The View from Lazy Point

I am reading an acclaimed book called The View From Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World by Carl Safina. One description of the book says "In this intertwined story, Carl Safina shows us that nature and human dignity require each other. The View from Lazy Point follows the arc of the seasons from Safina’s home waters of eastern Long Island to far horizons of the globe, from the Arctic to Antarctica and across the tropics."

This is quite a good synopsis of a very worthwhile book. Safina, an environmentalist,  lives in a reclaimed cottage on Lazy Point, a spit of land near Long Island. While it is a place of remarkable wildlife, it is close to millions of people and the pressure of huge numbers of human neighbours is evident to Safina.

I considered the fate of Lazy Point as I picked up the book to read on the evening Superstorm Sandy crashed into that area. This storm humbled humanity as it tossed aside all preparedness and swept the sea inland in a devastating onslaught. Are the buildings of Lazy Point gone, including Safina's refuge? Does the point itself still exist? We're told that the shoreline has been altered in many locations along that shore.

I muse about climate change regularly and our response as Christians. We know from scripture the danger of hubris, a false pride in our human abilities which can lead to a fall. I do wonder if the severity of this storm is more than an "act of nature" or "act of God." We could inadvertently be the culprits with our unnatural choices. Needless to say, while there is scientific speculation to "connect the dots" between climate change and Sandy, there isn't a definitive outlook and probably can't be.

What are your thoughts about Sandy? Has this weather event and others like it affected your opinions about climate change?

Making a Little Flap

 

God sees the little sparrow fall,
It meets His tender view;
If God so loves the little birds,
I know He loves me, too.
Refrain

He loves me, too, He loves me, too,
I know He loves me, too;
Because He loves the little things,
I know He loves me, too.

 

You might think that a feature article in the New York Times this past weekend about Toronto would be a feather in Canada's cap but not so. The article was about the deaths of anywhere between a million and nine million -- yes, nine million -- birds each year because of collisions with the office and condo towers of the downtown. Toronto is unique in North America in the number of glass-clad buildings, which leads to a much higher number of these fatal collisions. They say there is no such thing as bad publicity but I'm not thrilled that Toronto is Murder City when it comes to birds. Often we read about the problem of outdoor cats when it comes to killing birds. Apparently we humans are much more destructive -- what's new?

Volunteers for FLAP --Fatal Light Awareness Program -- do sweeps around buildings to both count and identify birds and one found 500 in one morning. http://www.flap.org/ The retrievers of dead birds are also rescuers of the injured, which are also abundant.

The weird thing is the article gives the death count from a pick-up downtown on October 8th of this year, my birthday. The same day my daughter Jocelyn gave me a little booklet from FLAP with beautiful illustrations of birds -- all dead. I hasten to add that it was not her only gift to me, but she know how important these issues are for me.

Organizations such as FLAP encourage architects to consider how these urban architectural giants affect the web of creation. And they ask building owners and their tenants to simply dim or shut off lights at night to reduce the carnage. It's not a lot to ask, really.
But of course there are so many "not a lot to ask's" for humans in wealthy countries to consider, but we are slow to respond. Perhaps we just don't trust that our actions will make a difference. As a Christian I keep telling myself that my actions and those of the people I join with in the Christian community do make a difference. We can all make our little flaps and hope to get airborne.

Did you know about the problem in Toronto or the work of FLAP? Can we make a difference?

Frankenstorm

Hurricane Sandy ripped through Cuba and the Caribbean at the end of the week and at the time this blog was written it was moving up the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Meteorologists are warning that it has the potential to be the worst storm in a century with more than 60 million people affected. And then it will move into Atlantic Canada to wreak havoc. It could cause billions of dollars in damage.

Maybe the dire warnings of a Frankenstorm will go unrealized. Let's pray this is the case. Or maybe the post mortem of the storm will be another reminder that global weather patterns are changing. It's not as though there haven't been fierce Autumn storms in the past. Once again I remind you that I was born at the tail end of Hurricane Hazel back in 1954. It's crazy that the photo of a car in Havana from a couple of days ago could have been taken in the 1950's!

We left Halifax just before Hurricane Juan smashed into Nova Scotia, although our daughter Jocelyn was still there. That storm caught battle hardened Bluenosers by surprise because of its ferocity. And that's the thing. Now storms are less predictable and more violent, and the climate experts say this will increase. The challenge is that these are weather events, but we are still trying to figure out if they signal climate change.

We are being warned that these are Acts of Humanity rather than Acts of God and we better get used to them if weather events become climate patterns.If so, a scary Halloween will take on a whole new meaning.

Are you spooked?

Community of the Son and the Sun

The St. Paul's community of the Son may soon be the community of the sun as well. In May our board voted to pursue a solar panel project on the south-facing roof of our Christian Education wing. The Ontaro government is buying solar energy from those who will install the panels at a guaranteed rate over the course of twenty years. The rate is such that our estimated income is more than double the initial cost of installing the panels.

Where does that "up front " money come from? Oshawa Presbytery Church Extension Council has agreed to loan us the money (about $50,000) and we will repay the council from the revenues from the government.

Many home owners, farmers, and churches have taken advantage of the this program and are pleased with the choice to participate. Cambridge St. United congregation in Lindsay is one of those churches and their minister, the Rev. Paul Reed, also has a solar installation on his home, something he began fifteen years ago.  The photo above is of the installation on Cambridge St. Paul will join us at our board on November 14th at 7:00 pm to talk about his experience both personally and as the pastor of a participating congregation. Everyone in the congregation is welcome.

Many thanks to vice-chair Ryan and chair Harold for their work on our behalf. If all goes at planned, we will be the first UCC congregation in our presbytery to proceed. We do have a couple more hoops to jump through though.

What do you think about churches getting involved in alternative energy projects? Do you think this is a good idea for St. Paul's?

Convicted

Help me out with this one. Seven scientists in Italy have just been convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of more than 300 people after they inaccurately predicted a 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy.

The defendants were accused of giving "inexact, incomplete, and contradictory" information about whether tremors would develop into what proved to be a killer earthquake. After the first tremors many people left their homes and slept outside. On the basis of the reassurances by the scientists they moved back indoors and many perished. The prosecutors accused the scientists of "monumental negligence" and eventually they were convicted.

Don't you wonder why politicians aren't brought up on charges for ignoring the warnings about climate change? If the overwhelming evidenced is that human-made climate change is disrupting the planet, who is held accountable? And who want to hear bad news.

As a preacher I wonder whether I should bother to say anything about climate issues from the pulpit even though I believe we have a responsibility to care for the planet because God is the Creator and we have a unique role in creation. But who wants to come to church to hear gloomy news?

Will those in positions of responsibility ever be charged with "monumental negligence?" I can't believe that those convicted Italian seismologists wished anyone harm or willfully ignored the signs. Yet that's what we are doing with our assault on the Earth.

Have I got it all wrong? Should there be some sort of planetary court for abusers? Just wondering.

Close to Home

During 2012 I attended conferences in Victoria, British Columbia and the wilds of Wyoming, thanks to the Schammerhorn Fund. Ruth and I also had vacations in Cuba and the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (a lot of islands this year!) The scenery was varied and spectacular at times.

But this evening we had a lovely walk not far from Bowmanville at the Samuel Wilmot Trail which was as enjoyable as anything we did during the rest of the year. There is a small pocket of old growth woods running along the edge of the creek and with the Autumn leaves and the failing light it was lovely.

Ruth was the first to hear the low "who, who, who" of an owl, but try as we might we could not locate it above us. Then we heard a much higher pitched raptor-like screeching. Eventually we spotted two young owls high in a maple, obviously in conversation with a parent.

We don't normally associate the beauty of creation with a walk in hearing distance of the 401 and just down the road from home. Yet we both felt that the day the Creator gave us was that much more fulfilled as a result of the walk and the wildlife we encountered.

Any observations about your moments of appreciaton close to home?

reBuild

Christianity Today is an evangelical magazine whose theology I can't always embrace, but I do read it because it speaks to and for a large constituency. I was pleasantly surprised by a recent article  called An Architect for the Green-Friendly Masses. I found it encouraging on a number of fronts. This is an excerpt from the article:

San Francisco boasts a ban on plastic grocery bags and a high-end public transportation system. Its policies—including its "green" citywide building code—are more aggressive than most on environmental concern. This is what attracted architect Jill Kurtz, 31, to the city; she thought it was "the epicenter" of the sustainability movement. She discovered, though, that "San Francisco is not leaps and bounds ahead of many other big cities. There are still a lot of people here who are just figuring sustainability out, or . . . still wanting to do 'business as usual.' "

 

Kurtz, a Christian, also noticed that many SF companies "made sustainability unaffordable, especially to clients who are just starting to explore what it means to be better stewards of energy." Having graduated from architecture school only a few years earlier, Jill decided she wanted address the class issue. She and a friend launched their own firm, reBuild, "to make sustainability accessible for people who couldn't afford high-end consulting," Kurtz says...

More recently, reBuild extended its services to churches, when it partnered with Bay Area Chinese Bible Church in 2011 and 2012 to construct a new worship center. "Our church design team really values sustainability," says Pastor Steve Quen. "We wanted to showcase our belief in creation care to our community and church members." Kurtz says she found Quen's team "refreshing" to work with, since she had previously encountered churches that were apathetic about creation care.

 

Kurtz and her colleagues helped the church design a Sunday school curriculum that teaches kids about creation care and cheered on Quen in designing a sermon series on stewardship. "It was cool to see how sustainability was not just applied in the building project but [also] was infiltrating operations as well," she says.

 

 

 

What an encouraging story on every front. Thoughts?

A Radical and Prophetic Experiment

What does it mean to lead change when there is strong and vocal resistance? What does it mean to take constructive steps to care for the environment in the midst of a shaky economy? In January 2013 the state of California, with a population about the same as all of Canada, is implementing new measures to limit greenhouse gases. http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/

As you might imagine, even in Lotus Land there are plenty of opponents. Lots of folk figure that this will put the stalling economy into a death spiral and jobs will disappear. The state government argues that the laws will promote economic growth and create different employment. Some figure that since California's emissions are about one percent of the global total it will be a drop in the proverbial bucket.

Read this from National Public Radio:

California is about to try a radical experiment. A little over a year from now, the state will limit the greenhouse gas emissions from factories and power plants, and, eventually, emissions from vehicles.

The U.S. Congress tried to pass a similar plan for the whole country but dropped the idea last year. Paying a price for emissions has many Californians worried about what they'll have to pay for electricity and fuel and everything that takes energy to make. But the state's argument is that this will be good for the economy. Essentially, the law puts a statewide cap on the amount of greenhouse gases coming out of smokestacks and tailpipes.

I'm impressed. Through the past three decades governments at every level have claimed that they can't protect the environment because it will hurt the economy. And they say that they can't proceed unless everyone goes forward together. Going first can be risky and lonely but it can also be the prophetic thing to do. The words ecology and economy have the same root and they address the care of the home, whether it is our planet home, or our personal household. The two are intertwined. As Christians we can applaud a government which is willing to address both, and hope that our governments catch on.

Thoughts?

Blood Ivory

Protestants aren't inclined to use crucifixes as objects of devotion, but the death of Christ on the cross has deep meaning within our expression of faith. I have stood in many Roman Catholic churches and pondered Christ's sacrificial love as I looked at a crucifix.

I was deeply unsettled to read an article in National Geographic magazine on the illegal trade in ivory which supplies the demand for ivory crucifixes in the Philippines. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/ivory/christy-text Even though there is an international ban on the sale of ivory, elephants are being slaughtered indiscriminately to supply ivory for these devotional images.And it would appear that there are Phiilppino priests who are caught up in the greed.

The thought of this "blood ivory" being used in this way sickens me. What a macabre irony that these elephants are slaughtered to create representations of the Christ whose blood was shed for many. It is hard not be be deeply discouraged by human nature and greed. I suppose, though, that this takes us back to the incarnation and the cross.

Since the NG article priests have been disciplined and the church has stated that it supports the ban on the sale of ivory.
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/09/26/blood-ivory-in-the-philippines/

Have you heard or read about this? What is your reaction?

Holy Trinity

 

These National Geographic photographs are stunning. The fourth of the three dolphins may become my new image of the Trinity.

Tree Hugging Prophet

It's hard not to be self-absorbed as a university or college student when it comes to money. Every dollar counts. Can you imagine trying to come up with over two thousand dollars a month to put up a billboard because of your environmental convictions? Read this from the Halifax Chronicle Herald:

A Dalhousie University law student who doesn’t like Nova Scotia’s forestry practices is advertising his displeasure.
Jamie Simpson, who previously worked at the Ecology Action Centre for three years, is behind a Barrington Street billboard that calls the NDP forestry policy “shameful.”
Simpson also has similar websites — clearcutns.com and indiegogo.com/AcadianForest — in which he seeks donations that will help him to keep the billboard up.
The sign costs about $2,300 a month. Simpson collected money from like-minded friends before he paid for the first month. So far, he’s collected $1,100 to pay for a second.
He’s upset that some proposed forestry policies, which he found promising, appear to have been set aside. He referred to recommendations to stop whole-tree harvesting and reduce clearcutting to half of the harvest, neither of which look like they will be implemented.
He believes the provincial government is under too much pressure to keep paper mills open.

The biblical prophets were willing to pay the cost of their convictions, although billboards were not an option! They often spoke out when no one really wanted to hear, and faced hostility and ridicule.

Are you willling to let others know what you believe about issues of Creation Care, even if makes you appear to be a "tree hugger?" What does it take to get you to be bold about your convictions|?

Everyday Miracles

The last of the Coho Salmon, a west coast species introduced to Lake Ontario, are moving their way up Bowmanville Creek. More than 5,000 have  been lifted over the dam, as well as fish of other species. Lots of readers have gone down to take a look, and we have been struck by this everyday miracle of migration. Take a look at these remarkable photos from a stream out west where Coho originally come from. These are Sockeye Salmon. Out there bears fertilize the surrounding forests with the carcasses of fish they have scooped out of rivers and streams.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/07/magazine/salmon-spawning.html?ref=magazine

St. Francis

How did I miss the Feast of St. Francis? I figured it was October 5th when in fact it is October 4th. So far I haven't received any indignant emails.

St. Francis lived in the 12th century and was a wonderful, nutty, mystic whose radical simplicity struck a chord in his time. He quickly had a large following of men which became the Franciscan Order and eventually there was an equivalent for women called the Poor Clares.

Francis was reputed to have an affinity with birds and animals, which blossomed into many legends. He was the originator of the Living Nativity which he first staged near his hometown. Francis is the Roman Catholic church's official patron saint of ecology, and who might be a better choice?

Many churches now have Blessing of the Animals services around the time of the Feast of St. Francis, and we will celebrate what I think is our sixth this Sunday.  I'm always interested to see who shows both with and without their companion animals. We always encourage people to stay after worship and they seem to love the moment. I really enjoy the hands-on experience.

I took the photo above when I visited the Cathedral of St. Francis in Sante Fe, New Mexico. The dancing angel Francis is whimsical but I like it.

Have you attended a Blessing service? Are you going to? Why do you like them?

Not Everyone Loves Marineland

Holy Free Willy! A report has been released into the findings about conditions for the creatures which are part of  the Marineland facility in Niagara Fall Ontario. For decades we have listened to the jingle claiming that "everyone loves Marineland." Apparently not everyone. A trainer who left Marineland in August offered strong concerns about the cleanliness of the water and the opportunities for the animals to have a stimulating environment. We were shown the photos of a near-blind seal and heard about the death of a young beluga and dolphins swimming in "green" water. The performer who warbled that jingle asked that it no longer be used with her voice. The Toronto Star did a series in the summer in which it found:

a dozen former employees, including trainers and supervisors, cited severe eye problems in sea mammals blamed on sporadically unhealthy water and attributed the death of a baby beluga to short staffing. As well, the series described the plight of deer kept on gravel, bears living in overcrowded pens and reports of unnecessary suffering when an animal had to be put down.

The just-released report is not damning, but does raise concerns about water quality and other questions remain. Marineland had plenty of time to clean up before inspectors arrived.

Perhaps the bigger question is our choice to keep animals in captivity for our curiosity and enjoyment. I have visited large aquaria in Boston and Baltimore and Portsmouth, Britain, and they are really cool. I was fascinated each time, but I could live without them. When our kids were young we took them to zoos and it was educational, yet they were actually disturbed by the listlessness of many of the animals and the constant pacing of others. They decided that they didn't want to go to zoos anymore.

The Creation story in Genesis tells of a God who made a variety of creatures and assigned humans to name them and care for them. Do zoos and aquaria fit into that myth? Will we come to the point where we realize that this is a form of cruelty? Of course zoos and aquaria do have breeding programs which can be benefiical for endangered species. But could we do this another way?

Since I wrote this a boisterous protest happened at Marineland http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1267987--marineland-stormed-by-protesters

Planet Earth's Lifeguard

The obits and accolades are rolling in for Barry Commoner, the 95-year-old pioneer environmentalist and biologist who was described as Planet Earth's Lifeguard in the New York Times. This is a great moniker for a remarkable man who was encouraging us to "make peace with the planet" in the 1960's and was a strong voice of support for establishing Earth Day in 1970. His Making Peace With the Planet was published in 1990 and one of the first environmental books I purchased.

A professor at McMaster University, Michael Egan, wrote a biography of Commoner and praises his diverse career:

He should be in any top five list of American environmental leaders, up there with Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and Alice Hamilton. It may be heretical to say it, but I think he’s a more important figure in American environmentalism than Rachel Carson, if only because of the range of issues he addressed and the methods he brought to his activism. Over his career, Commoner worked on nuclear fallout, pesticides, water contamination, air pollution, toxic metals, the petrochemical industry, population, energy and nuclear power, urban waste disposal, dioxin, recycling, and all manner of other environmental issues.

That is heady company, even though those other names may be more familiar.

I had forgotten about his Four Laws of Ecology but they still make sense:

1) Everything is connected to everything else
2) Everything must go somewhere
3) Nature knows best
4) There is no such thing as a free lunch

Jesus offered "blessed are the peacemakers" in the Beatitudes and we are realizing that making peace with all living things and the ecosystems of which they are part is essential for our wellbeing and survival. So bless Commoner and others like him who were saying what needed to be said long before it was popular.

Ever heard of this uncommon Commoner?

Frogs in Prison

I am partial to frogs because of my "earthy" faith, and I gravitate towards prison stories because of the chaplaincy internship I did at Kingston Pen decades ago. So the New York Times article Raising Frogs for Freedom, Prison Project Opens Doors grabbed my attention.

 

Prison inmates in Oregon are working with research biologists to raise endangered frogs for release in the wild. You may be aware that frog populations around the world are plummeting for a variety of reasons including disease and agricultural chemical run-off and industrial pollution. The porous skin of frogs is particularly sensitive to toxins. The inmates not only do this work, for some it leads to possibilities post-prison.

 

Mat Henson, 25, serving a four-and-a-half-year sentence for robbery and assault, and his research partner, Taylor Davis, 29, who landed in the Cedar Creek Corrections Center here in central Washington for stealing cars, raised about 250 Oregon spotted frogs in the prison yard this summer. Working with biologists, Mr. Henson is now helping write a scientific curriculum for other frog-raisers, in prison or out. A previous inmate in the program, released some years ago, is finishing his Ph.D. in molecular biology. When asked about his plans after he is released from prison in 2014, Mr. Henson paused only a moment. “Bioengineering,” he said.

 

How wonderful is this? It brings a lump, or maybe even a frog to my throat. During Creation Time the challenge is to balance the grim news of environmental degradation because of human activity with the hopeful signs and possibilities in God's Wondrous World. Negativity isn't the answer, but neither is denial.  

This story is very hopeful. I suppose my blog title should be Frogs & Inmates Make Prison Break.  Kermit would approve.

Comments?