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| Issue #62 "A Warming Reminder" | November 13, 2012 |
Greetings!
A great deal has happened in our country in the last couple weeks. Bold as always, United Methodist Women (UMW) have written on some of these significant events in their November 8 article, "Hurricane Sandy: The New Normal." Just one day after the 2012 elections, UMW staff write:
"While television and radio news have been covering Hurricane Sandy around the clock since before the storm, they have paid little attention to the possible connection between the storm and climate change. Scientists have been warning for years how global warming would make North Atlantic hurricanes stronger and more powerful....We need to remind our public servants that they do not serve us well by denying or ignoring the facts of climate change. If the scientific evidence and other extreme weather events have not done it, we hope Hurricane Sandy's legacy will be that it served as our nation's wake-up call."
This issue of Creation-Care, 365 is a small attempt to be a faithful, creation-caring reminder to our public servants about the most comprehensive ecological concern of our time: global climate change. We do this because we concur with UMW when they say: "We have a challenging recovery ahead from Hurricane Sandy. ...We have an equally urgent need to work on the Church's task of solving the root causes of climate change so that we as a human race have a sustainable future and may pass on a livable earth to our children and our grandchildren."
Grace and Peace be with you, Creation-Care Projects Coordinator PNW Office of Connectional Ministries |
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 Creation Quotes | |
Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben is a UM layperson & Sunday School teacher, author, and founder of 350.org; he spoke these words on Democracy Now 
"It's really important that everybody, even those who aren't in the . . . path of this storm, reflect about what it means that in the warmest year in U.S. history, . . . in a year when we saw, essentially, summer sea ice in the Arctic just vanish before our eyes, what it means that we're now seeing storms of this unprecedented magnitude. If there was ever a wake-up call, this is it."
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Tools for Renewal
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Get to Know 350.org  Looking for a world-wide group of people who are effectively confronting our global climate crisis? 350.0rg -- the organization founded by Bill McKibben ( see above) -- is a bold, strategic movement in which many of our churches have already joined.* Here's an excerpt from their web page, "Our Mission": "350.org is building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis. Our online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions are led from the bottom up by thousands of volunteer organizers in over 188 countries. "350 means climate safety. To preserve our planet, scientists tell us we must reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from its current level of 392 parts per million to below 350 ppm. But 350 is more than a number --it's a symbol of where we need to head as a planet." 350.org has specific resources for congregations on their "People of Faith" web pages. We at Creation-Care, 365 will do our best to let you know of future, local actions with 350.0rg as we learn of them. Footnote
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| Small Steps... for Greater Good |
A Reminder to President Obama 
Background
In his recent acceptance speech, President Obama said, "We want our children to live in an America ... that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet."Action
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| Lectionary Links | Some excellent, on-line sermon helps -- most of which coincide with the Revised Common Lectionary:
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| Events & Actions | Autumn 2012 - Winter 2013
Also for Autumn... Sustainable Autumn Living Guide: The Presbyterian Mission Agency offers suggestions on how to live in more sustainable and just ways as you work, eat, celebrate the holidays, and prepare for winter. |
Creation Keeper
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Rev. Monty Smith with congregant (and chicken) during Epworth LeSourd's 2012 Blessing of the Animals
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Rev. Monty Smith serves as half-time pastor at Epworth LeSourd UMC in Tacoma and is the Director of Sustainable Roots (an environmental project of the Northwest Leadership Foundation) -- a garden training program for at-risk and under-served youth. The following comes from a recent interview with Monty:
Creation-Care, 365 (CC365): Can you remember a point in your faith journey when respect/love/care for God's broader creation became important to you?
Monty: Coming to creation care was a process for me. Growing up I thought I had been close enough to nature. But, In 1979 I moved to the small community of Herakhan in the Kumoan Hills of North India -- two hours walking through a river bed from the bus stop (and this only during the dry season). Around Herakhan, farmers worked by hand and with farm animals on terraced fields growing rice, wheat, and vegetables. Mill races, some a half mile long, were hand built every year after the monsoon. By the time I left in 1984, I carried the impression that in our industrialized world we have developed something like a cultural gas mask. We have an acquired resistance to breathing in our connection with all that is [i.e. creation]. That tragic separation, as Hurricane Sandy reminds us again, is beyond destructive.
CC365: Please describe the most hopeful experience that you've had in working with a congregation engaged in creation-caring ministries.
Monty: Every congregation I have spoken to represents some hopeful steps in creation care: from planting garden plots, to recycling, to celebrating St Francis Day. What is most hopeful to me though is the infectious love of individuals and teams once they are touched by the grace of the work.
CC365: What do you most yearn for when it comes to churches and creation-care work?
Monty: Could it be that creation care is the to the church what water is to fish? Can we agree, as the UMC Bishops have urged, that creation care is neither a matter of politics nor science but the subject of faith, justice and sacred call? If so, what would churches look like in our neighborhoods, towns, and cities? There are more churches than Starbucks. Imagine it. Are there limits to what we could yearn for ?
CC365: With so much discouraging ecological news, where do you find strength for continuing to engage in this ministry?
Monty: I find strength by connecting to the passion, interests, and skills of others. Individuals and communities doing simple and extraordinary work. I love the stories of Yes! Magazine, of our own Creation-Care, 365, and more. I am grateful for the beauty of our world, for the life-giving poetic perfume of the Psalms and Rumi. I keep a prayer/meditation practice and relate to several small groups. Sometimes, even then -- it's not enough.
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| Recent UMC & Ecumenical Creation-Care News | |
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