Creation Care

Lord, in this Holy Week as we walk with your Son to the cross and wait for resurrection, hear our prayers!

Recently I found this picture in an article from National Geographic. What a beautiful sight. A sign of hope in a broken world. An oasis in the desert.

We bring our prayers to Creator God, who both "takes up our pain and bears our suffering" and will "let justice roll down like a river."

The Coastal Link pipeline and the planned Kitimat LNG terminal was heralded as the biggest private sector investment in the history of Canada. Prime Minister Trudeau and B.C. Premier Horgan celebrated this investment milestone in a major news conference in October 2018 as an example of getting resource and economic development right - in collaboration with resource and pipeline companies and First Nations along the route.   

Last week, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested peaceful participants of a blockade of a road on traditional Wet'suwet'en nation  territory, based on an injunction order that was issued last month to TransCanada Pipelines. The Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs were blocking access to the land because they have not given their consent to the natural gas pipeline, or two other proposed pipelines coming through their lands. The land is unceded by the Wetsu’wet’en.

On Monday, October 8th, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, released a report that depicts the immediate and long-term consequences of climate change, which include a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population. The report is clear: the consequences of human-induced climate change will be felt with greater severity and much sooner than we previously thought.

Have you ever had the experience of reading something and suddenly all kinds of connections start going off in your head? I had that experience a few years ago when I first read about the Dish with One Spoon Wampum, the covenant that held together the Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes before settlers appeared. This wampum seemed to echo and affirm material that I had been teaching on creation. I would like to explore the parallels and their implications briefly with you.

“It has been 1,606 days since Flint has had clean water,” declared Flint Rising director Nayyirah Shiriff after introducing herself to me and a group of about 30 other “Healing Waters” retreat participants in the last days of summer 2018 at the Colombiere retreat center in Clarkston, Michigan. Nayyirah’s statement brought a silent wave of grief over the room.

The morality of any society can be judged by how it cares for people and how it cares for God’s gift of creation.

The Clean Water Rule, put forward by  the Environmental Protection Agency in 2015, provided long-sought clarity about the application of the Federal Clean Water Act. As noted recently by Pope Francis, clean water is a basic human necessity and a gift God has given to humanity to safeguard.

This summer, I had the opportunity to participate in a learning tour with the Canadian Aboriginal Ministry Committee, World Renew, and the CRC Office of Race Relations focusing on places of racism, resistance, resilience, and reconciliation within urban Indigenous communities in southwestern Ontario. One of the places we visited was Aamjiwnaang First Nation, located on the St. Clair River, within the Sarnia city limits.