Praise to the Lord of the Starfields

Greenwich Observatory

Lord of the starfields
Ancient of Days
Universe Maker
Here's a song in your praise

Wings of the storm cloud
Beginning and end
You make my heart leap
Like a banner in the wind

O love that fires the sun
Keep me burning
Lord of the starfields
Sower of life
Heaven and earth are
Full of your light

Voice of the nova
Smile of the dew
All of our yearning
Only comes home to you

O love that fires the sun
Keep me burning

In the Falling Dark - Bruce Cockburn 1976

Greenwich, England is famous for the Prime Meridian which became the global reference meridian by the mid-eighteenth century. It is a World Heritage Site situated close to the Royal Observatory established by Charles I in 1675 and the site was chosen by Sir Christopher Wren of St. Paul's Cathedral fame.


Sadly, the astronomical observatory was relocated in the first half of the 20th century because light and air pollution rendered the telescope ineffective. Now, after more than 60 years it has reopened thanks to changed conditions and advanced technology. Four telescopes with digital filters will allow this historical treasure to be more than a museum.

I sent the link to an article to son Isaac, also a United Church minister. He recently took part in an online course offered by the chief astronomer a Jesuit named Guy J. Consolmagno. The church, particularly Roman Catholicism, has an unsettled past when it comes to astronomy -- think Galileo -- yet the bible has many references to the "heavens." along with heaven. Galileo got it right about heliocentrism and the church was woefully wrong, but it did apologize, although it took 350 years.

Isaac has been rambling about as an aspect of the course. He went up to the Dark Sky Observatory north of Napanee one night and then used an app to find a dark sky spot in Prince Edward County another time.


Years ago I spent time at a convent in Colorado and one of the other retreatants was a pleasant guy who worked at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT), in Arizona. This is the irony. While the RC's have the crummy reputation of persecuting Galileo and other astronomers the  the Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world.

Consolmagno says that there is no conflict between science and religion, and that both fields can complement each other:

“Eventually you learn that the kinds of questions you ask as a scientist and the kinds of answers you get as a scientist are only the kinds of questions that lead to more questions. They’re all very contingent. Now I understand how this works, but that opens up a new mystery that I hadn’t seen before and now I can explore that mystery.The bigger questions, the religious questions, they’re handled by science. The religious questions give you the framework that gives you the motivation to ask the science questions...
I'm looking forward to stumbling around in the dark with my kid sometime in the near future. I'd claim it would be the blonde leading the blind but he's more of a redhead now.

Thoughts?

Election Promises and Cap and Trade

The new Progressive Conservative premier of Ontario and his cabinet will be sworn in later this week and we're told that two changes will be immediate, both repudiations of current policies and programs. Apparently the component of the Health and Physical Education program often called "sex ed" will be scrapped, even though it has existed in some form for decades. And what Premier-elect Ford calls the "carbon tax" will go, even though it is actually a "cap and trade" program. The idea is that getting rid of Cap and Trade will stimulate business and make commuters happy with cheaper gas.

What does Cap and Trade mean? Industries must live with a cap on pollution or trade (pay) for the right to go over that cap. That's the David Mundy minimalist understanding of Cap and Trade, one way to reduce environmentally harmful emissions which includes some flexibility. The goal is to get industries to reduce those emissions but if they exceed them they must pay for the right to do so, with a portion of the money ending up in government coffers. The plan in most jurisdictions is that the revenue generated from the environmental sin tax will be used for public transit and technological research to reduce emissions and for public programs to make homes and businesses more energy efficient.

Ontario, Quebec, and the state of California entered into a Cap and Trade pact which has proved to be successful from the get-go. If we scrap this pact it could cost billions in unfulfilled contracts and set us back decades in reducing carbon emissions. There are concerns that businesses that do home retrofits will suffer and some energy alternative industries will leave the province.



I've listened to people speak on both sides and I do understand why there is concern that industries in some areas of the province pay into this program but don't see much in the way of direct benefit. Yet even they are not climate change deniers, and they accept,to a degree, at there must be ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Others support the program and offer strong reasons why it is working in North America and around the world.

Here's what I believe, even though I'm no expert on "cap and trade" or "carbon tax." We must protect our air and water and soil and we can't count on industry to take the appropriate steps to do so or to self-regulate. If there aren't alternatives then abandoning the program is regressive, not progressive. 

As a Christian I can see this as a practical matter and a spiritual matter. I hope the new administration thinks long and hard about what comes next. We might even pray about it, although I'm not holding my breath while I do.

Landmarks and Watermarks

Paths are the habits of a landscape,
marks of customary journeys made over time, by many.
2000-year-old chalk trackway,
 smell of burnt earth,
grasshopper dirge,
insect hum from verge and hedge, now.

Robert Macfarlane is an exceptional British nature writer I was not aware of until Ruth, my wife, purchased one of his books for me. I now follow him on Twitter and he tweeted this poetic definition of a pathway recently with an accompanying photograph.

As a Canadian I am fortunate to be able to ramble along many pathways where I may not encounter others, as was the case early this morning in a nearby Quinte Conservation Area. I am also blessed to paddle waterways which are also "habits of a landscape" the Aboriginal travel routes since long before Europeans arrived in North America. The portages on some river routes which take paddlers around rough water are reminders that First Nations peoples made their demanding way from summer to winter lodging to take advantage of what the natural world had to offer for sustenance and shelter.



JEH MacDonald 1931

We love to paddle waterways because there are sights and sounds which are unique to being on the water. The sound of wind in trees and the way birdsong carries and the smells of vegetation are all different along and on the water.

When these pathways and waterways take on spiritual meaning for travelers they become pilgrimage routes, even if informally. Perhaps someone will write a book about the holiness of being in motion on waterways which pass through Canadian forests and along rocky shores, the extra-ordinary way of the paddle. Watermarks?

The Creation Legacy of Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton was an American Trappist monk, and a hermit to boot, but he became something of a superstar on the Christian scene of his era. He converted to Christianity in a rather unlikely manner and wrote a bestselling book about his spiritual journey called The Seven Storey Mountain.

Through the years he wrote more than seventy books on scripture and contemplation and social justice and interfaith dialogue. He was in conversation with the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh long before they became prominent names in the West. Merton died accidentally in 1968 while attending a conference in Thailand which involved Christian and non-Christian monks, so this is the 50th anniversary of his death.


Thomas Merton also loved the natural world and wrote poetically of the natural world he experienced daily in the tiny hermitage he lived in the woods at Gethsemane Monastery in Kentucky. There is a gem of a book called When the Trees Say Nothing by Kathleen Deignan which is a collection of Merton's reflections on the world of solitude and creation beauty around him. This book has been a companion on many walks through the years. I'll sit and read a passage or two from an eloquent kindred spirit.

As the death of Merton is recognized through the year I'm grateful to God for his legacy, which is enduring, and for his celebration of God's good Earth.

Turtle Island Emoji and Respect for Creation

I've been a slow convert to the realm of emojis and my tastes are rather pedestrian...or is that Presbyterian -- I get the two mixed up. There are lots that are cheeky and plenty that are creative, including the new Turtle Island emoji. It was designed by Anishinaabe artist Nancy King who goes by the name Chief Lady Bird. We live in a part of the province with  turtles everywhere, although we are warned that all species are on the decline in Ontario.


Turtle Island is the name for the North American continent for a number of Indigenous groups. It is now used more broadly to describe the Earth, including by environmental groups and artists in various genres. Gary Snyder, celebrated poet, environmentalist, Buddhist, won the Pulitzer Prize for his Turtle Island collection a generation ago.

On Manitoulin Island there is a First Nations Roman Catholic church with a baptismal font which springs from the back of a turtle (lower left in the photo) which to me is a reminder of John 3:16 which begins with "for God so loved the world."



We have our own little "turtle corner" in our home which includes a modern icon by Robert Lenz of Kateri Tekakwitha, a home-grown 17th century Canadian saint. In a time when our planet is under assault from many directions we need all the reminders we can muster  to "live with respect in Creation." (UCC New Creed.)

Any turtle enthusiasts out there? Do you like the notion of Turtle Island?

Aboriginal Wisdom

Today is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada, and in many places, including the city of Toronto, there were sunrise services celebrating the First Peoples of the land. It has become increasingly common for gatherings of every kind to begin with acknowledgment of the Aboriginal Nation which existed in that place at the time of first European contact.

There is also a growing awareness that Aboriginal environmental wisdom can inform our efforts toward understanding the ecosystems which are essential to our health and sustainability. The Western industrial scientific approach has created wealth but has done so with a huge environmental cost. And it is soulless, with a deep suspicion of the spiritual aspect of our world rather than seeking a complementary understanding.

While I am a Christian I increasingly support finding a new and humble way of listening to Aboriginal wisdom about Turtle Island which was denigrated and tossed aside as inferior to the culture of invading peoples. I'm painfully aware that Christian missionary efforts were instrumental in this destruction, often with total disregard for the biblical invitation to respect and care for the Earth.

I've written about Robin Wall Kimmerer's book, Braiding Sweetgrass, as an example of an Aboriginal writer who explores these themes with thoughtfulness and sensitivity as a scientist.

Canadian Anglican Bishop. Mark MacDonald, and Pope Francis have encouraged a greater appreciation of Native Wisdom as we address the threat of Climate Change and environmental degradation. I hope that we heed these calls as people of the Creator.

Weather Trading and Creation Care

¹⁰ The fields are devastated,
    the ground mourns;
for the grain is destroyed,
    the wine dries up,
    the oil fails.

¹¹ Be dismayed, you farmers,
    wail, you vinedressers,
over the wheat and the barley;
    for the crops of the field are ruined.
¹² The vine withers,
    the fig tree droops.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple—
    all the trees of the field are dried up;
surely, joy withers away
    among the people

 

Joel 1:11-13

We're watching the NBC family drama series This is Us, a title which turned us off until we decided to take a look on Netflix. It's a pleasant break from subtitled European shows or UK dramas where we turn the subtitles on anyway because we can't navigate the accents without them.


One episode has stand-up dad Randall (Sterling K. Brown) doing an excruciatingly lame song for a daughter's Parent Career Day in an attempt to make his job seem more exciting. He realizes that his work as a weather commodities trader is mystifying to everyone around him, including his wife, so he makes up the dismal ditty.

I was intrigued by what a weather trader or weather derivatives commodities trader actually does and, lo and behold, someone 'splained it in response to this episode. The explanation includes an example of a chicken farmer who lost 50,000 birds to extreme and unpredicted heat:

To safeguard itself against the elements, a company might call a man like Alejandro Turullols, who deals in products that protect against weather-related losses for energy brokerage Tradition Energy in Stamford, Conn. “We trade temperature,” he says of the industry — using various forecast models to predict how much higher or lower temperatures will go than historical norms. His role is like that of a real-estate agent — but for weather: He studies weather forecasts and then connects a company looking to capitalize on the financial impact weather might have on its bottom line, with a company, like an insurance company or financial firm, that offers a product that can do this.

As temperatures soar in the summers and polar vortices hit in the winter, America’s farmers — and utility companies, clothing retailers and others — face weather-related losses like the chicken catastrophe that can climb into billions of dollars in losses. From January through September of 2016 there were 12 weather or climate events in which losses exceeded $1 billion, the U.S. government estimates — more than double the average from 1980 to 2015.



I have written before about the regular attempts to pit the economy (bow down and worship here) against ecology (go hug a tree) when the facts suggest that not attending to the health of the planet actually undermines the health of the economy. Insurance companies and commodities traders are taking weather-related losses seriously for obvious reasons.

A recent report warns that a trillion dollars worth of real estate along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States is at risk due to rising sea levels, which are increasing faster there than the global average.

I would make up my own song about commodities trading and caring for Creation, but it would be even lamer than Randall's sad effort to explain his job.

Do you get these connections? Are you thinking about a new career as a weather derivatives commodity trader...or a songwriter?

Praying for Safe Streets

As I sat in the chair of the health-care professionals who keeps me ticking along this past week, she asked whether I still cycled regularly. I do, although in retirement I no longer ride to work in Belleville, although Ruth, my wife, still does. I hadn't realized that the person asking the question doesn't drive, for health reasons, and walks everywhere or takes public transit. She commented on the inconsideration of Belleville drivers and wondered if I'd had close calls as a cyclist, which I have, far too often.

The safety of pedestrians and cyclists has been very much in the news in Toronto of late, as a number of people have been struck and killed in recent weeks. In fact, since the city announced a new safety program called Vision Zero two years ago nearly 100 people have died as the result of collisions.

While European countries and cities have been spending billions of euros to develop cycle lanes and improve safety for pedestrians Canada lags far behind. Former TO mayor Rob Ford blustered about the "war on cars" during his infamous term, and was opposed to developing more cycle lanes. I heard a foolish Calgary councilor talking about the "cult" of cyclists in that city. It seems to me that our culture has venerated the automobile. The cycling advocates I hear speak about evidence based decisions and cite the reduction in collisions and improvement in both health and traffic flow where non-vehicular traffic solutions are taken to heart.

It's a financial matter as well. Sustaining cycling/pedestrian infrastructure comes in at about 25 cents per kilometre compared to 80 cents for cars.



Copenhagen commuters

Sweden, which is also a northern latitude country,  developed Vision Zero as well as a more recent initiative with the goal of reducing deaths to zero. Other cities around the world are addressing the effects of vehicle-produced air pollution, so are investing in public transit, cycling infrastructure and pedestrian walkways. Some have prohibited vehicular traffic on certain days.

While the bible doesn't say a word about pedestrian and cycling safety, it does invite us to care for the planet and one another. And need I point out that Jesus walked everywhere, other than the occasional boat or donkey ride.

We're off to Toronto today, so do say a prayer or three for us as we hoof it around the city!

Thoughts?

Lands for Life and Advocacy for Creation

Hills, Killarney AY Jackson

The content of one blog prompts another. Yesterday I noted that the McMichael Gallery has an exhibit of the work of JEH MacDonald, a member of the Group of Seven painters. When we lived in Sudbury I was a member of the Friends of Killarney Park board and several of us who lived in the Near North (others were from Southern Ontario) would meet in my church study to work on projects, including the first edition of the canoe guide for the park.



In 1997 the Friends also worked in conjunction with parks management to make a presentation to the Lands for Life Roundtable, created by the Ministry of Natural Resources, which was planning for both the protection and use of Crown lands in Ontario. Each stakeholder, which included everyone from individuals to tourism outfitters to environmental groups to mining and forestry interests were given ten minutes for a presentation. The events were a big deal in cities such as Sault St. Marie and Sudbury, even though most people in the south didn't know anything about them, and industries bussed in workers to be part of the audience. Hey, what happens to 39 million hectares of land is a big deal.


 Grace Lake F Carmichael at work

I was asked to make the presentation to the Roundtable, seeking a buffer zone around Killarney Park which would allow for greater biodiversity and protection for various species. Killarney is Ontario's southernmost wilderness park, but it isn't all that big. I did present, using information provided by park staff, as well as showing images of paintings by Group of Seven members who had worked in Killarney. The popular OSA Lake is named after the Ontario Society of Artists, of which AY Jackson and Franklin Carmichael were members.

I'm happy to say that my October 1997 presentation was almost exactly ten minutes and the images of paintings were a hit as I made my final pitch for protection. And, yes, that area was eventually designated, thanks to some concessions from forestry companies. 

 I have a lot of meaningful memories of ministry and this is one of the most important, even though it was supposedly around the edges of how we would usually define God's work.
Caring for Creation is always God's work, isn't it?


Frood Lake Franklin Carmichael