When Worlds Collide

 

Patricia Seaton Homonylo won 2024's Bird Photographer of the Year for this photo of 4,000 dead birds, all killed by colliding with glass in Toronto. The image also netted gold in the competition's Conservation category. (Patricia Seaton Homonylo/Bird Photographer of the Year)

1 God sees the little sparrow fall,
it meets his tender view;
if God so loves the little birds,
I know he loves me too.

1 God of the sparrow God of the whale

God of the swirling stars

How does the creature say Awe

How does the creature say Praise

What is it about old people and bird feeders? We have several that are visible through the windows of our family room and the avian creatures are often more entertaining than what's on the television screen. Recently a guest was up early and excited to tell us about seeing a northern flicker at a feeder, the closest she'd ever been to one.

I would suggest that watching birds, even when we can't name the species, is wonder-full, a gift from the Creator. When we were on Haida Gwaii in June of this year we saw plenty of bald eagles, sometimes a dozen or more in one spot. While this was spectacular, we are enchanted when a gaggle of frantically noisy goldfinches show up at a feeder or chickadees come for a drink at one of several bird baths we have around our yard. We have done our best to put our feeders where the birds won't be injured flying into windows and we've made what we think are largely successful efforts to cat-proof our yard. 

I heard an CBC interview with Patricia Homonylo, a photographer whose image called When Worlds Collide recently won a  2024 Bird Photography of the Year award. It both beautifully and grimly shows the bodies -- 4,000 of them -- of birds  that fatally collided with buildings in Toronto last year. 

"I want people to be shocked by this image," Homonylo told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "I want them to really think about what they're seeing. The picture features a wild turkey at its centre, surrounded by concentric circles of smaller and smaller birds, including hawks, owls, warblers, blue jays and more. Their bodies were collected and arranged by members of the Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP), a Canadian charity where Homonylo volunteers, which helps birds injured in these kinds of collisions.

"Unfortunately, most of the birds they find are dead. [But] those bodies are never left behind," Homonylo said. "Once a year, the volunteers get together and they create this beautiful and tragic image of the birds called The Layout. And that's what you're looking at."

It's sad, isn't it? It's estimated that up to 42 million birds die in Canada each year due to these collisions and various organizations and levels of government are pressing for companies to turn off the lights at night and for home owners to take measures to reduce the risk. It does seem as though humans are waging war on birds with loss of habitat and climate change as other challenges. 

I've written often enough about the remarkable number of bird references in the bible and Jesus told his followers to look to the birds of the air as examples of how to risk anxiety and worry. I grew up singing "God Sees the Little Sparrow Fall" but it didn't make it into Voices United. I am fond of "God of the Sparrow" though and "On Eagles Wings" is a fave as well. 

I've included another, more hopeful, award-winning photo as well. I love gannets and have watched them dive, mesmerized by their beauty. 

Could we consider watching, feeding, respecting birds as a spiritual practice? 

U.S. photographer Kat Zhou won gold in the Birds in the Environment category at the 2024 Bird Photography of the Year Awards for this picture, titled Immersion. Taken while scuba diving, it shows northern gannets diving into the ocean on a sunny day in Shetland, U.K. (Kat Zhou/Bird Photographer of the Year)

Another Day, More Rivers

May he have dominion from sea to sea
    and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Psalm 72:8 NRSVue

Yesterday was World Rivers Day and I've decided to offer a follow-up to my Groundling blog for September 22 about the importance of rivers. 

Time Magazine ran a cover article about the ever-growing issue of water usage in the United States, focussing on the relentless pilfering of this precious resource from the once mighty Colorado River. The piece outlines how the Navajo people use the least amount of water, per capita, in the States yet they are allocated limited amounts from the Colorado while wealthier white jurisdictions push to the front of the line. There are a number of states that draw from the Colorado and they are squabbling about allocations of water that doesn't exist because of overuse and climate change accelerated drought. It is a pathetic and absurd image of state officials duking it out over hypothetical H2O. 

As Canadians we should be aware that the Mackenzie, Canada's longest river at 1700 kilometres, is experiencing its own crisis. Water levels are about two metres below what would be considered normal because of drought.  Indigneous elders say that they have never seen the river so low. The river basin extends into five provinces and territories which means that Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes are at very low levels, as are smaller rivers feeding into the Mackenzie.This means that a vital transportation conduit has been compromised and communities are stranded when it comes to supplies, everything from food to fuel. Indigenous people along the Mackenzie describe themselves as "river people" and there is a spiritual significance as well as the physical. They know that climate change is a contributing factor to this drought. 

As people of the Creator and as Christians we must pay attention to what is happening in this land blessed with abundant water we take for granted. Let's keep in mind that the Canadian motto comes from Psalm 72 and includes a reference to a River. 

The Creator and World Rivers Day

God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
    though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,
 though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy habitation of the Most High.

Psalm 46:1-4 NRSVue

Yesterday we headed to a section of the Moira River north of Belleville with two of our grandchildren and a canoe on the roof. We spent about an enjoyable hour on the water with sightings of blue herons and kingfishers. When we first paddled with these two they were three and five years old and the younger was small enough to fit in front of Ruth in the bow. They take up a lot more room at nine and eleven and the older enjoys paddling rather than being a passenger. On our return to the launch spot I went out with him in the bow for a few minutes and he was a proficient paddler. 

It is wonderful that there are so many waterways. large and small, in this province and across the country. In days past our streams and rivers have been the highways for Indigenous peoples as well as trade routes for the voyageurs. 

This is World Rivers Day and according to the website:

World Rivers Day is a global celebration of the world’s waterways. It emphasizes the importance of rivers, aims to increase public awareness, and encourages better stewardship of rivers everywhere. Rivers in virtually every country face numerous threats, and only through our active involvement can we ensure their health and vitality for generations to come.

Canada has some of the longest and broadest rivers in the world including the Mackenzie in the west and the St. Lawrence in the east. We also share rivers such as the Columbia with our American neighbours, which is a little scary. During a recent rally the demented Donald Trump claimed “So you have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps in Canada and all pouring down. And they have essentially a very large faucet. And you turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it. It’s massive.”

While this is a bizarre claim the United States has coveted Canadian water for years. Speaking of bizarre, Robert Kennedy Jr, the conspiracy theorist presidential candidate who has now thrown in his lot with Trump was the co-founder of the excellent North American organization called Riverkeepers. A few years ago I invited the head of Waterkeepers Canada, originally an offshoot of Riverkeepers, to speak at Bridge St. Church during Creation Time.

Let's include in our prayers the northern Indigenous community of Grassy Narrows whose river, the English-Wabigoon, is still dangerously polluted by mercury after decades of posonous effluent by industry.

Today I do want to celebrate rather than lament our rivers, despite all the threats. Perhaps we could all recall times on or near rivers that brought us pleasure and a sense of the holy. There are plenty of references to rivers in scripture and we can uphold the joy of living, flowing water. 

A Creation Crisis & Brushing Our Teeth

 

Do you remember how years ago we were urged to brush out teeth or shave without letting the water run throughout the task? This was going to help "save the environment", along with other earnest individual activities. I still follow this suggestion and both recycle and cycle even though we now realize that addressing the climate crisis, including species and habitat loss, require the urgent effort of nations working in concert with one another. 

I've engaged in these practices for a long time because I want to be a responsible global citizen and I'm a Christian who believes that "the Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." For more than three decades I used my pulpit, not to bully but to exhort and educate and encourage when it comes to Creation. I observed Earth Sunday and Creation Time in the liturgical church year and I can only hope somebody was listening.

The cartoon above uses four panels to tell the story of what we've come to appreciate about the complexity of the existential crisis which is upon us. It would be easy to deny or to descend into hopelessness. Let's no go there, for the sake of Creation. 

Creation -- Not for Sale!

 

Many of us are aware of the Roman Catholic encyclical, Laudato Si, released by Pope Francis in 2015. It continues to be an exceptional response to the climate crisis and offers a direct yet hopeful reflection on Creation, Creator, and human responsibility. The theology is so solid and thought-provoking. 

I've just become aware of a Lutheran document published in 2017 related to the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation titled Creation - Not for Sale. In one of the essays theologian Martin Kopp asks the rhetorical question: "Does nature have a price?" Later he responds by saying that nature is presenting the bill for our human exploitation and answers to the question he has posed: "There is a reform to be undertaken in our hearts, minds and deeds. For if nature has a price, creation is priceless -- it is not for sale. 

These are wise words but I am also intriguted by the cover of the document, an image it took me a couple of looks to interpret. This is a stylized bar code in the shape of a tree with the word "creation" also in bar code form. This is clever and both literally and figuratively graphic. 

This brings to mind the enduring "priceless" Mastercard advertising campaign going back to 1997. The first ad which ran during the World Series had a dad taking his son to his first baseball game, paying for the tickets, a hot dog and a drink with his MasterCard with the slogan "There are some things money can't buy; for everything else, there's Mastercard".

Of course, people can become deeply in debt because of credit cards and even have them revoked. Is humanity on the verge of existential bankruptcy because we haven't learned that Creation is not for sale? I pray not, for the sake of generations to come. 

Pope Francis & his Visit to Asia Pacific Nations

 

This is the Season of Creation so I'll comment on the lengthy visit of Pope Francis to Asia-Pacific nations because the pontiff has included a focus on climate change or what is more aptly termed the climate emergency. 

Francis has made care for Creation and honouring the Creator a priority of his papacy, even to choosing his papal name in honour of Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the environment. His 2015 encyclical , Laudato si' (Praise Be to You), draws on the Canticle of St. Francis for inspiration and is subtitled "on care for our common home". It is a nuanced, wide-ranging document. 

Island nations are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and first in Indonesia, then in Papua New Guinea, this reality has been noted. A New York Times article by Emma Bubola offers: 

In the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea, hundreds of people may soon have to abandon their homes, pushed inland by the rising sea. Hundreds more were buried in a devastating landslide this year. Around the country, intensive logging is shrinking the island’s lush rainforests, and mine tailings have polluted its rivers.

On Friday, Pope Francis, who has long begged the world to preserve nature, started his visit to a place that is a stark example of how human action can harm the environment. Locals hoped his presence would make a difference.

“Your holiness, climate change is real,” Bob Dadae, the governor general of Papua New Guinea, told Francis at a meeting on Saturday. “The rise in the sea level is affecting the livelihoods of our people,” he added, asking for the pope’s support for “global action and advocacy.”

The Times article goes on to make a Canadian connection in the person of Cardinal Michael Czerny, in charge of a Vatican department responsible for promoting human development:

[Czerny] said that the pope’s trip to the Asia Pacific region underlined the urgency of caring for the environment. “It’s shouting out that we have to take our human and environmental responsibilities seriously,” he said.

Again, I commend Pope Francis for his quietly relentless focus on this existential threat and the ways in which he makes connections with scripture, the Creator, and the Incarnation.