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#carbonfastforlent #greenmondays Staying Grounded There are lists upon lists of things you can do to help the environment. I’m sure you’ve read and perhaps tried many of them: reducing, reusing, recycling; walking, biking, or taking public transportation; using less water and energy; eating less meat. I hope you’ll continue to find ways to live more simply as an individual and in community, and that you’ll encourage your church and government to protect the environment. As you do this vital work, you may be discouraged and disheartened to see progress come slowly or seemingly not at all. You may be tempted to give up or to give in to easy excess. You may feel hate toward the “enemy” that is destroying creation. I  suggest three practices to keep you grounded, loving, and hopeful: Stay close to nature. Everyone can grow herbs, whether you live in a flat or a one roomed apartment, you can grow them on your window sill. Watch them grow, use them in your cooking and slow down and smell the herbs.  Here is a how to guide from Jamie Oliver – who better!! http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/the-ultimate-guide-to-growing-herbs/ Reconnect with creatures and plants, whether in an animal shelter, your garden, a city park, or the wilderness. Actually touch the living soil with your bare hands and feet. Feel the breeze and listen to the birds. Lament the suffering and loss you see. Let yourself truly grieve for extinct species, for people touched by hurricanes, famine, and disease. Cry and wail aloud. Beat a drum. Tear a piece of cloth. Create and bury a litany of loss. Celebrate the beauty and mystery of our universe. Write a poem, chant a psalm, paint a picture. Say thanks for the abundance of air, water, food, and shelter you receive every day. Praise the Creator who is gradually bringing all of creation to fullness and wholeness, through your participation. Adapted from Richard Rohr And since it is #greenmondays why not try one of Jamie Olivers delicious recipes? http://www.jamieoliver.com/galleries/15-veggie-recipes-to-make-meat-eaters-envious/  

Brokenness, Healing, Wholeness: Water Connects Us All Michael Schut The Episcopal Church “The burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water” (Isaiah 35:7) Lent derives from the Old English word lencten, meaning “springtime.” It is often associated with renunciation – a time of fasting and repentance. Springtime, on the other hand, is a season of abundance, renewal, and hope. Isaiah’s images move in a hopeful direction toward a kind of springtime: thirsty, burning ground transformed to pools and springs. But, when I look at the data concerning our use of water, abundance and renewal are not the first words that come to mind. Let me share a few recent vignettes from the United States of America, where I live. The Colorado River provides water for 30 million people, coursing through some of our more arid states. It is so tapped for agricultural, industrial and municipal use that its waters now rarely reach the Gulf of California. The burning sands are not always transformed into pools of life! Flint, Michigan, is home to almost 100,000 people. Nearly half of them live in poverty. Over half of them are black. In order to cut costs, the city switched its water source to the Flint River – but neglected to treat the water sufficiently, leading to very high lead levels in municipal drinking water. Children’s health and development have been affected. Government officials are under investigation; some have been charged. It is a unique story and yet somehow familiar — low-income and marginalized communities continue to be more negatively impacted by environmental degradation than anyone else. Here, the ground, and the people, are not thirsty for water, but for clean water. My hometown is Seattle in Washington State, in the northwestern corner of the United States. We are known for our gray, wet weather. But for the three summer months, we receive very little rain. During those arid months, our water comes as snowmelt from the Cascade Mountains. Snow is our water security, like a vast vat of water slung over the mountains’ prodigious shoulders. As the climate warms, however, annual snowpack is decreasing: between 20-80 percent since 1955, depending on where in the State you look. That mountain moisture is still there – it just falls as rain more often than it once did, leading to more winter floods, and less summer snow melt. The snowpack turns our thirsty ground into springs of water – but those springs are significantly threatened by climate change. Among all these profound interconnections, signs of hope are emerging. In 2014, for the first time in 16 years, the Colorado River reached the Gulf of California. A political agreement between Mexico and the United States (known as Minute 319) is credited for reuniting river and sea. When wrongdoing is discovered, as in Flint, government officials can be held accountable. And, in Washington State, one of our governor’s top priorities is addressing climate change. Mexico and the US agree on a policy change, and a river is partially restored, an estuary replenished, and numerous species given hope for survival. Flint officials cut corners and babies and children get sick, even die. A Washington  State governor seeks to establish strong climate policy and all the world benefits, at least a bit, from reduced carbon emissions. In the Western world we tend to think of the self as a skin-encapsulated ego. Indigenous peoples know otherwise; their sense of the interconnection of everything is “readily demonstrable and irrefutable scientifically.” The water within us becomes water vapor, rain, tree, frog, fish, and ocean: all interconnected self, again. Water evaporated from your home becomes water vapor; becomes rain falling on the Pacific Ocean; becomes vapor again and falls as snow over the Cascade Mountains; becomes melting snow, joining the Cedar River Watershed which supplies Seattle’s water; and, finally, the water from your home becomes the water in my home, next to me, in a glass, as I write. Closing: It strikes me that Isaiah’s verse could also be read spiritually, claiming that a parched soul can indeed be filled again. Could it be that the transformation of our relationship with water, and indeed with all of God’s creation, is intimately tied to the healing of our parched and thirsty hearts? The promise of the waters of baptism is that we are made whole again. Perhaps humanity is waking up to the fact that wholeness, the restoration of relationships, is not only with God or our human neighbor, but also with creation, with those very baptismal waters. Prayer Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, We take for granted that which we have always had without realizing its preciousness until it is gone, or threatened. We confess that our relationships often reflect brokenness: in how we treat our neighbor, in how we love our families, in how we pollute our waters, air, and soil. May our hearts be soft and open that we may so fall in love with the beauty and gift of life that those very hearts might break at the brokenness, rejoice at every sign of healing, remain resolute to act for justice, extend mercy to all, including ourselves, and find hope in you and the love which flows from your heart to all of creation. In Christ’s name, Amen. Questions for Reflection Do you ever feel or sense that a transformation in our relationship with God’s creation might also heal part of that which ails our hearts? How so? What words would you use to describe that? What are some of the signs of hope in your part of the world in terms of how we treat water? How do you think your faith calls you to respond to concerns connected to water, or other “environmental” realities around you? Do you think faith communities broadly, and the Anglican Communion specifically, have an important role to play in the water crisis? How would you describe that role and why it is important? Think back on your life. Have you

ADOPT A STREET #carbonfastforlent You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should last, that the Father may give you whatever you ask Him in My name. John 15:16   Jesus didn’t just pray for fruit in our lives, but for ‘Fruit that will last”. How do we as activists keep on fighting the structures and powers of this world? Thomas Merton has some challenging words: “He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centered ambitions, his delusions about ends and means, his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas. There is nothing more tragic in the modern world than the misuse of power and action.”–Thomas Merton If we do not find ways to feed our souls then we can become angry, aggressive and burn out.  How do we find an energy that comes from love of creation and not hatred of those who are damaging God’s world? We may have the answer but we can become part of the problem. One way to feed your soul is to think local as well as acting globally. Find a small part of God’s earth that is meaningful to you – a local street , a local park or stream. And act together with some friends or family to clean it up, pull up weeds, plant indigenous plants and make a difference locally. “The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul” Voltaire

CLEAN UP DAY #carbonfastforlent “I believe that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically. . . . He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.” Pope Francis Laudato Si Saint Francis gave us a wonderful example of the balance between spirituality and action. One day he was riding his horse near Assisi, when he met a leper. And, even though he usually shuddered at lepers, he made himself dismount, and gave him a coin, kissing his hand as he did so. After he accepted a kiss of peace from him, Francis remounted and continued on his way. He said after kissing the leper “I left the world”. This meant that he was leaving the values of the world and choosing the values of the kingdom To organize a clean up day with your church is a practical way of saying to the community that we are committed to the kingdom. We are not people of status who do not want to get our hands dirty. We pray for the earth and we do our small part in healing it. In the Diocese of Harare, Zimbabwe , each parish is encouraged to adopt an area, whether it is a street, minibus rank, train station and to keep it clean. Each Anglican is encouraged to take a bag to work and clean up on the way home. This is love in action. Live simply so that others may simply live.

BE A BAG BUDDY #carbonfastforlent “And the man came into the house: and he ungirded his camels, and gave straw and provender for the camels and water to wash his feet, and the men’s feet that were with him.”. Gen 24:32 Eating Plastic Bags for Lunch Often in  Bible stories, the animals are given food and water to drink before the visitors. In the United Arab Emirates, a veterinarian has documented images of camels, sheep, goats, and endangered desert animals dead from eating plastic bags. A Google search on “animals eat plastic bags” brings up hundreds of heartbreaking stories and images from around the world. So many foraging cows in India have died from ingesting plastic bag litter that many of the states in that country have banned the distribution of plastic bags. Whales wash up on our coasts, their bellies full of plastic. And endangered leatherback sea turtles mistake floating plastic bags for the jellyfish that are their main diet, ingesting the plastic that can then block their digestive tracts. In fact, a recent study of leatherback turtle autopsy records found plastic in one-third of the animals’ GI tracts, plastic bags being the most common item mentioned. Plastic bags have some unique problems. While their environmental costs are burdensome for communities and the planet, the cost of plastic bags for retailers is pretty low. Made from ethylene, a byproduct of petroleum or natural gas, plastic bags are so cheap and flimsy that cashiers use them freely, double bagging as a matter of course and often sticking just a few items in each bag. As a result, shoppers end up with piles of plastic bags spilling out of closets and threatening to take over cupboards . . . until we finally throw up our hands and either dump them in the trash or, if we’re lucky enough to live in an area where stores provide plastic bag collection bins, cart them back for recycling. Sure, some of us reuse plastic shopping bags to line our waste bins or to pick up dog poop, but the bags still end up in the landfill. Even when disposed of properly, plastic bags are so lightweight and aerodynamic, they are easily picked up and carried by the wind. They can escape from trash bins, recycle bins, garbage trucks, and landfills, and end up littering the landscape. Blowing down the street, flapping from trees, clogging storm drains (costing municipalities millions of dollars in cleanup costs), and making their way out to sea, plastic bags have been referred to as “urban tumbleweeds” for good reason. And they persist in the environment, causing harm for a very long time. Be a bag buddy and stop using plastic – buy yourself several cloth bags – keep one in your handbag and another in your car for those unexpected trips http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/environmental-policy/plastic-bag-problem-ze0z1302zwar

LOCAL IS LEKKER #greenanglicans #carbonfastforlent One of the great themes of the Bible, which begins in the Hebrew Scriptures and is continued in Jesus and Paul, is called “the preferential option for the poor”; I call it “the bias toward the bottom.” In Jesus we have an almost extreme example of God taking sides. It starts with one who empties himself of all divinity (see Philippians 2:6-7), comes as a homeless baby in a poor family, then a refugee in a foreign country, then an invisible carpenter in his own country which is colonized and occupied by an imperial power, ending as a “criminal,” accused and tortured by heads of both systems of power, temple and empire, abandoned by most of his inner circle, subjected to the death penalty by a most humiliating and bizarre public ritual, and finally buried quickly in an unmarked grave.  (Richard Rohr) How can we use this preferential option for the poor in our purchasing? The simplest way to define what being eco friendly means is to say that it is the act of living with intent. The intent is focused on not creating harm to environment, and our intent is also to assist those to whom our purchase will make the most difference. . By purchasing from them you help them to stay in business, thus creating jobs. This is worth paying a rand or two extra for. Buy locally Grown Products: When you buy or produce locally grown products, you are actually reducing your carbon footprint in the form of using less plastic bags, saving fuel to get vegetables from the market, using less packaged material….. . Apart from this, you can also sell surplus to your friends or relatives.