This morning’s newspaper carried an interesting article that has me ruminating. It was a story of a man who was cleaning out a cookie jar in which he had always stashed his lottery tickets. His wife was obviously in a spring cleaning mode and told him to throw them away if they weren’t worth anything. Not ready to part with them yet(sound familiar?) he took them to the local 7-Eleven to make sure none were winners. He found that most were not, one reaped the grand total of $3.00 and the other gave him……. $4.85 million dollars.

To this all I can say is “Wow!” The story went on to tell that just a few months before he had appeared in court because his house was to be foreclosed. The judge had given him three more months to find a place to move and then the bank would take the house. Now he found himself not only able to keep his house but a millionaire. As the man told the story he said these words: “This is how God works.”

This is how God works. Here we have one of the central complexities of what it means to be a human and particularly a human who claims a faith life, a belief in a Higher Power with whom we are in some kind of relationship. For this man, the set of circumstances that unfolded in his life was an affirmation of the presence and action of the Holy in his life.

Frankly, I am not so sure of God’s movement in the lottery or football or any other game of chance. I do have an understanding of the breathing presence of Spirit in the gifts of those who use mind and body who participate in a sport, an artistic endeavor and the mundane and heroic tasks of any day. Whether or not the use of these gifts results in a win is another thing for me. The idea of God’s intervention in the winning of such a sum of money does not fit my own personal theology. My sense is this man and his family may have a deeper chance of understanding ‘how God works’ now that they are millionaires. But this is simply my lens and not everyone’s and does not speak to the lens of the Sacred.

This Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost, the time when the followers of Jesus had an extreme visitation of the Spirit, and went on to become the church. That is a simple definition of this day we call the birthday of the church. For these ancients, God ‘worked’ by filling them with an unquenchable fire for following in the Way of their friend who threw around the gifts of presence, compassion, justice, and humility like it was confetti at a New Year’s celebration. One of the winnings of the day was they were said to have been able to understand one another though they were speaking in different languages. And couldn’t we use more of that? We barely understand one another when we are speaking the same language!

Over time we have come to struggle and triumph as people who try to figure out how God works. We have called this place of challenge and healing, the church. Gathering together we bring stories of how we have seen God working in our own lives, in our communities, in the world. Mostly they are stories of ordinary people doing very ordinary things. Washing feet. Feeding those who are hungry. Standing up for those whose homes are the margins. Visiting prisons. Singing. Praying. Laughing. Crying. Offering whatever gifts we have for some greater good we often don’t have words for and can’t completely imagine.

Nearly every day we dig into a cookie jar that does not hold a winning ticket. Out of it we pull the best we have to offer…..ourselves. We ask God to work in us in whatever ways are possible. As tickets, I believe, we are priceless. To the world and to God.

“I dwell in possibility…..”
~Emily Dickinson

Possibility. I’ve been thinking a lot about possibility lately. Of course, spring is the season of possibility. Look out any window and you are confronted by the possibility of the summer that is yet to be. Trees are teetering on the edge of their green fullness. Their leaves are inching out as if trying out a few dance steps before breaking into a full production number. Flowers are reaching up toward the now warming sun before breaking into the brightness of their particular colors, their own unique petal formation. Even the grass is slowly waking up to what it might mean to go into its blanket form for its summer lie-down.

Many I know are either graduating or about to graduate from high school and college. Seeing photos in caps and gowns of varying colors is like seeing holograms of what possibility looks like.Faces full of confidence, smiles broad and open to the world. They have the ‘I’m ready for what next’ look written all over them. Possibility embodied.

Perhaps I am thinking about possibility also because I have been reading and preparing for author and speaker Phyllis Tickle who will be our guest at Hennepin Church on June 9th. Ms. Tickle’s area of expertise is the emerging church. She has written extensively about this particular place those of us in the church find ourselves. Her premise is that every 500 years the church and, indeed culture, goes through a major change and restructuring. We are, she says, in just such a time and place. Without judgment or condemnation she outlines the trajectory many of us have felt we have been on but had no words for. Many might read this with fear and trembling and even despair. As I read her words, I am filled with excitement for the possibility of it all and also a feeling of blessedness at being alive at such a time as this.

For some time I have felt the heavy mantel of cynicism that seems to cloak our culture. It seeps into nearly every space…..social, national, global, theological, relational. Have you felt it? In fact, I have been know to make the flippant statement “Well, that is not going to happen in my lifetime!” Whatever the ‘that’ was at the time really signaled my inability to see the possibilities that are all around. Indeed, this world is filled with the hope of possibility all the time if we have eyes, and heart, to see.

What possibilities are lurking just outside your vision these days? What hopes are being watered and plowed in the dry, dusty places of your life? Is there space in your own spirit to be open to the possibility of what is to come? Are you, perhaps, full of possibility?

As one who makes a home in the Christian household, this should not be news to me. This is basic resurrection theology. Our whole communal life has its foundation in possibility. The possibility of justice and compassion. The possibility that kindness and generosity will prevail. The possibility that a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish can feed a crowd. The possibility of new life springing from the most unlikely of places. The possibility that, yes, even in our lifetime God is doing new things. Even in the church. Perhaps especially in the church.

May we be gripped by the possibility of these spring days and filled to overflowing with what is yet to be.

” On the day
the blessings of heaven.
On this day
the blessings of earth.
On this day
the blessings of sea and of sky.
To open us to life
to ground us in life
to fill us with life
and with wonder.
On those we love this day
and in every human family
the blessings of heaven
the blessings of earth
the blessings of sea and sky.”
~John Philip Newell

Today has certainly felt like a day filled with blessings. The mornings seem to begin ever earlier with the sounds of the winged ones singing out their morning hymns of praise. If you, like our family, like to sleep with a window slightly open to allow fresh air to filter in, you know that these are not days for late risers. The chirping calls alone make early birds of us all.

And why wouldn’t a being sing like that if they could? The sun rising, the air filling with the ripe scents of growing, it is a fulsome time to be awake and alive. Today’s sky is a rich blue, clouds are few. And yes, it is a little warm but for those of us so accustomed to layer upon layer of warmth-producing fabric, we have little to complain about. This sudden warming will, no doubt, cause blooming and blossoming all around. This is, after all, what we have been waiting for. For more than nine months there has been some form of snow or ice present on our lawns, in the parks and on the lakes. And now the blessings of earth and sky are calling to us to ‘ open us to life, to ground us in life, to fill us with life.’ And our work? To be filled with wonder. Seems a pretty easy job to me.

I read these words of John Philip Newell this morning while the day was still fresh on me. Awakened by the birds and anticipating the details that would make up this day, I turned to his Celtic Benediction for a morning prayer. His words calling for this full body blessing seemed fitting. Especially when I got to the next line: ” On those we love and on every human family” blessings.I thought about the simplicity and the depth of this prayer. Not just my family and other families I love but on every human family. For such a small number of words it is a tall order.

To pray this prayer with any integrity means I am calling upon the Sacred in this amazing day to bless every family…..those with whom I disagree…those that look drastically different than my own…..those who do not share my often self-righteousness way of being in the world……those who work against the issues I hold sacred…….those who have much and those who have little….those who never imagined a world I take for granted…..those who name God by a hundred other names and those who do not take to this God thing at all. To all of these in the human family, the blessings of heaven,earth, sea and sky.

This state I call home has been embroiled in heated debates over the last days that have resulted in a vote for equality of marriage that has been the triumph of so many and the seeming defeat of others. People I know have given their hearts, their talents, their time and passion to this endeavor. I have one lens with which I see this all and I am overjoyed at the outcome. I want to wear this joy in humility.

And so on this day, when we declare that love has triumphed, may we also take a moment, as the bird’s did this morning, to offer a blessing on those we love and every human family.

God, help us to grow
like a garden
like a song
like a tree.

A great, old tree
with roots that reach down to the heart
roots that reach down but
break through the ground around the trunk and lift
as if the earth can’t contain the yearning.
As if the earth shall erode and pass away and
all that shall be left in the end is Spirit.
~Neil Paytner

There are years when the emergence of green on trees seems to happen overnight. You can go to bed noticing only tiny buds and by the same time the next day the tree is in its summer fullness. This is not one of those years. I have been keeping an eye on the tips of branches for weeks now, watching for that moment when there is an artist’s brush of yellow-green etched on the skyline. It has been slow in coming. The artist seems to have taken a very long vacation.

Watching trees is important. Watching trees in this particular spring has become a Zen-like experience. Breathe. Open eyes. Breathe. Notice. Breathe. Wait. Breathe. Observe. Breathe. Smile. Breathe. Open heart. Breathe. Repeat.

In my practice of this mental tree hugging, I have noticed that all around the Twin Cities there are blooming magnolia trees. It seems a miracle to me that this flowering tree, one I associate with more sultry, warmer climates, can survive the Minnesota winters and now be showing forth their magnificent blossoms. Their white or pale pink,showy flowers seem foreign somehow, a transplant that is trying to fit in but is unable to reign in their southern showiness in this spartan, Scandinavian landscape. Their fluttery petals always remind me of Zelda Fitzgerald or other women of a fragile nature whose personalities are highlighted in stories of misplaced people, humans who find themselves living in a place that does not quite fit them, in a place they can never call home.

Last weekend I was at our church’s retreat center and sat for some time in the chapel which has windows that open all around into the wooded areas that surround it. Bare, gray and black branches held forth. Only the majestic Weeping Willow pushed any color into the world. Its drooping, teardrop branches offered a golden yellow into a scene that could have been a snapshot of November or March but not May.

This morning as I walked out into the world, I looked up and was greeted by the pale, yellow-green I have been waiting for. Breathe. Notice. Nearly all the trees seemed to have awakened in the cool temperatures that moved in last night. But the trees, in their innate wisdom, seemed to have made some choice. Enough is enough. Even those that have no showy magnolia blossoms to offer woke up to the May that is here.

Growth, for trees and for humans, comes in its own good time. Earth and skin, at some point, cannot contain the yearning. And so we breathe, open our eyes and hearts. We notice, observe, smile. And we repeat for all the seasons we are privileged to do so until all that is left will be Spirit.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it is everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives……”
~ Carl Sagan

Yesterday I got my annual injection of hope. It wasn’t Christmas. It wasn’t Easter. It wasn’t my birthday. It was the annual In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater’s May Day Parade. This homage to cardboard and wheat paste and sheer human ingenuity and creativity is a tradition. I had been so worried that this year’s prolonged winter was going to cause me to stumble into whatever spring might offer without this infusion of inspiration. But yesterday the skies cleared(yeah!), the temperatures rose(yeah!) and it became a perfect day for this gathering of free spirited artists.

This year’s parade and ritual had the theme of “See the World” and was not the travelogue the words might imply. Instead it was a challenge to see, really see, this precious world in which we live, this fragile planet on which we travel and to recognize the intricate and enormous connections we all share. Not just the human ones but all of Creation, plant, animal, soil, water, air, all. The challenge was to not only see these connections but to take them seriously. All this was done through the use of puppets large and small created by ordinary people. It is storytelling on a grand scale.

The parade winds through a section of south Minneapolis that has become more and more diverse over the years. It is such a joy to see the ways in which Sandy Spieler, the artistic heart and mind that leads this theater, brings those diverse voices together in such a sensitive and respectful way. The belief of this group of artists is that art truly can be employed for social action and creation of a kinder, gentler world. It is a miracle to behold.

The highlight of the day is the ceremony in which the Tree of Life rises once again from the shore of the lake in Powderhorn Park. Countless people of all ages dance in costume or mask while others paddle with all their might in canoes decorated in the colors of the sun. This year they also took on the form of snakes celebrating the Chinese year of this slithery one. And slither they did….in circles, round and round….all the while making their way from the tiny island in the middle of the lake. As they are paddling, other performers bring in the Tree of Life shrouded in black and laying close to the ground. Observers eyes dart to and fro, watching land and water as the drumming intensifies and the canoes carry an enormous sun puppet toward the shore.

At this point the audience chants “Sun! Sun! Sun!” and the red and yellow puppet dips to bless the prostrate Tree. And then it happens. The Tree of Life is lifted by an army of people of all shapes and sizes into a standing position and the crowd erupts into applause and excitement before breaking into song: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray.”

This parade and ceremony has been happening in this neighborhood for 39 years. One of the beautiful things about it is that, aside from the use of a sound system, not much has changed. Puppets are still made with cardboard, paste, newspaper and donated paint. Anyone who wants to can gather and help choose the theme, make the puppets and be in both parade and ceremony. Over time more languages have been spoken and the faces of the family that is created in this act of art has taken on different shades and hues.

But the mission remains the same: honoring what it means to be here on this earth dot, to be us, to be home, to celebrate the goodness of working together, creating art, making music, living out our lives. In hope. In the springtime we thought might never come.

It was, indeed, a miraculous day to ‘see the world’.

Reading this morning’s newspaper, I learned a phrase I had not known before: “colony collapse disorder”. The article was about the disappearing honeybee population across the United States and the world. This is not recent news, of course. This phenomenon has been going on for a few seasons with various reasons for its happening being outlined or denied depending on who is doing the talking. While it seems everyone agrees that the demise of this tiny insect has great impact on many important life forms, not the least of which is humans, people seem less likely to agree on what is causing these pollinators of our food to disappear.

This new term, “colony collapse disorder” became juxtaposed in my mind by another piece I read, a letter to the editor. This letter was a response to an article printed earlier in the week about the oil boom in neighboring North Dakota. I had also read that article and was struck, as the writer was also, about the emphasis on the billions of barrels of oil we have found in our own backyard, the glee of this discovery and the jobs it would create. All this without any mention of the harm that this unsustainable use of energy brings with it. It was as if we had somehow forgotten that burning fossil fuels is polluting our air, our water and also shifting the ways climate is effecting our seasons and their tie to our food sources.

Now I want to be clear. I am all for creating as many jobs as we need to sustain ourselves, our families and our lifestyles. But we also need to remember that we are all a part of an immense colony of interdependent beings who rely on one another and this amazing Creation. When we harm one part of the web, our Native relatives tell us, we harm ourselves. The collapse of the bee colonies means something to each of us whether we register this wisdom on a daily basis or not. The collapse of the water systems, the air we breathe, the land quality that brings us our food affects us regardless of our politics or faith tradition.

For some reason, the words that kept floating through my mind as I tried to digest these two news articles were the ones I say with great regularity these days. Wedding words. “Friends, we are gathered together in the sight of God to witness and to bless the joining together of Joe and Jill in holy marriage.The covenant of marriage is a sacred act, honored by God, who created us as human beings to be in relationship with one another. Joe and Jill come now to join their lives together in this sacred covenant.”

This living together as human beings and as citizens of the Earth is a sacred act, honored by God, who created us to be in relationship with one another. Human to human. Human to bee. Human to animal. Human to earth, air, water. This covenant is one we choose and was chosen for us by our parents, our ancestors, our Creator. It is filled with great risk and even greater responsibility. Our work is laced with difficulty, denial,frustration and great joy. And while I may want to think this living is all about me, it is really about how I honor this sacred covenant.

As I look out my window, snow is falling. It is the first week of May and I have not seen any honeybees as yet. The pansies we planted in hope over the weekend are edged with snow. Pansies are hardy little buggers and will bounce back, I am sure. I want to have as much confidence about the rest of this colony of which we are all a part. My prayers this day are that this collapse that is afoot is only in a state of ‘disorder’ and can be righted with an appropriate dose of creativity and commitment. For the sake of the bees, for the sake of our crops and those who grow them, for the sake of us all.

Blessed be.

With great regularity, I am privileged to walk over lines of poetry. Literally. Along many of the sidewalks in our neighborhood, poetry has been etched into some of the newer sections of pavement that has been poured. This endeavor was a contest, as I recall, in which people were invited to submit a short poem suitable for cement. I love walking along and being stopped by the short, well chosen words of these anonymous poets. It makes any walk a surprising adventure. Much like the verses I read in any anthology, there are poems I remember and those that seem fresh and new each time I come upon them.

One of my favorites offers this wisdom:”Wet cement,/Opportunity./ It only takes a second/ To change this spot forever.” Indeed. Cool, gray, cementy mush gets poured into a perfect square of walkway. But one stick-drawn letter, one cat paw print, one child’s tiny hand changes the nature of that space forever. Or at least until the hardened concrete is jackhammered and replaced in some yet to be, future day. Only a second oozing into a forever.

Every time I pass over this etched-in-stone poem, I think of all the other times a second can change something forever. A chance meeting. A letter of acceptance or rejection. A turn down one road instead of another. Showing up or forgetting to go. Saying “yes” or “no” or even “maybe”. So many opportunities turn on that second that can make all the difference in the world. In a forever kind of way. Do you know what I mean?

I am surrounded these days by people at various stages of opportunity. There are those who have just made decisions about college and those who have now completed four years and are wondering where the time went. They are all at different points of making marks in an opportunity that could take them in forever kinds of paths. Still other people are at a point of their lives where they are making choices about retirement. The opportunities they had once etched in stone are about to be broken up and replaced with something new, a fresh poem and different path.

Perhaps it is always this way. We are often only a second away from someplace in the process of opportunity. The important thing might be the ability to have wisdom about how firmly we want to make a mark that might be suspended in time, forever, cemented in place. The thought is daunting, isn’t it? Maybe this is what discernment is really about. Taking the time to be intentional about the seconds that can make all the difference on the forever path.

When our sons were younger, I remember telling them in so many words to be thoughtful about choices they make that could alter their life’s dreams and path in ways they had not intended. I would probably still caution them in a similar way knowing full well that, sometimes, we only learn the really big, important lessons of life when we pick up that stick and put our initials in quickly drying cement. Ah, the plight of parenting! Ah, the plight of being human!

We walk every day on the poems of others whether we can see the words or not. The people who walk the paths with us leave their marks in a myriad ways. Through affirmations or criticism, through kindness or curse, the words of others scatter our way as we journey in the world. As a poet and as one who receives the poems, it is wise to remember the marks we make. One second can lead to a forever. It is good to be care-full.

There is a powerful thing that happens when people sing together. Those of us who hang around in churches know this is true because we are lucky to be a part of it every Sunday morning and sometimes even other days in the week. In church singing, you don’t need to be a good singer or be able to read music because, nine chances out of ten, the person sitting beside you will drag you along in this life transforming act. I saw it happen yesterday and I heard it, too. While everyone probably has a favorite hymn, one they may or may not even believe the words of, every now and then a song comes along that drags a whole group of people along a road they hadn’t planned to travel but there they are anyway. Yesterday morning this is what I witnessed: a group of people minding their own business, showing up for church for all the varied reasons and then, Bam! They are singing words that get right to the heart of things.

The John Bell song begins:
“Take this moment, sign and space;
Take my friends around;
Here among us make the place
Where your love is found.”
So far, so good. Looking around our community of worshipers, there are indeed friends present. Friends and some others who were visitors and people who don’t know one another very well. There may even be a couple of people who don’t like one another but I am unaware if this is the case. So, asking the Holy to make a place where love is found is no a stretch. But then things started to get more complicated.

“Take the time to call my name
Take the time to mend
Who I am and what I’ve been,
All I’ve failed to tend.
Take the tiredness of my days,
Take my past regret,
Letting your forgiveness touch
All I can’t forget.”
O.K. Now we are into some serious, soul searching singing. Who I am, what I’ve been, all my failings. I saw us all stand a little taller. We were dealing with big things now…in song! By the time we began singing about past regrets and all the nagging things that need our attention, things that hold our shame and cause us to turn away from ourselves and one another, it seemed the music and the words were carrying us along on a magic carpet of truth telling. It only seemed the logical and hopeful thing to do to ask for a touching hand of forgiveness, something like a big net that would spread across every voice, every face, every body. Bring it on! Please.

But the truth telling wasn’t over yet for this band of singers creating sacred sounds on an ordinary Sunday:
“Take the little child in me
Scared of growing old,
Help him/her to find his/her worth
Made in Christ’s own mold.
Take my talents, take my skills,
Take what’s yet to be;
Let my life be yours and yet,
Let is still be me.”
Ah, yes. That fear of growing older stuff. No matter the age, young or not so, this uncertainty of aging is a big deal and so here we were. Naming it. Claiming it. Singing about it. I felt the crack in my voice, as I always do at this point of the song, and knew I was not alone. Indeed, this is the community I have chosen to do this pilgrim walk with, in its highs and lows, in its beauty and tears, all of it now being sung into the world.

And then there was the final flourish. In one enormous voice we asked the Holy One to take all of our stuff, all our bags packed with the generosity and greed of our lives, all that we can’t imagine happening yet and hold it and us. We had the audacity to even ask God to make something of us we hadn’t dreamed, to shape it into a holiness and to leave a little over that was just plain us, with all our warts and flaws, all our goodness and mercies.

Of course, we could have said, and do say, much of these same things in many worship services. But when voices are raised in song, when tears rise to the surface of eyes and pour over onto cheeks,the words are something more. They go deep, deep into a soul when they float on music and their meaning gets lodged in hearts. This is what I experienced and witnessed on Sunday.

It was a holy moment.

At night, I wait for a sign
in the wind, a stillness
in the cold, black water
before jumping
from the rocky ledge,
knowing my body must
find its way through darkness.
I begin each dive like the first time-
a whispered invocation.
~ Amy Uyematsu

This past Sunday we took a drive down the river. I had been told that many birds had simply stopped down around Red Wing, waiting. Waiting for the snow to stop, the temperatures to rise, the spring to arrive. It was a gray afternoon but I come from a family of Sunday afternoon ‘drives’ so to get into the car without an intention of going anywhere for a purpose felt comforting. The driving reminded me of those many Sundays my parents would pile us into the car and we’d take off. Just to look at the scenery. Just to get a leisurely change of pace. These drives usually always ended with ice cream so these memories are good, very good.

Sunday’s drive did not harvest as many bird sightings as we imagined or hoped for. We did see several kinds of water birds including mergansers and several ducks. Some immature eagles flew overhead and there were the obligatory swooping gulls. That is until we crossed the river and came to Prescott, Wisconsin.

Prescott which rests at the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers is one of those lovely little river towns. After crossing the bridge and heading back toward Minnesota, we saw a section of water that was flowing but still had frozen ice making up a large part of the surface. You could see where the ice formed an undulating ridge before dropping off into open, frigid water. Standing at the very edges of the ice were several blue herons. They stood there like divers at the end of a diving board as if waiting for the signal to jump…..or fly as they had the ability.

It was an interesting sight. These enormous birds, looking every bit the ancestor of some prehistoric cousin, seemed to be standing on the edge between winter and spring. Their presence seemed to hold a kind of witness out to all who would watch winter’s departure and spring’s arrival. To wait while the ice melts? To lift up and allow the wind to carry them into a warmer and hopeful place? It was all only a matter of time.

Watching these birds standing at the edge, I thought about all the edges where we stand. Many times we stand, our feet glued to a spot where things seem safe and secure knowing with our whole heart, it is time to move. Other times we are brought to an edge we never meant to encounter but life or luck or fate is pushing at our backs and the choice does not seem to be ours. To jump? To fly? Only our courage or patience or wisdom can answer those questions.

We stand at the edges every day though we may not think of it in that way. There is the edge of this day and the next, this breath and the one to follow. I know so many young ones who are standing at the edges of what has been high school or college and now they are perched, ready to take flight. It is an exciting and even frightening time. The edges their parents are experiencing are different, their own, equally as exciting and not without fear. These life edges can be like thresholds that open us to the what next in powerful and profound ways.

On what edges do you find yourself these days? What signs are you searching for? What stillness holds you? What darkness waits to catch you? May your breath become a whispered invocation as you jump……or glide…….. or fly.

I remember the first of observance of Earth Day. I remember my passion and commitment to this endeavor to protect and preserve the beauty and resources of this planet on which we all spin. It was,in some ways, a time filled with a naïveté that now seems sweet to me. At the time when we read poems, sang songs, rallied and signed petitions to live in communion with the Earth, we did so believing that our actions and our commitment would make a difference. And I believe in many ways those early steps have created an influence that stopped many things from happening and caused others to be dreamed and created, that has helped create change and stop damage of this fragile world.

What most of us at the time did not realize was how long this endeavor would take. In the early days of what has come to be called the ‘environmental movement,there seemed to be a sense that if we just paid the right attention to the right acts, if we just shifted how we used our valuable resources, if we just loved the Earth enough, it would all work out fine. And in some ways it has while in other ways we have fallen so short of the mark.

As someone who has spent the majority of their life in the church, this need to speak for Creation as always been a perplexing thing for me. By that I mean that, at least to me, the need to preserve, care for and live in relationship with the Earth is the lens through which I read the scriptures,articulate my faith, understand the Holy. I know others see these same scriptures in much different ways than I do and, if in the same room, we might find ourselves at odds. The dance that the church and therefore faith has done with the environment is a curious one with layers that have, again in my opinion, not always served either well. What to make of all this?

On this particular Earth Day 2013, I am looking out my window at skies that are clouding up in a way whose language I understand all too well. The sky is speaking “snow”. Given that it is April 22nd, even in Minnesota this is an oddity. Looking at the gathering grayness, I am reminded of one of the wise women I know who once talked with me about climate change, back when we called it global warming. She said that, though people think the change that will take place will just be a gradual experience of rising temperatures, climate change is much more than that. Instead, she said, the experience will be one where climates will be erratic, unpredictable, full of storms that come out of no where and create damage that we had not thought possible. Certainly, the last couple of years have behaved in just this way and this particular winter in Minnesota is proving to be one that defies some odds.

A part of Earth Day for me has always been about remembering what this precious Earth has to teach us. Since this faith story in which I have found myself begins with a creation story of this universe of which I am only a speck, today seems as a good a day as any to reflect on the wisdom of this earth, air, water, plants, and animals. As I read the story, we humans are given an immense and challenging responsibility to honor all the connections in the web of life of which we are all a part. Most of the time we are pretty myopic in this endeavor, making it all about us. But the invitation of the Creator is to live in communion with the whole so the world may be as was intended. It’s a big invitation.

On this Earth Day, when we recognize that there is still so much to do to live compassionately and responsibly on this blue, green earth home, I offer these words of M.J. Slim Hooey as found in the book Earth Prayers from Around the World:

” I have come to terms with the future.
From this day onward I will walk
easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill
no living things. Live in harmony with
all creatures. I will restore the earth
where I am. Use no more of its resources
than I need. And listen, listen to what
it is telling me.”

In this long, protracted winter, what is the earth telling us if we but only listen?