my relationship with nature, and I believe that is a hopeful beginning.
Blessed be we clowns and those farmers, those earth lovers, those Christians, willing to go mad with their adoration for and commitment to the green beauty of spring.
Earth Sunday 2008 Environment/Faith Message
Ned Grossnickle
Today we will be discussing the linkages between environmental issues and our faith. Since I am a freshwater ecologist who has strong interests in global environmental issues, I will focus on water issues in developing countries.
In Matthew 25: 35 Jesus lists “works of mercy” and among them was “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink”. In verse 40 Jesus states”As you did this unto the least of these who are members of my family, you have done it unto me.”
For me, there is a strong link in showing the compassion Jesus taught us, and caring for sources of freshwater, because that freshwater not only is essential for our thirst but its widespread use in agriculture to supply to grain needed to feed a hungry planet. Each person drinks about 4 liters of water per day, while the water needed to grow our daily food totals 500 times that amount, 2,000 L/day. The world is facing water shortages that are resulting in food shortages, and thus the food riots recently in Haiti and African and Asian countries.
As a limnologist, I’m interested in Lake Chad, surrounded by Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, all countries with fast-growing populations. The region’s soaring demand for irrigation water coupled with less rainfall than normal has resulted in Lake Chad shrinking 96% in 40 years.
The global water deficit is the result of demand tripling in the past 50 years. Water tables are rapidly falling in countries that contain more than half the world’s people, including the big three grain producers – China, India, and the U.S. For example, China’s wheat crop is very vulnerable to water shortages and it has declined 15% between 1997 and 2007 just as China’s population has grown by over 150 million people.
Yet water shortages are greater in India than in China. India’s 100 million farmers have drilled 21 million wells. Fred Pearce reported in the New Scientist that half of India’s millions of shallower wells for agriculture have already dried up, bring a spate of suicides among those who rely on them. As a result, India reemerged as a leading wheat importer in 2006. As a Christian concerned about water sources, I can’t ignore this.
At the global level, most of the projected population growth of nearly 3 billion by 2050 will come in countries where water tables are already falling. The states most stressed by water scarcity tend to be in arid regions, with fast-growing populations, such as Sudan, Chad, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Although spreading water shortages are intimidating, we have the technologies needed to raise water efficiency, which buys time to stabilize population size. Prominent among these technologies are those for more water-efficient irrigation, such as drip irrigation that we observed in Ethiopia, and urban water recycling.
As Christians, it is imperative that we join together to reduce global human suffering by providing the best technologies we have to address water and food shortages. My attempts at addressing these issues are my attempts at doing what I can to follow Christ’s words in Matthew.
God’s Creation
Hedy Telfer
Good morning!
I’m going to talk about God’s creations for life on Earth, and what I see as His intentions for their care as written in the Bible.
The pleasure of laughter nurtures us, one of His creations. Genesis 3:19: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Once upon a time there was a little boy who knew the phrase, dust to dust, and one morning, after looking under his bed, he ran excitedly to his mother.
“Mama, Mama,” he cried. “Come quick! Look under my bed! Either someone is coming or someone is going!”
I believe in Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. As a former librarian, I also look to a recent, good dictionary. I believe in the true meaning of words and the great power of words. I’m going to focus on the word, “dominion,” and the phrase, “in His image.”
Genesis tells us that God took six days for creation. In the first three days, He created light, sky, division of waters, land, and plants. In the last three days, He created heavenly lights, water and sky animals, and land animals and humans, with plants as their food.
God gave us a weekly blessing with His next creation. He rested. As He is God, I don’t think He did it because He was tired! He was sending us a message. God blessed and hallowed the unique seventh day, the first sacred thing. With a day each week to be refreshed by the cessation of work, we can praise Him, we can reflect, and we ourselves
are nurtured. It’s a good thing! I think He wants us, His creation, to take care of ourselves. We have time to play with the kids, read a joke book, take a walk, take a nap! But in the fast paced U.S., it’s hard after church to remember... to go home and not work.
In Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, God empowered His last creation, us, with “dominion” over earth and its creatures as the earthly representative, the “image of God.” "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’”
If you look up the word “dominion” in the dictionary, it does not say “use,” or even “use up,” though many people for many generations have acted as though it does. In the dictionary, “dominion” means “control or the exercise of control.”
Putting Genesis and the dictionary together, I understand that our “control” over God’s creations are to be done “in His image.” And it makes no sense to me that He would want us to pollute or destroy what He has created.
Church people loving God and acting “in His image,” in my opinion, should be active in the “green” message of God the Father. It's like parents nurturing their children, their creations, so should we nurture each other and the world, God the Father's creations.
With "dominion," God has given us a great responsibility.
I don’t think He would approve of us harming His creations. I don’t think He would approve of us exterminating into extinction, life on earth. Our hope is in remembering to live and act “in His image.” And according to the vast majority of scientists as they
have studied global climate change, we need to act promptly, or it will be too late.
Sustainability Testimony
Shenandoah Sowash
I am new to the green movement, which is to say that I am green in the green movement, to the very idea that my way of living has a substantial impact on the earth.
As a child on long car rides, my father frequently pulled over to let we children stretch our legs, drink some juice and release some of our abundant energy. Occasionally during these breaks, my father would ask us to gather around and study a bit of grass determinedly growing between two slabs of concrete.
“You see?” he’d say. “Nature is in charge. Even when we try to control her, she grows back up again.” Such a statement was both elating and terrifying for me. I imagined large slabs of pavement smashing the earth and a battle between trees and machines.
As a child, I picked blackberries. I played outside each day and built elaborate altars in the woods behind my house, a habit that now strikes me as distinctively pagan. I see now that my daily walks in the woods and the blackberry picking were practices, rituals by which I remained connected to nature, to something larger than myself.
I have since lived in four cities where I had virtually no conscious relationship to nature. Sadly, such is the fate of many urban dwellers. Only in recent months of walking the dogs, wandering through the snow and sitting outside have I begun anything resembling a new practice.
Many have argued that Christianity lacks a daily practice, that the faith is lofty and vague. I admit that I have often left church and thought, “Wow. That was meaningful. Now if someone would just tell me what to do.”
I’ve noticed that people with a daily practice involving nature (farmers, gardeners even house plant enthusiasts) are inclined toward sustainability. I believe that everyone must have a practice that connects one to the planet if they are to be invested in its salvation.
For me, it was blackberry picking and building altars in the woods. For others, it may be a deliberate and close look at the ingredients of grocery store products. For others still, it may be weekly trips to the farmer’s market, the campus garden or even the local potato farm. It is not enough to tell people, “Love the earth.” Would it were so easy. We must come to love and honor nature in our own way.
Still, it is dangerous for people to assume ownership over the earth. Rather, I believe a ritual, a practice is the beginning of getting people involved in the green movement.
In her classically elegant and cryptic manner, Emily Dickinson addresses the need for reverence, even blissful madness, toward spring, toward nature, in this poem:
A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown --
Who ponders this tremendous scene --
This whole Experiment of Green --
As if it were his own!
I, for one, remain a clown, often considering the role of nature in my life rather than my role in nature. Still, I am green and growing in my relationship with nature, and I believe that is a hopeful beginning.
Blessed be we clowns and those farmers, those earth lovers, those Christians, willing to go mad with their adoration for and commitment to the green beauty of spring.
Earth Sunday 2008 Environment/Faith Message
Ned Grossnickle
Today we will be discussing the linkages between environmental issues and our faith. Since I am a freshwater ecologist who has strong interests in global environmental issues, I will focus on water issues in developing countries.
In Matthew 25: 35 Jesus lists “works of mercy” and among them was “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink”. In verse 40 Jesus states”As you did this unto the least of these who are members of my family, you have done it unto me.”
For me, there is a strong link in showing the compassion Jesus taught us, and caring for sources of freshwater, because that freshwater not only is essential for our thirst but its widespread use in agriculture to supply to grain needed to feed a hungry planet. Each person drinks about 4 liters of water per day, while the water needed to grow our daily food totals 500 times that amount, 2,000 L/day. The world is facing water shortages that are resulting in food shortages, and thus the food riots recently in Haiti and African and Asian countries.
As a limnologist, I’m interested in Lake Chad, surrounded by Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, all countries with fast-growing populations. The region’s soaring demand for irrigation water coupled with less rainfall than normal has resulted in Lake Chad shrinking 96% in 40 years.
The global water deficit is the result of demand tripling in the past 50 years. Water tables are rapidly falling in countries that contain more than half the world’s people, including the big three grain producers – China, India, and the U.S. For example, China’s wheat crop is very vulnerable to water shortages and it has declined 15% between 1997 and 2007 just as China’s population has grown by over 150 million people.
Yet water shortages are greater in India than in China. India’s 100 million farmers have drilled 21 million wells. Fred Pearce reported in the New Scientist that half of India’s millions of shallower wells for agriculture have already dried up, bring a spate of suicides among those who rely on them. As a result, India reemerged as a leading wheat importer in 2006. As a Christian concerned about water sources, I can’t ignore this.
At the global level, most of the projected population growth of nearly 3 billion by 2050 will come in countries where water tables are already falling. The states most stressed by water scarcity tend to be in arid regions, with fast-growing populations, such as Sudan, Chad, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Although spreading water shortages are intimidating, we have the technologies needed to raise water efficiency, which buys time to stabilize population size. Prominent among these technologies are those for more water-efficient irrigation, such as drip irrigation that we observed in Ethiopia, and urban water recycling.
As Christians, it is imperative that we join together to reduce global human suffering by providing the best technologies we have to address water and food shortages. My attempts at addressing these issues are my attempts at doing what I can to follow Christ’s words in Matthew.