April, 2009

Pastor's Message

Oh boy!  Oh boy!  Spring is almost here.  I walked early this morning down some wooded trails,  I worried about getting lost (that's so embarrassing).  A white-tailed deer flashed across the trail in front of me.  I saw, I think, just the tail of another but it disappeared as I practiced the unaccustomed practice of standing still.  We're staying at a Bed and Breakfast run by Elan Schapiro,  who has dedicated the last 13 years of his life to teaching about 'sustainability.' 

Sustainability is living in such a way that more is not taken away from the earth than can be restored reasonably and timely.   Here's Wikipedia's more technical definition: "sustainability can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future."   Elan and Rachel's house, in Ithaca’s renowned "Ecovillage"  shares a common lawn with 60 other housing units on 176 acres.  There are swimming ponds, permaculture gardens, hiking trails, a community house for 3/week shared meals, and energy efficient construction.  There are children everywhere.  I can see the kids have been building tree houses just like I did when I was young.  It's nice here.

I've been reading "Endgame" by Derrick Jensen.  It's not for the faint-hearted.  Derrick believes there is an impending eco-collapse coming soon due to a coming lack of cheap available fossil fuels.  Food, water and medicines will be hard to come by.  I hope to God, he's wrong.... but I wonder if we should live as though he's right. 

God has entrusted this blue ball called "Earth" to us and we have poisoned it, and hoarded its resources.  We have “done what we ought not to have done and we have left undone those things we ought to have done” (from an Episcopalian Prayer of Confession).  The next line in that prayer is "and there is no health in us" - a severe theological judgment, but perhaps truer than we know.   Did you know that 90% of the ocean's big fish (tuna, halibut, cod etc) are gone? (source:PBS's Nova website )  My Aunt Ethel replied, "Oh, that's bad news for Red Lobster!"  LOL

Let the bad news of humanity's terrible stewardship of creation be a battle call to those of us trying to follow Jesus.  Let us pick up the gauntlet of living for the earth, rather than solely off the earth.  Amen.

Your fellow Earth dweller,

Pastor Chris