The list of needs to address concerning climate change is enormous and can be over- whelming.  That is why I found it helpful that these four reputable groups agree that their #1 priority right now is to end the burning of fossil fuels A.S.A.P.  We can work with them, and the following are just three ways we might help:

1. By educating ourselves and the people in our communities and circles.  There are still many people--you may know some--who are misinformed or passive about the causes of global warming and its profound threats to us and our children.  Speak with them.
2. By advocating:  writing letters, visiting public officials, collecting petitions, marching in protests, being ready to engage in civil disobedience.  For example, there is a clean energy bill in Maryland legislation whose goal is for 40% clean energy by 2025.  It is called the Maryland Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan.  We can participate in a Lobby Day for this on January 14, 2015 in Annapolis.  We can sign and distribute petitions.
3. By greening our own home, our church, and our communities.  Interfaith Power & Light, in particular, provides various support for individuals and groups to save energy in their buildings.

Do you feel the responsibility to which our generation is called?  May we each find our own way to respond and "be the change we hope to see" in our community and in our world.                                                                                        - Sylvia Oliva 

Eternal God, since silence seems to be 

     the voice of holiness, the only language  

               you speak directly, 

     then I pray to be steeped in it 

     until I fear it less and welcome it 

               as an usher to grace, 

               a narrator of sacred mysteries; 

     until silence cease the fretful conversations 

               of my mind with too little else than itself, 

     until silence calm my heart to an ease, 

               convene my senses to an anchored focus, 

               hush my tongue to a chastened hold, 

     until I discern in the silence 

               an answer to that necessary question 

               which, for the very life of me, 

               it has not yet occurred to me to ask; 

     until I am stretched alive and deep 

               to its dimensions, and catch, 

                    at last and ready, 

                              your assuring wink at me.  Amen.