one small step for the earth

one small step for the earth

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Get your TerraPass!

TerraPass decal

I discovered a link to this website while reading an article about global warming. TerraPass is a program that provides a way to offset the global warming impact of your vehicle’s CO2 emissions by investing in clean energy projects that reduce industrial carbon emissions. They call it cleaning up after your car.

I bought my TerraPass. Visit the TerraPass website and clean up after your car!

(And read a May 3 article by Andrew Revkin of the New York Times: Federal Study Finds Accord on Warming.)

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we must not look the other way

we must not look the other way

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Amnesty International has just filed a report citing the ongoing use of interrogation tactics by the government of the United States that would be labeled “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” under any reasonable definition.

“Although the US government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill-treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice,” said Curt Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director Of Amnesty International USA. “The US government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish — including by trying to narrow the definition of torture …

“The heaviest sentence imposed on anyone to date for a torture-related death while in US custody is five months — the same sentence that you might receive in the US for stealing a bicycle. In this case, the five-month sentence was for assaulting a 22-year-old taxi-driver who was hooded and chained to a ceiling while being kicked and beaten until he died.”

We must enforce the laws which define us as a law-abiding state. We must enforce the recently-enacted ban on torture by any agent of the US government, anytime, anywhere. We must not look the other way! We must not place blind and unquestioning trust in our leaders, empowering them to do whatever they have to do to keep us safe. We cannot defeat terrorism by terrorism.

We must not look the other way, and we must not be silent.

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mike nobel

mike nobel

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I had the privilege yesterday of meeting Mike Nobel and the privilege of hearing a group of talented and enthusiastic elementary school students perform some of his songs. Mike Nobel is a singer/songwriter/composer from Gorham, Maine, near the place in Maine we used to call home. When we still lived in Maine, my wife used his stuff with her primary students and my daughter grew fond of singing his songs at home.

Mike Nobel has produced a number of different collections of songs for school children: songs about smoking prevention, songs about abuse prevention. But the songs I know and love, the songs my daughter still sings are the songs from Color Me Green, a collection of songs about environmental awareness and environmental activism. Here’s an excerpt:
Color Me Green album cover

Come on people all around the world
Mommas and daddies, boys and girls
This old planet’s in a terrible state
Getting more polluted day by day

In every city, in every town
You gotta stand up (Stand up!) and look around
The earth is in trouble, you know that it’s true
Well this is the future talkin’ to you

You got to stand up (Stand up!) for mother nature
Stand up (Stand up!) for a greener future
Got to stand up! (Stand up!) Stand up! (Stand up!)
And help the world to be pollution free (Pollution free) Pollution free!

For the birds and the bees, for the fish in the sea
For the fuzzy little animals hiding in the trees
For the earth and the water, for the air we breathe
Don’t wait ’till we face an emergency

Hand to hand, and brain to brain
Little by little we can make a change
Across the nation, around the globe
Workin’ together, ’till everybody knows ….

You got to stand up (Stand up!) for mother nature
Stand up (Stand up!) for a greener future
Got to stand up! (Stand up!) Stand up! (Stand up!)
And help the world to be pollution free (Pollution free) Pollution free!

The music is fun and often exquisite; the message is powerful and passionate; and the subject matter — this beautiful earth, God’s good creation — is a subject near and dear to my heart! Thank you, Mike, for sharing your passion for the earth with us through your music. Thank you, Lynne, for bringing him to Iowa. Thank you, children of Price Lab School, for making the songs (and I hope the passion for the earth they express) your own!

You may find out more about Mike Nobel and his music at http://www.freewebs.com/mikenobel/.

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fighting terror … a different way

fighting terror … a different way

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“I realize now how precious life is,” said Anthony Aversano, whose father, Louis, was killed in the World Trade Center. “How I fight the terror in me today is to live my life well.”

That quote comes from a Los Angeles Times account of the witnesses called yesterday by the defense team for Zacarias Moussaoui. Each of the six witnesses provides powerful personal testimony of a journey from grief to forgiveness, from fear to faith, of living the truth of Paul’s admonition in the letter to the Romans: Do not let evil defeat you; instead, conquer evil with good. They give me hope!

The article begins this way:

Defense attorneys for Zacarias Moussaoui on Wednesday presented their own group of Sept. 11 victims, whose message of forgiveness was strikingly different from what had been heard in the courtroom so far.

None of the half-dozen defense witnesses — parents who lost children, a wife missing her husband, a son without a father — was asked whether the jury should spare the life of the admitted Al Qaeda terrorist. They spoke instead of the changes in their lives over the last 4 1/2 years and their refusal to, as one put it, “get caught up in a whirlpool of frustration and sadness and anger.”

Whereas family members testifying for the government had described broken lives and monumental despair, those called by the defense said they were finding ways to move past their grief …

Read the entire article: Families of 9/11 Victims Testify for Moussaoui, Los Angeles Times

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william sloane coffin

william sloane coffin

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The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. died yesterday. Rev. Coffin was university chaplain during my time at Yale, and many years later has won my admiration as a genuine person of faith and a powerful voice for truth and justice and peace — God’s truth, God’s justice, God’s peace. The stories told about him and the stories told by him (see Credo, a collection of quotations and excerpts from his writing) have prompted me to do some serious re-examination of my self-understanding as a minister of the gospel.

A year ago, Yale Divinity School brought together Rev. Coffin and some four hundred of his friends, colleagues, and students to celebrate “The Public Witness and Ministry of William Sloane Coffin, Jr.” Here is an excerpt of the remarks given by Rev. Coffin at that event. I strongly suggest that you click on the link at the end of the excerpt and read the whole of his address! As Jesus’ followers and as Jesus’ church, we need to listen carefully to this voice of wisdom and courage and faithfulness.

Arthur Miller, of blessed memory, once wrote “I could not imagine a theater worth my time that did not want to change the world.”

I feel the same way about religious faith; it should want to change the world. The “blood-dimmed tide” loosed in the last century claimed more lives than all wars in all previous centuries, and the present century is filled with violence and cruelty. We seem more intent on fighting God’s will than doing God’s will. Therefore, the most urgent religious question is not ‘What must I do to be saved?” but rather “What must we all do to save God’s imperiled planet?”

Spirituality takes various forms. In many faiths some are very profound while others, particularly these days, appear to be a mile wide and one inch deep. Urgently needed for our time is a politically engaged spirituality.

I believe Christianity is a worldview that undergirds all progressive thought and action. The Christian church doesn’t have a social ethic as much as it is a social ethic, called to respond to biblical mandates like truth-telling, confronting injustice and pursuing peace. What is so heart-breaking is that, in a world of pain crying out for change, so many American churches today are basically down to management and therapy.

A politically engaged spirituality does not call for theological sledgehammers bludgeoning people into rigid orthodoxy. Nor does it mean using scriptural language as an illegitimate shortcut to conclusions, thereby avoiding ethical deliberation. We have constantly to be aware of hard choices informed by the combination of circumstances and conscience. We insult ourselves by leaving complexities unexamined. But never must we become so cautious as to be moral failures …

Read the rest of Rev. Coffin’s address.

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something worth waiting for

something worth waiting for

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We are impatient people. We are used to solving problems, not living with them. If we can’t solve the problem, we move on to something else. If we can’t “fix” the relationship, we move on to someone else.

But sometimes, things take time. Things like raising children, building character, growing faith, building trust. Sometimes, you have to wait to see how things turn out. Sometimes, in the long run, you see that all the pain and hard work and frustration and seeming failure were worth it after all.

And that’s just from our limited perspective! But what about God’s perspective? We fret about everything in our world that is not as it should be, and question God’s goodness in “allowing” such evil to persist. Is it possible that God is waiting … waiting for us to grow up, waiting for us to get it right, waiting for us to learn virtue and justice and love, instead of doing it for us? Is it possible that what we sometimes interpret as God’s indifference is really God’s patience?

That’s what faith is: taking the long view, seeing things from God’s perspective, putting trust — complete trust — in God’s wisdom and goodness, believing that the power that raised Jesus from death is indeed even now at work among us. We may not always see the results we want when we want them, but faith believes that God’s power is at work and will one day bring to us and to our world new life — a new life, a new existence, a new way of being, a new way of being with God — that will last forever! Now that’s something worth waiting for!

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stoney

stoney

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puppyThe latest addition to my life … not anticipated, but many of life’s greatest joys are unanticipated. He found us, or rather he was found for us by our daughter! He came home with us ten days ago, and life hasn’t been the same since! Earlier to bed, earlier to rise, always needing to be attentive to the needs of this new member of the family … and much, much love and affection in return.

It has been a long time since we have had a dog — seventeen years. The interim has been spent raising creatures of the human sort! But we are glad to have him with us now, to be able to share our lives with him, and to discover new things and new places and new experiences along with him.

The energy and exuberance and eagerness of a puppy is an unmistakable reminder of the goodness of this life. God is most generous, providing for our enjoyment, entrusting to our stewardship, a world of such wonder and beauty. Run and jump, breathe and smell, taste and see how good it is! Let’s go!

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ten reasons

ten reasons

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From the April/May 2006 edition of United Church News: Rev. Michael Kinnamon, a Disciples of Christ minister and a leader in the contemporary ecumenical movement, lists his ten reasons why someone might consider joining the United Church of Christ. His reasons echo many of the things I value most about my adopted church!

  1. Because, in an era when communities so often define themselves by whom they exclude, this community joyfully claims an identity as those who welcome the excluded, even as Christ had welcomed us.
  2. Because, in an age of growing fundamentalism, this community joyfully seeks to be a “People of the Book” who, at the same time, feel no need to protect the Bible from the modern world.
  3. Because, in a society where beating the competition is regarded as the highest value, this community joyfully treasures the gifts that God has given to other parts of Christ’s one body, and to neighbors of other faiths.
  4. Because, instead of focusing only on personal blessedness in another world, this community joyfully focuses on the power of God to make this world other, a place of shalom for all God’s children.
  5. Because, in a culture dominated by images of self-fulfillment, this community joyfully celebrates that its members live no longer for themselves but for Christ and, thus, for their neighbors, each of whom bears sacred image of the Creator.
  6. Because, resisting the extremes of hierarchical power and do-your-own-thing individualism, this community joyfully attempts to live by covenant of mutual accountability, grounded in God’s covenant with us.
  7. Because, in an age of horrifying violence, this community hears the call of the Holy Spirit to be just peacemakers, even when this is a costly thing to be.
  8. Because, while it resists bumper-sticker religion, this community joyfully insists on thinking globally and acting locally.
  9. Because, at its best, this community is marked by bold humility, precisely because it joyfully confesses that God is God and we aren’t.
  10. Because, in a culture that is willing to speak of God so long as God is kept safely contained in past traditions, this community joyfully proclaims that the living God is still speaking, and that is very good news.
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