Simple Creatures

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, I'm bracing for a little madness. For the first time, we're doing Blessing of Animals in the service-plus children's choir, plus children's sermon. Like having church outside, this is a day for liturgical experimentation.  There is a lot of space in the Anglican/Episcopal tradition to communicate local culture; our music, our prayers, our language all express the identity of the community in some way.  This is one of the things I love most about being an Episcopalian; there is so much space for particularity even in the structured form of our service.  We always open with a declaration of the Trinity. We always close with a charge to go out in the name of the Spirit or the name of Christ to love and serve.  In between, we hear Scripture; we interpret it in some way, whether with a traditional sermon or other response.  We bless bread and wine, we eat and drink to remember and participate in the Body of Christ. 

Even working within those parameters, a lot is possible. In November we'll have our Jazz Mass, and, yes, this Sunday, blessing of animals. At the moment, my family has no pets-both Noah and I grew up with cats, and had one brief experiment with dog ownership (those who were members back in 2009 will remember the ill-fated  Cyrus, my St Bernard puppy who got cancer at age 1).  So I'm hopeful that each of you will bring your companions, either in the flesh or a photo. Our beloved "Lemon Bear" will probably make an appearance as well, since stuffed animals can come, too. 

We bless animals around October 4, St Francis Day, in memory of a saint who was said to be so connected to nature that he preached to the birds and tamed a wild and fearsome wolf.  Francis also offers a tradition of simple living, even more important for us now in such a time of ecological crisis. We are constantly burdened by more and more stuff, stuff that seems to multiply on its own when we aren't looking. As a parent I struggle with this a lot; whenever a birthday rolls around, there's the impulse to mark it with more, more more-but after just a few good garage sales this September, my kids have already stacked their closets full of more toys.  It's not even just about spending money; stuff is cheap. 

But stuff won't warm a cold lap, stuff won't offer a vision of sheer joy in play and creaturely delight.  So, as un-simple an endeavor it may seem to be, my hope is that this crazy idea of having pets in church will help connect us to that Franciscan simplicity.  A pet isn't "for" anything.  They fulfill no function other than to be in community with us. We care for them out of sheer grace and generosity. In offering thanks and praying blessings for these creatures in particular, hopefully our hearts will be moved to act on behalf of creatures everywhere, to make our lives a bit greener and our world a bit healthier.  We aren't separate from nature, but rather vital members of a profoundly complex ecosystem. We are creatures with needs before wants, given life by a Creator who longs for us to know the difference.

Blessings,
Sara+

Dear People of Christ Church,

This week, I'm looking forward to our special Sunday kick off for our capital campaign. I'm not going to spill all the beans here, so I encourage you to come and learn more. This Sunday, Mike will talk a little about his experience of the campaign's beginning days, and we'll share news of how much we've raised so far. At coffee hour, we'll have some slides projected in Upper Fales that presents some of the hopes for the campaign for people to look at as we share our coffee. (it'll be more in the background than a formal presentaion; most of the information will be conveyed one on one as people talk with each other) Campaign co-chairs Cathy Hughes and Mike Balulescu and I will be glad to answer questions about what is to come. We are so excited about the good work that is happening. It is a profound honor to witness the generosity, grace, and love that people have for this parish.

In other news, lots of other events are coming up as well; the fall is always a busy time. Driving by, you may have noticed we've put up our "Climate Change is a Moral Issue" banner, as we do every fall in cooperation with other Waltham congregations. This Saturday, Christ Church will host the Waltham Event for the international (yes-international!) Moving Planet Day to move beyond fossil fuels. There are rallies all over the world, encouraging people to travel by foot, bike, or public transportation to raise their voices for solutions to the climate crisis. Our neighbors in Lexington, Arlington, Somerville, and Medford will all host similar events to plan to caravan together to the New England-wide event in Boston on the waterfront at Columbus park (near the Aquarium T). Worldwide, more than 160 countries will have events. In Boston, Steve Curwood from the NPR show Living on Earth will emcee the event, and Episcopal Priest Margaret Bullitt-Jonas will be part of the opening, along with other speakers and action.

"Climate Change is a Moral Issue"-it's a bumper sticker slogan, and if all we do with it is once a year to haul a banner out of the closet to feel good about our dedication, we might as well not bother. As our climate warms, the suffering inflicted by the change is born so disproportionately by those who are already less fortunate. This is a fact: in political debates, you hear again and again how it's a theory that human action is the cause of global warming and that not all scientists agree. I heard one commentator say recently (I wish I could remember who) that deciding not to do something about our carbon emissions for that reason is like sitting in your basement smelling smoke from the kitchen and insisting that there is no way your house can be on fire because you don't actually see the flames.

My cynical voice says that acting on behalf of the environment is naively idealistic: how noble to do something for generations to come! You could put it on a hallmark card. My other cynical voice says that it is almost willfully foolish to think that just one person's actions matter. My screw-shaped light bulbs will not change the world. If I were alone, it would be pointless. But I am not alone, and climate change is not just an issue for Isaiah and Adah to contend with--it will change life in our time, not just theirs. Maybe climate change isn't a moral issue after all; maybe it's a clear-cut case of self-interest. Now that's cynical.

Jesus didn't talk about the environment--the single thing he talked most about was money, actually--not sex, marriage, or even prayer. But he did teach a lot about how we are to understand ourselves, about a church-wide--no, creation-wide!--family that crashes down the boundaries between self and other. He asked what profit it was to gain the material world but lose our souls. Where will we be when Bangladesh is submerged in water? Each of us driving our cars and eating strawberries in January shipped from Chile? I know in my own life, I have so, so far to go, as I have written many times in this space (the ecrier blogspot has five pieces tagged "environment," and I know not everything is up there). But I will keep writing, maybe keep repeating myself, hoping that someday I get the message. In the meantime, I'll see you Saturday.


But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
...and the fish of hte sea will declare to you.
In God's hand is the life of every living thing.

Job 12: 7, 8b, 10a



Blessings,

Sara+

Dear People of Christ Church,

Though this week, I've been lamenting the recent grayness of the skies, the week after Easter I had some marvelous time off in my new garden, planting for the summer and acquainting myself with the pleasures of the yard. When we lived in Waltham we were on a steep hill, complete with 20 foot rock face behind the house. It was beautiful in its own way, but not exactly conducive to enjoying the sunshine--so one of the things we really wanted in our new house when we moved was more outdoor space. Last Friday I got to try out our new battery powered lawnmower (heavy, but still easier than pushing 2 children in a stroller). What a pleasure. I'm sure the novelty will wear off at some point, but for now, I am happy to be mowing the lawn. We also did some planting-cucumber, tomato, peas-then got broccoli, more tomatoes, and lettuce from Waltham Fields' seedling sale. The fact that food could actually come out of the ground is kind of magical.

We are longtime shareholders at Waltham Fields (see my March, 2007 post about it on the e crier blog page so I feel some closeness to the gifts of the land, but it feels somehow different when it's in your own space. I've been reading Michael Pollan's book on gardening, Second Nature, more memoir than instruction book. At its heart is a critique of the metaphors we've used over the years for natural world. His judgment of lawns notwithstanding ("nature under totalitarian rule"), I'm pretty convinced by his assessment of the whole mess we've gotten into, in how we contrast nature and culture. Libraries, schools, factories are culture; rivers, lakes, and fields are nature. In the usual telling, these are separate spheres-nature is acted upon, and culture acts. If you're feeling more romantic, you can talk about nature as unblemished, virgin, pure, innocent. But separating them is a false dichotomy. Unless you want to go back to the dinosaurs, nature has always been subjected to the whims of human intervention. Whether it be invasive species accidentally introduced into a new environment or plants hybridized to generate certain characteristics, humans leave their mark on nature everywhere. And we certainly cannot separate ourselves from it. Seeing pictures of the flooding in the south and due to recent storms has made that clear. When the US Army Corps of Engineers blew a hole in a levee to save the town of Cairo, Illinois, they flooded 130,000 acres of farmland. Technology helps, but creates its own complication as well.

Our Christian faith gives us some tools for thinking about this. We began, our stories say, in a garden-an image no less potent for being a mythological one. We were given "dominion"-power, yes, but a particular kind of power. We are dependent on nature, and so taking care of it is also taking care of ourselves. Each day of creation concludes, "God saw that it was good." Creation is good-a good gift, given to us. We have not always seen it this way-more often, we have been like selfish three year old, given a book only to rip the pages apart assuming daddy will give us a new one when we demand one.

There is something theological in what we have been given, in tilling it and caring for it, but also in enjoying it. Pleasure in the garden is a spiritual question, as is helping those whose "gardens" have flooded. (See more from Episcopal Relief and Development) Digging in the dirt or walking by the pond across the street from my house, I know myself to be one small part of nature. There is something very comforting in knowing my smallness in that wider scheme. Humans have devised immense powers of destruction, but this world that God has made is also way, way, bigger than us. That seems to me like an icon, a window, into God: we are entirely dependent on the land, intimately connected to it. But it the sheer magnitude of nature's vast otherness also puts us in our rightful-and small-place.

Blessings,

Sara+

This week, Christ Church is hosting a group from New England Climate Summer. (NECS is a program for college students to take a summer to work for advocacy on environmental issues. It's linked to the 350.org movement, founded by Bill McKibben, which teaches that in order to have a stable planet at the optimum level of air quality for human existence, that we can have no more than 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide (ppm) in the atmosphere. Currently we are at 390ppm--there's a long distance to go.

The decision to support the NECS group came at the last minute; a general request had gone out months ago. I considered it for a moment, and figured someone else would help. College students? Staying here for a week? Too risky! But then, a few days before they were set to roll into town, I got a call from the group's team leader. The place where they had intended to stay had been forced to cancel. Could we help? I called Jonathan and Cindy and talked it over with them (and considered what the insurance company would say) and we decided to go ahead with it. There are people in every day this week, as it happens, so they won't be alone in the building for long.

Observing the "someone else will help" attitude in myself got me thinking about how we tend to be as a society on environmental issues. Too hard, too risky, someone else will figure it out. I recently watched the movie "No Impact Man" about a family in New York City who tries to live with as little environmental impact as possible for a year. The project was sort of panned in the media--it was more the dad's desire than the mom's, though she went along and talked guiltily in the film about enjoying the iced water she could get at work. Their two year old mostly just noticed that she had cloth diapers, now, and that they didn't watch TV anymore. No electricity, no toilet paper, no car.

The major critique was that it was a stunt; a short term, "look at me" kind of project that wouldn't actually change things. Colin Beaven, the "No Impact Man" of the title, granted that it was. What I was so struck by, though, was that he said that he felt like liberals (which he labels himself as) always look for the Big Solution--get government to fix it. Conservatives think government is the problem-and that individuals need to take charge. So the "No Impact" program was, in a way, a conservative project-to take personal responsibility as far as it could go. I found this interpretation kind of intriguing.

It's so overwhelming to even contemplate the level of change in our lifestyle that it will take to address what our environment needs. Our book for our summer reading group, God has a Dream, by Desmond Tutu, talks about how discouraging it can be to think about social change and justice work. We think that because we can't do it all ourselves, all at once, it's not worth it. Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years--27 years!--and even that time, Tutu says, was not wasted. Apartheid ended in God's time. As the oil spill in the Gulf goes on 85 days, it's hard to be patient.

Maybe patience isn't what's called for, exactly, but maybe faith is. Not patience for the solution to come, but faith that your work is helping to bring it about. Everything happens in God's time--a real solution to climate change is happening in God's time, too. As God's fellow workers, though, in this vineyard of our earth, we do have some work ahead of us.

Blessings,
Sara+


To see some real numbers on how much small, personal changes actually DO make a difference (and how you might actually be happier having made them), visit Colin Beaven's blog: here.
The Climate Cyclists
The Science of 350 ppm

Presiding Bishop Schori's article on the Gulf oil spill

I'm passing on an article I read online by our Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Before becoming ordained, she was an oceanographer, and was elected the head of the Episcopal Church, in 2006. --Sara+


A Lesson from the Gulf Oil Spill: We Are All Connected
By The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori

The original peoples of the North American continent understand that we are all connected, and that harm to one part of the sacred circle of life harms the whole. Scientists, both the ecological and physical sorts, know the same reality, expressed in different terms. The Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) also charge human beings with care for the whole of creation, because it is God's good gift to humanity. Another way of saying this is that we are all connected and there is no escape; our common future depends on how we care for the rest of the natural world, not just the square feet of soil we may call "our own." We breathe the same air, our food comes from the same ground and seas, and the water we have to share cycles through the same airshed, watershed, and terra firma.

The still-unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is good evidence of the interconnectedness of the whole. It has its origins in this nation's addiction to oil, uninhibited growth, and consumerism, as well as old-fashioned greed and what my tradition calls hubris and idolatry. Our collective sins are being visited on those who have had little or no part in them: birds, marine mammals, the tiny plants and animals that constitute the base of the vast food chain in the Gulf, and on which a major part of the seafood production of the United States depends. Our sins are being visited on the fishers of southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, who seek to feed their families with the proceeds of what they catch each day. Our sins will expose New Orleans and other coastal cities to the increased likelihood of devastating floods, as the marshes that constitute the shrinking margin of storm protection continue to disappear, fouled and killed by oil.

The oil that continues to vent from the sea floor has spread through hundreds of cubic miles of ocean, poisoning creatures of all sizes and forms, from birds, turtles, and whales to the shrimp, fish, oysters, and crabs that human beings so value, and the plankton, whose life supports the whole biological system -- the very kind of creatures whose dead and decomposed tissues began the process of producing that oil so many millions of years ago. . .

The reality is that this disaster just may show us as a nation how interconnected we really are. The waste of this oil -- both its unusability and the mess it is making -- will be visited on all of us, for years and even generations to come. The hydrocarbons in those coastal marshes and at the base of the food chain leading to marketable seafood resources will taint us all, eventually. That oil is already frightening away vacationers who form the economic base for countless coastal communities, whose livelihoods have something to do with the economic health of this nation. The workers in those communities, even when they have employment, are some of the poorest among us. That oil will move beyond the immediate environs of a broken wellhead, spreading around the coasts of Florida and northward along the east coast of the U.S. That oil will foul the coastal marshes that also constitute a major nursery for coastal fauna, again a vital part of the food chain. That oil will further stress and poison the coral reefs of Florida, already much endangered from warming and ocean acidification. Those reefs have historically provided significant storm protection to the coastal communities behind them. . .

There is no place to go "away" from these consequences; there is no ultimate escape on this planet. The effects at a distance may seem minor or tolerable, but the cumulative effect is not. We are all connected, we will all suffer the consequences of this tragic disaster in the Gulf, and we must wake up and put a stop to the kind of robber baron behavior we supposedly regulated out of existence a hundred years ago. Our lives, and the liveliness of the entire planet, depend on it.

To see the entire text on Huffington Post, click here.

Eating Locally (from March, 2007)

God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. (Genesis 1: 29-31)

This week, a lot of events around environmental issues and food have come across my desk. Earth day isn’t until April 22, but a lot of things are happening now. You can see some of the events listed below. On a very close-to-home note, Waltham Fields Community Farm is selling shares in their Community Supported Agriculture Program. I don’t think I’ve every used this space to encourage you consider buying anything, so I hope you’ll excuse it just this once.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a movement that started here in Massachusetts in an effort to help local farmers, the environment, and to improve food quality. Right here in Waltham, on Beaver Street, Waltham Fields Community Farm grows a wide variety of vegetables (some fruits, but mostly veggies). As a CSA shareholder, you take on a portion of the risk—and the benefit—of your local farm. Noah and I were shareholders for the first time last year—some of you may have heard me talk about it. You pay a fee for the season and pick up delicious, fresh vegetables and fruit for 20 weeks, from June to October. You also get “pick your own” privileges on the farm for special treats like cherry tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, and flowers. The food is delicious and an excellent value (about 20 dollars a week for enough veggies to feed 2 adults and children, plus leftovers—one week we had ten pounds of tomatoes!). Moreover, the positive environmental impact of eating locally and pesticide-free is tremendous. (WCF, while they use organic practices, are not officially certified “organic.”)

Have you ever considered how much energy it takes to drive a cucumber from California to Massachusetts? A lot! Why do that, when we can grow cucumbers right here? Remember that E. coli bacteria scare last year when the California spinach was contaminated, but the farm and packaging systems were so large it took weeks to figure out where the illness came from? By eating straight from the farm, such risks are significantly minimized. And it tastes better, too. A tomato that was harvested last week has significantly more flavor than one that was picked before it was ripe, and spent weeks in a truck or grocery store distribution center. In addition to which, WCF donates hundreds of pounds of food to local hunger relief organizations. (If you were at the Waltham Interfaith Thanksgiving service last November, you heard from Janet, who distributes vegetables at the Salvation Army).

Of course, being a CSA member isn’t the only way to respond to environmental food issues. Buying from the Waltham farmers market has much of the same impact, without the commitment to the whole growing season and up front financial investment. But I have to say, visiting the farm every week and seeing and smelling the ground where your food came from is simply a spiritual experience. As modern people, it is easy for us to lose sight of how God’s creation nourishes us directly, and how intimately we really are connected to God’s creation. We are given dominion over the earth, but we are also charged to be caretakers. We each have a part to play in that work.

For more on the farm, visit http://www.communityfarms.org/ or call 781-899-2403.

If you’re interested in hearing more about the impact of local food systems, ask one of our youth. Last October, we spent the day at the Lincoln Food Project, another local farm that works for hunger relief and local agriculture

God's good creation

I hope you are having a blessed week. Earth Day was on Tuesday, and with weather like this it is not hard to appreciate God’s good creation! We had vestry that evening, and I invited the group to share for them how they saw God in creation. One person said, “It’s just so clear—God is everywhere!” One talked about how intricate and carefully-arranged the world is—no human could possibly explain the beauty of what is. For another, it was about action—how we can take care of the planet. For me, I see it in the sense of wonder in my son Isaiah’s face when he sees animals (and also balloons, and also flowers)—it’s a chance to see the wonder of what is, again for the first time. “God in creation” also reminds me to see creation as all of what is—not just nature, but also each of us. We are part of creation, not distinct from it. As the frequently quoted phrase from Chief Seattle goes, “We do not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”

I think as a society, we are beginning to understand this more and more. With the visible impact of global warming, we can see in our lifetimes how our behavior is negatively impacting the earth. We can do little things to change this—use ceramic coffee cups, not Styrofoam (and recycle it when you do use it); bring your own bags with you shopping, eat locally. Drive less, obviously, and buy less, too—the most environmentally sustainable product you can find is the one you already own. Our culture has undergone a pretty big shift in our understanding of how we impact the earth, but with consumer spending still understood as THE solution to economic trouble, it’s clear that we have a long way to go. Just 25 years ago though, there were many who thought that the environment didn’t actually matter because God would save us in the end. Fortunately, I don’t think too many people would say that today (at least I hope not…).

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.’ ²⁷So God created humankind^* in his image, in the image of God he created them;^* male and female he created them. ²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ Genesis 1:26-28

In Psalm 72, a hymn to King Solomon, that same word for dominion is used as in this passage from Genesis. A ruler has dominion—it implies the responsibility to care for, not the license to control and subjugate. Rulers are still part of whatever realm they rule—there’s no separation there. Creation was made good—and so were we!—this original blessing is stronger than anything we could do to separate ourselves from God.

How do you see God in Creation? In nature, or in our care for it? In science, all those tiny atoms working together to make a medicine to cure disease? In human ingenuity to understand the world around us? In sunsets and oceans and flowers? Take a moment now to thank God for all the good gifts we are given in this good creation.