Yahweh's Garden

This October 10, 2010, grassroots work party events will be held all around the world, networked through www.350.org to try to push for greater, more immediate actions to slow climate change. For myself, I looked around and felt the greatest immediate work that needed to be done in my community was to change hearts and minds to be ready to act. So I wrote a Christian prayer service, based in Scripture, celebrating life and calling all to responsibility and asking for help from the Holy Spirit. Connected to this, tn the online journal Minding Nature from the Center for Humans and Nature, there is an article (starting on page 35) by me entitled "Conservation and the Catholic Imagination" at http://www.humansandnature.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Minding-Nature-v3n2-August-2010.pdf. I hope it prompts some interesting discussions!

This year's hot temperatures along with all the other scientific date have proven that climate change is real and all who believe in a loving Creator who gave us this planet need to get to work. John Paul II said: When the ecological crisis is set within the broader context of the search for peace within society, we can understand better the importance of giving attention to what the earth and its atmosphere are telling us: namely, that there is an order in the universe which must be respected, and that the human person, endowed with the capability of choosing freely, has a grave responsibility to preserve this order for the well-being of future generations. I wish to repeat. The ecological crisis is a moral crisis! {emphasis is the pope’s own} It's time for all who treasure God's creation to join with others to call for national and international and individual actions to preserve it. Here's Bill McKibben's prophetic voice: We're Hot as Hell and We'r...

Forty years ago was the first Earth Day, when members of developed countries gathered to act in concern about the pollution and litter in their midst. We met, changed our ways and our laws, and triumphed over these challenges to some extent, thinking we finished the job. But we didn’t recreate ourselves from the inside out, from roots of faith and inner values, and we didn’t engage all of the world as partners or act as concerned for developing countries as for ourselves. Ecology is the study and art of communities (natural communities that include people), built on the premises of strength through diversity in a connected whole, complementarity and solidarity, where all participants are needed, and everyone has a niche of contribution, no matter what species or how rich or poor or marginalized, no matter a person’s sex or religion. It's a concept that demands that everyone feel connected, able to participate and change for the common good, and through this everyone benefits, not j...

Today, with a blizzard blasting outdoors, burying all in downy white, we have our own small treasury of snow. Classes are canceled, traffic is snarled, many people have an unexpected "free" day, whether they like it or not. I imagine many do not. I am also fully aware how for the homeless or those who struggle to survive, this snow only increases their hardships. For them I have compassion and wish that my joy did not come at cost to them. I love this gift of time and nature -- where I can't leave home, thankfully forced to play in snow with my kids and shovel it, make popcorn and hot chocolate, cook Christmas cookies, decorate the tree, write a blog. I am fully aware how for the homeless or those who struggle to survive, this snow only increases their hardships. I delight in that expression "treasuries" of snow -- all that water in lacy form, ready to moisturize the brown, crackling earth like lotion come spring. But when the Lord asks Job this question about t...

Then God said, 'Let there be light," and there was light. God saw how good the light was. As the planet's climate grows more erratic and oil prices rise and fall bringing insecurity for non-oil nations and often war and autocratic governments within oil nations, people may finally be ready to go back to the beginning to rethink their energy sources. A huge solar project, DESTERTEC (www.desertec.org), is in the works as a joint effort between a group of European companies and the DESERTEC Foundation to build solar collectors in North Africa to supply 1/3 of Europe's energy needs and those of Morocco as well. The solar energy will heat water into steam which will turn turbines creating energy. This energy be transferred to European nations under the Mediterranean Sea. No small undertaking. It requires big vision and big investment, but the potential for payback is even greater. The elegance of this initiative and that of a similar one for the Sahara Desert is that the s...

In the book of Genesis, where we find God’s first self-revelation to humanity, there is a recurring refrain: “And God saw that it was good”. . . . God entrusted the whole of creation to the man and woman, and only then – as we read – could He rest “from all his work.” John Paul II Everyone can agree, people weren't around when the Earth was created and humans were the last species to show up on the scene, yet we've had the most varied capabilities and responsibilities upon our shoulders. Now religious leaders of all faiths, scientists, and Earth citizens are joining together to talk about these responsibilities and share them, bringing our varied tools, perspectives, and insights to bear. We've a long way to go, but this is an exciting time in the history of humanity, where the connections between faith, reason, and spiritual imagination can be knitted back together along with our insights from nature herself. This is our moment for the human sp...