Rights and Respect for Lake Erie

Lake Erie Algae Bloom

 You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
    they flow between the hills,
giving drink to every wild animal;
    the wild asses quench their thirst.
By the streams^[e] the birds of the air have their habitation;
    they sing among the branches.
 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
    the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

Psalm 104: 10-13

I have often drawn attention to Psalm 104 because it praises God as Creator, then barely mentions humans as it celebrates all creatures great and small. The psalmist also includes the solar system, mountains, and bodies of water as worthy of our respect, because God has brought them into being.

There is no mention of "rights" for these entities in the psalm, a relatively modern concept which is never mentioned in the bible. Yet respect and the accompanying dignity for all that exists is foundational to any rights, human or otherwise.

You may not have noticed that yesterday voters in Toledo Ohio voted in favour of adopting "Lake Erie Bill of Rights." This bill will be formally adopted into the city's charter which will mean that, as far as the City of Toledo is concerned, the entire Lake Erie ecosystem, which includes the watershed, possesses "the right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve."

Not surprisingly the Toledoans for Safe Water are thrilled, and they should be. Not to rain on their parade, but it should be noted that while 61.37 per cent of voters were in favour of the measure, only 16,258 residents cast a ballot, a turnout rate of 8.9 per cent.



Deer Swimming in Lake Erie

 It's hard to know what the outcome of this decision will be. Toledo has a population of 275,000 and when I checked I discovered that it is the 71st largest city in the U.S. Who pays attention to Toledo? There is nothing to compel other Lake Erie cities on either side of the border to follow suit, and no one really knows what this will mean in practical terms for Toledo.

Still, this is a landmark decision on a continent which has traditionally treated bodies of water with contempt, and while the Great Lakes are the largest fresh water system in the world all of them have health issues. Lake Erie provides water for 12 million Americans and Canadians yet it is probably the sickest of the bunch with large dead zones because of massive algae blooms.

Hey, good for the people of Toledo to appreciate what is at stake here. The city may be relatively small, but lets pray it's influence will be mighty. I figure the Creator approves!



Great Lakes Ice Coverage January 2019

Here Comes the Sun -- Thank God!

1 Morning has broken like the first morning,
 blackbird has spoken like the first bird.
 Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning!
 Praise for them, springing fresh from the Word!

3 Ours is the sunlight! Ours is the morning
 born of the one light Eden saw play!
 Praise with elation, praise every morning,
 God's recreation of the new day!

Morning Has Broken Voices United 409

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right...

Here Comes the Sun -- The Beatles

It has seemed like a long Winter but the days are lengthening. Three weeks today there will be an equal number of light and dark hours as we arrive at the Spring or Vernal equinox a word which means equal hours. Of course it isn't the Spring Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere, but you get the picture.



I find that my spirit rises as the days get longer and through the ages religious folk have been keen observers of the heavens as an aspect of the spiritual life and relationship with the Creator. Judaism sets holy days according to the moon, and Christian Easter is dated according to the vernal equinox and moon phase. Despite the Galileo debacle the Roman Catholic church has employed astronomers for centuries and still does.



Sun Temple -- Mesa Verde

We know that aboriginal peoples on different continents have also been keen observers of seasons and skies. Several years ago I attended an Earth-Care conference at a Presbyterian centre in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. It was an excellent event and we stayed on for a few days of vacation. We travelled to the southwest, to the area called the Four Corners. Our goal was Mesa Verde, and the ancient Pueblo ruins there, including the cliff caves.

It was a remarkably spiritual experience to walk amidst  those ruins of a complex community which was mysteriously abandoned 700 years ago. Part of the excavations atop the mesa are of what has been termed the Sun Temple and the four tower-like elements of the complex which may have been used for observation of the rise or set of celestial bodies known to be sacred to the Pueblo Indians. While there is a lot of educated guess-work here the Sun Temple appears to represent the most comprehensive prehistoric astronomical observatory yet uncovered. Cool.

So vitamin-D deprived folks, live with hope as the sunlight strengthens and daylight hours extend. As the hymn says, each new day is God's re-creation.



Mesa Verde in Winter

Gratitude for Grandmother Water Walker

 

A gentle but fiercely determined Canadian environmental prophet has died. Josephine Mandamin was known affectionately as Grandmother Water Walker for her remarkable project of a roughly 17,000 kilometre sacred walk around all the Great Lakes to draw attention to the preciousness of these bodies of water. She carried a battered copper pail as a reminder of the role of women as water keepers in First Nations cultures. The remarkable journey made over a number of years was made into a documentary called Mother Earth Water Walk (I've been trying to find it.)

Mandamin was originally from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and made it her life’s mission to raise consciousness about the fragility of water as one of the basic elements required for all life to exist. In an interview Josephine observed:

As women, we are carriers of the water. We carry life for the people. So when we carry that water, we are telling people that we will go any lengths for the water. We’ll probably even give our lives for the water if we have to...Water has to live, it can hear, it can sense what we’re saying, it can really, really, speak to us. Some songs come to us through the water. We have to understand that water is very precious.



I appreciate the determination she lived through the years as a true matriarch and prophet. Our Judeo-Christian tradition upholds the sacredness of water and Jesus described himself as Living Water. Sadly, we have often defiled and desecrated water, to our peril.

Thank you Josephine and all those who have carried on your legacy.

The Big Smoke and Sleeping Beauty

Eleven years ago friends who lived on a farm north of Sharbot Lake in one of the wildest remaining areas of Southern Ontario told us about another old farmhouse not far away from theirs which might be for rent for the summer. Providentially, it was, and I took a few months away from congregational ministry to live in the middle of nowhere. Ruth continued to work but arranged to have Fridays off, arriving every Thursday evening and leaving very early on Monday morning. For both of us that summer was soul-restoring at a time when we needed to experience God through the beauty of nature.

We became friends with the owners who live in a modern "cabin" at the very end of the same road and on Friday we drove up to see them. Our goal was to enjoy a visit with them and snowshoe to the nearby Mississippi River (the Canadian version). That's what we did, gratefully following their snowshoe trail through stately pine trees and hardwoods to the fast-running chutes of the river. The snow was nearly thirty inches deep (75cm), much more than we have on the ground in our area.

While the river roared there were no other human-made sounds, nor sightings of other people. It was glorious to be there and many positive memories of our place of refuge flooded back to us. It was lovely to share conversation with the friends who now live there year round and love the setting and its solitude. There was nothing "dead end" about our time there and we were reluctant to leave.

On Saturday we were up early once again to drive to Toronto and the Art Gallery of Ontario. There is a current exhibit called Impressionism in the Age of Industry and it's described this way:

Pulsing with life, Paris in the 1870s was transforming – thanks to wider streets, increased traffic, an explosion of factories in the suburbs and faster, more frequent steam-powered trains. No one in France was immune to the rapid pace of change, least of all artists.

Impressionism in the Age of Industry: Monet, Pissarro and more explores how French Impressionist artists and their contemporaries, famous for their lush landscapes and sea vistas, were equally obsessed with capturing the spirit of the industrial age. The groundbreaking exhibition features over 120 artworks, including paintings, photographs, prints, drawings, sculptures and period films.

With masterpieces by beloved artists like Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Van Gogh, Cassatt and Seurat, the exhibition also highlights new favourites like Luce and Caillebotte.

While the exhibit was thought-provoking and the AGO is a treasure we talked over lunch in nearby bustling Chinatown about the contrast of our two experiences. Yes, we enjoy our forays to the Big Smoke of Toronto and the cultural stimulation they provide. But our preference really is the "Sleeping Beauty" of Creation, and more so as we age. At the entrance to Impressionism one of the  featured artists is quoted in his excitement about the noise of the increasingly urban and industrialized world of the 19th century. He couldn't have known how pervasive and invasive that noise would become.

Thank God for the tumbling waters of Ragged Chutes and all that area means to us.



Claude Monet, Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877

Dr. Broeker and the Angry Beast

It's a sad reality that I'm so often unaware of important leaders in various fields until they die and I read the tributes. Such is the case with Dr. Wallace Broecker who wrote a prescient scientific paper in 1975, the title of which asked the question “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” This was one of the early warnings of the planetary crisis we find ourselves in today as we spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Those who claim that our concern about climate change is a recent phenomenon -- or hysteria -- might take note that this was more than 40 years ago.

Apparently Dr. Broecker had a knack for phrasemaking. He was fond of saying, “The climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it with sticks,” which is brilliant. He meant that the climate is unpredictable, sensitive to small changes and susceptible to major shifts with startling speed. He also coined the term “the global conveyor” for the important ocean currents that circulate warm water around the globe; that phrase, too, remains in use today.

Broeker grew up in an evangelical  Christian home, so he attended Wheaton College, a large Christian liberal arts school in Illinois. He planned to be an actuary but fell in love with science, which eventually led him to study elsewhere and eventually to the field which made him famous. He was in his late 80's at the time of death and had been active in scientific endeavours almost to the end.  I wonder if he continued to be a person of faith through the years.

We can be grateful for his pioneering work and do our best to stop poking the bear and find solutions to climate change.

Celebrating "Act Locally"

An Autumn Paddle on the Salmon River

Sometimes I wonder how I might include more local examples of Creation awareness in this Groundling blog, the good, the bad, and the ugly. While it's important to  "think globally" it's essential to "act locally." In the past I've highlighted the good, including the successful Bay of Quinte remediation initiative, Quinte Conservation projects, new Belleville bike lanes, and the annual Trash Bash clean-up.

As paddlers and hikers we love living in this area of Southern Ontario with its access to the beauty of God's good Earth. We don't have to go far to get out on the water in season, or to go for a walk or a ski. Sometimes we're amazed by the fact that we have spots to ourselves, especially now that retirement allows us to venture out on weekdays.



I was encouraged to see that a municipal council not far north of Belleville is complying with a requirement to create a "tree canopy" regulation. According to Quinte News:

Stirling-Rawdon council has passed a so-called “tree-canopy” bylaw aimed at protecting significant wooded areas and other natural vegetation. Stirling-Rawdon, and all of Hastings County, contains several important natural heritage systems with major wetlands, forests,  wildlife habitat and areas of scientific interest. The “tree canopy” bylaw addresses those issues to ensure property owners cannot cut down significant numbers of trees or otherwise  change the landscape without facing consequences. All municipalities must have similar bylaws in place by March 01.

Of course, compliance is another issue. And needless to say, I hope that this is more than jumping through a regulatory hoop, and that the current provincial government doesn't get up to some jack-assery, cancelling the requirement. What we have here is precious, a home-grown gift from God.

A Winter Walk at the Frink Centre

Our Grandchildren Are Moonlighting!

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
    praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
    praise him, all his host!

 Praise him, sun and moon;
    praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
    and you waters above the heavens!

 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for he commanded and they were created.
He established them forever and ever;
    he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

 

 Psalm 148:1-6 NRSV

 

“Whichever way we turn, O God,

there is your face in the light of the moon and patterns of stars,
 in scarred mountain rifts and ancient groves,
in mighty seas and creatures of the deep. 
Whichever way we turn, O God, there is your face,
O God, there is your face in the light of eyes we love,
in the salt of tears we have tasted, in weathered countenances east and west,
 in the soft skin glow of the child everywhere. 
Whichever way we turn, O God, there is your face, there is your face among us.”

Praying With the Earth -- John Philip Newell

Our young grandchildren are moonlighting, and I'm thrilled. We were out for a woods walk with our three-year-old grandson a few weeks back and he pointed upward and said, matter-of-factly, "moon." It was early afternoon but he made out the faint outline of the moon when we weren't anticipating it at all.

We heard that our granddaughter, a year-and-a-half in age, was ecstatic to see the full moon a couple of nights ago, what was labeled the Super Snow Moon. Super moons are the ones relatively close to the Earth and is was "only" 356,846 km away from the Earth. By contrast, this year's farthest full moon on September 14, 2019 will be at 406,248 km away from our planetary home. Apparently she is quite fascinated by the moon these days and actually pointed out the moon this past weekend when we were out for a walk (there is a theme here!)

I am moved that children so young are aware and wonderstruck by the "heavens above." What stirs within them to create this fascination in an age of technological diversions and activities galore? As an eco-faith person I can't help but feel that there is something within us which innately responds to Creation, as the lovely J. Philip Newell suggests in the prayer above.

It is my deep desire to nourish this sense of wonder and delight in our grandchildren, as we did with our three children. I'm glad their parents are as well.

Here is our son Isaac's nightly prayer as a boy, a Celtic blessing:

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
            Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
            Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
            Moon and stars pour their healing light on you
                        Deep peace of Christ, the light of the world to you.

Skiing, Sabbath & the Sunlight

"He realized that he'd been praying.
It wasn't the kneel-down-at-the-lap-of-God prayerfulness
that he remembered from his childhood,
but a rare harmony between his senses and his emotions."

The Only Café - Linden MacIntyre

Today I drove with Ruth, my wife of nearly 43 years, to Prince Edward County for a cross-country ski in Sandbanks Provincial Park. We wondered if it would be possible because last week's dump of snow was spoiled by yet another mild spell, only to be deceptively covered by a subsequent dusting. Treacherous for a couple of old-timers! We ventured out just the same, discovering that the farther we went the better it got. Ruth is still quite coltish while I'm more along the lines of a Clydesdale. As we made our way deeper into the woods we found a bench in a clearing where we sat, drank tea, and soaked in the strengthening sun. It was Winter, make no mistake, but Spring was the promise of the sunlight.

We did have 15 glorious minutes of near silence on the bench, saying very little, before three snow machines which probably shouldn't have been in the park roared past. We grumbled about the intrusive noise but we had to admit that they broke the crust of the snow on the trail in a way which made our progress easier.

Can one claim Sabbath time when enjoying the pleasures of retirement? Isn't it all? Sabbath-keeping has a lot to do with intention, it seems to me. The choice to enter into a prayerful way of being, filled with gratitude, open to the presence of the Creator, is sabbatical, wouldn't you agree?

Climate Ribbons in Paris and...Bowmanville?

We lived in the Southern Ontario town of Bowmanville for a decade near the end of my ministry. St. Paul's was an active congregation with four generations or worshippers represented on many Sundays. Bowmanville is at the edge of the GTA and is drive-by commuter community on highway 401 for a lot of people. It actually has an impressive community life with good schools, including St. Stephen Catholic Secondary. Ruth made presentations there on several occasions as the Outreach Worker for Bethesda House, the local shelter for women and children leaving abusive relationships.

I was impressed to hear that the school has taken part in the Climate Ribbon project, an international effort to raise awareness of “climate chaos.” It describes itself as "The Climate Ribbon is an arts ritual to grieve what each of us stands to lose to Climate Chaos, and affirm our solidarity as we unite to fight against it"



It was a religion teacher at the school, Beth McKinlay who got the local involvement underway in response to the 2018 report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned there are 12 years left to limit the impact of climate change, before the risks of floods, drought and extreme heat worsen.

 

McKinlay's Grade 11 Indigenous issues class enthusiastically got involved in the project to raise awareness. The students created their own ribbon tree for the school. They also made presentations to 20 classes in the school, sharing facts with their peers and encouraging them to write ribbons. The class  sold bracelets and treats, raising enough money to plant 56 trees through Trees Canada.

 

This is yet another example of the passion young people have for addressing what that seem to get, that this is a crisis which will profoundly affect their lives. This is a practical and spiritual issue and it's impressive to see it addressed as both.

 

 

Climate Ribbon Tree Paris COP21

 

Silence, Seeing, and Birds

©

Hadi Malijani (Iran) #Photomanipulation

In order to see birds, it is necessary to become part of the silence.

Robert Lynd (Irish,1879-1949)

These are five things you can do to improve your wellbeing,

which marry perfectly with birding –

connect,

 take notice,

give,
be active and learn.
 Ultimately, they can apply to any nature experience.

Joe Harkness

 Look at the birds of the air;
they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Jesus of Nazareth Matthew 6:26