| ANNE WILLIAMSON |
My internet has been "acting up" today. I'd love to find a way to blame this on climate change, as it would serve as the perfect introduction to today's topic; but, alas, I'll have to be content to keep cursing AT&T. (And, look, I found a way to use it and publicly vent my frustration anyway!)
As it turns out, though, I'm "in luck," for according to the National Climate Assessment Report released on May 6, there are plenty of other, far worse problems to blame on climate change: extreme heat and humidity, decreased agricultural productivity, increased health risks due to reduced air and water quality, invasive species, flooding and damaging thunderstorms, and this is just the Midwest. Our climate is changing and not for the better.
This, of course, worries and saddens me. I think about my daughter, who will inherit a world she did not create. I think about the poor, who consume less stuff but disproportionately ingest more bad air, water, food, etc. Animals carry this burden too. And, I think about the Earth, the home we depend on and yet destroy.
Under the weight of these thoughts, I feel my spirit ache. I don't believe this is the way we're called to live and be. I believe we're called to better vision, greater consciousness: to see the connections and interdependence, and live accordingly. I believe we're called to love better.
Spend the next few minutes LEARNing and LISTENing to your own spirit, to the Spirit. What do you feel? Hear? What's stirring? Then, consider actively LOV(E)ing by adding your name to the below petition for Indiana to create a climate action plan.
Download and read the Third National Climate Assessment Report here. The Midwest regional section is here. A Huffington Post synopsis here.
For those interested in a spiritual perspective, I offer here the manuscript of a sermon I preached on this subject in February 2009.
What's stirring in you? What questions remain? Share them with a friend, partner, God. Keep listening...
Hear me, four quarters of the world - a relative I am!
Give me the strength to walk the soft earth,
a relative to all that is!
Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand
that I may be like you...
Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather,
all over the earth the faces of living things are all alike.
With tenderness have these come up out of the ground.
Look upon these faces of children without number
and with children in their arms
that they may face the winds and walk the good road
to the day of quiet.
- Black Elk
(Printed in Life Prayers. Editors: Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon. p43.)
Maybe pray the above and/or meditate on the words. Keep listening...
Set an intention for the coming week(s) out of what's stirring in you. Choose to actively love.
If you are a Hoosier, I offer and ask you join me in signing this petition to the Indiana Environmental Rules Board to establish a state-wide climate action plan. Then, invite your friends and family to do the same!