By Da Tousands!

I write this blog reflection at the end of a full week in which I had every intention of posting more Groundling entries. Keeping up with one blog, Lion Lamb, is challenge enough. So even though I am passionate about Eco-faith issues the ideas for blog entries are still-born.

In this week's sermon for Creation Time 3 I will make reference to The Celtic Mass for the Sea written by Nova Scotia's Scott McMillan. It develops the phrase "those who trample on the earth, trample themselves" attributed to St. Columba, one of the Celtic saints. In a day when we speak of shrinking our environmental footprint it seems very current. Scott and Jennyfer Brickenden spoke to a group from the St. Andrew's congregation when I was in Halifax (come to think of it, wasn't disciple Andrew a fisherman?)

I also came upona copy of Newfoundland artist David Blackwood's Master Mariner which depicts an elderly family member whose fishing days are over. There is a scripture reference at the bottom, Isaiah 19:8:

 Those who fish will mourn;
    all who cast hooks in the Nile will lament,
    and those who spread nets on the water will languish.

I had a chance once to ask David where this came from and I believe it was his son who gave him the reference.

We do trample the planet and empty its oceans, but we can always hold out hope as children of the Creator. I spoke with a friend from Newfoundland recently, himself long retired from fishing. I always ask him about the fishery and he told me that this year the cod were back "by da tousands" so there is always the possibility we can right our human wrongs. There was a time when the great cod stocks appeared to have gone the way of the proverbial dodo.

Let's all keep hoping, praying, acting as though we aren't Clodhoppers.

Thoughts?