My Senses Are Awakened to Read God’s Presence.

In The Gift of Wonder, I talk about the practice of Lectio Tierra, a great way to attune our senses to the wonder of God. This practice is similar to Lectio Divina from which it is adapted. However, for me, it is a deeper experience because it involves movement and engages all the senses. 

Heading out into God’s very good creation, I read the environment around me. How is God present? What might God be using to catch my eye and draw me closer?  As I walk slowly and deliberately through the forest, I might stop to and examine an ancient tree, or casually walking through my garden I brush against my lavender bush and am captivated by the wonderful aroma, or on a day trip to Snoqualmie Falls I listen to the music of water cascading over rocks, my senses are awakened to “read” God’s presence. This is a practice that engages all the senses, my eyes, ears, touch, smell and sometimes taste, all open to what God might reveal to me. Anything that catches my attention and shimmers with the presence of God provides fuel for reflection.

A couple of weeks ago, my eyes were drawn to the gnarled and twisted branches of my old sage bush growing vigorously in my back yard.

I stop, look and listen, not forcing a revelation but waiting in silence for God to nudge me. I reached out and picked a leaf, and gasped in awe at the fragrance that clings to my fingers. I remember the times I picked leaves to flavour soups and chicken dishes for hospitality meals. We made smudge sticks and the burning of them provided a rich and pungent fragrance to the air. What other stories does it hold I wonder? How might it speak to me of God, now, today? 

Now I Meditate

Now I meditate. What lessons Jesus do you want me to learn through this sage bush, this leaf? I run my hands along the soft furry surface, of the leaf, then crush it between my fingers and am transported back in time. Sage has a very long and rich history due to both its medicinal and culinary uses. At one time, the French produced bountiful crops of sage for tea. Ironically the Chinese became enamored with French sage tea and would trade four pounds of Chinese tea for every one pound of sage tea. The Romans considered it had healing properties and for native Americans it is an important ceremonial plant, used by many tribes as an incense and purifying herb. I know it best for its culinary properties. I love to use it when I roast chicken or make vegetable soup.

It is possible that the burning bush in Exodus 3 is sage I remember. Should I like Moses take off my shoes as I meditate and acknowledge that in the presence of this small part of God’s creation I stand on holy ground?

I Pray

Now I pray. I thank God for this gift to so many cultures across the globe and throughout time and am reminded of Revelation 8:4 “The smoke of the incense mixed with the prayers of God’s people and billowed up before God.” I thank God for the fragrance that clings to me, and for the incense that rises from my life as I too am crushed and prepared for use. Perhaps others will brush against me and be awed by the incense of God in my life. Perhaps others will seek me out to add to their lives and savor who they are with the presence of God. I hope that my fragrance and flavor will continue to cling to others and be shared with all that I meet.

Lastly I contemplate

The last step is contemplation. I pause, running my hands over the fragrant fragments in my hand. I look around at the other plants in my garden. Some are greening after a long winter’s rest. Others are in bloom vibrant with color and fragrant with their own perfume. I am not alone. Incense rises to God from every part of this garden and from every person to raises a prayer to God. I breathe in and absorb the insights God has given me that enable me to move into a place of rest and peace. I can receive love, healing and grace from God, together with those around me, and with the witnesses of every tribe and nation that have gone before me. I feel at one with God’s world and will all that help me move towards God’s wholeness.

Often in response to this experience I write poetry. Today I finish with this Ute prayer that I found many years ago and my heart overflows with thanksgiving.

Earth Teach Me to Remember
Earth teach me stillness
as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth Teach me caring
as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
as the tree which stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation
as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
as dry fields weep in the rain.

What might it look like to enter into Lectio Tierra?

Does anyone really think that Christians, let alone non-Christians, would want to spend eternity with a group like this?

Not a smile, celebration, sense of awe or certainly gratitude or worship would be visible, or even tolerated by this group.

Maybe it’s my bias, but this scene seems as close to Hell as any near-cartoonish, burning eternity.

But if Heaven is anything, it is a home for the homeless, refuge for the persecuted, and a place where any and all of the abandoned and neglected find their enduring home and people.

It would be a place of ultimate welcome and Shalom, connectedness and safety, where, as Jesus showed, the Pharisees and hypocrites would be locked out, the moneychangers and hustlers chased away, and the lion would lie down with the lamb and children could play with the most poisonous of snakes and vipers and there would be no harm.

The oppressed would be set free and even those who could not forgive themselves would find forgiveness.

As you might guess, or believe, there are many “Christians” who would hate such a place; Heaven on earth, or even Heaven as an abstraction, to many I have encountered, could never be a place of infinite, unfettered, unqualified welcome – especially to those among us who did not meet our (earthly) expectations – especially religious expectations.

But in Jesus’s value system, a broken heart is of more worth than a proud one and, to put it mildly, those who make a practice, or even a livelihood, from killing the prophets would, at minimum, not find a home in any divine kingdom.

If Heaven is anything, it is a refuge for those who never found it, a place of restoration and wholeness for those who pursued, and rarely, if ever found it, and a place where home and community, seemingly forever elusive, is finally found.

The irony though, is that any who are or were called to discipleship are called to build, sustain and live-out the kingdom, not on some abstract, distant horizon, but on the now, and right here.

If Heaven is anything, it is before us, around us and within reach.

If Heaven is anything, it is not a place of rarified, exclusive theology, but a place where a child shall lead us all….

In short, if Heaven is anything, it is real, and a party, and now. And here.

If believing in Heaven means anything, it means that it is within our reach, within our view, and within our hands.

Hell is, of course, equally within our grasp, and Hell too, does not need an other-worldly existence.

Hell is, of course, no celebration, no forum for forgiveness, no welcome home.

Hell is the site of unfulfilled resentments and forever nurtured visions of revenge.

Lord, when did we see you naked, hungry, abandoned and afraid?

It would be easy to make the argument that those lost, forsaken, hungry and afraid are in at least a corollary of Hell.

And those capable of helping, are not only able to help, but to either rescue those from a living Hell – or amplify the Hell they already inhabit by even further persecution, harassment or abuse.

In what could be called the earthly lab for sifting out who would be most qualified, even suited, for Heaven or Hell, the verdict of Jesus, based on his own words, is at minimum compelling.

Those in need are a continual reminder – and opportunity – for us to construct, with our own hands and actions, Heaven or Hell around us.

If Heaven is anything, it is the place of transformation, welcome and restoration.

And it is right in front of us.

To hone my focus, I created a Lenten Garden which sits on my desk to guide my meditations each morning. My first step was to decorate a stone and write the words “For love of the world God did foolish things around the decoration. This sits as the centre-piece for the garden. Around it I planted several succulents to represent the desert of Christ’s 40 days of temptation, and then sprinkled it with sand and placed several heart shaped rocks around the garden.

I love the process of creating a contemplative garden like this. It always begins with dreaming, then moves through the gathering of materials to creation before I get to the stage at which it is ready to be used for meditation. Finally, after Easter I will enter the last stage of the garden’s life – letting go, a hard but necessary step. As I comment in my book Digging Deeper: The Art of Contemplative Gardening, “Accepting and incorporating impermanence into our rituals enables us to accept and embrace change in a healthy and liberating way. We let go of our desire for permanence, of control, of acquisitiveness and even of our creative process. It is hard but we learn a lot in the process about ourselves, about God and God’s good creation.” It seems even more relevant as Lent slides into Easter.

As I painted my stone, and created my garden, I had plenty of time to think about what practices I wanted to do throughout Lent this year. I pulled out my bible and read two scriptures:

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” (Matthew 22:37, 38 CEB)

These verses hold the essence of God’s love and of the purpose of Lent from my perspective. Lent is meant to be about learning to love God more fully and expressing that love out into the world that God loves. It is about letting go of distractions that keep me from the path God intends me to tread, a path that is meant to draw me closer to God, to neighbours and to God’s good creation. It is also a time to grab hold of new commitments to actions that will transform my life and the lives of others, as they bring glimpses of God’s eternal world into being. In other words, this is a time to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds and love our neighbours as ourselves.

As I reflected on this, three questions, that I will return to throughout Lent formed in my mind:

For love of God, what am I willing to give up?

For love of my neighbours and of God’s world, what am I willing to give up?

And for love of myself and my own wellbeing what am I willing to give up? 

Interestingly, as I share these questions with others, it is the second question “For love of my neighbours and of God’s world, what am I willing to give up, that people struggle with the most. Lent is about preparing ourselves for the life of God’s eternal world, a world in which there is no more pain or suffering or destruction. It is a time to commit to actions that will bring glimpses of God’s shalom world into being. Is there an organization that works with the poor, the unjustly treated or the disabled you would like to volunteer with during Lent?  Could you help clean up the environment in your neighbourhood, maybe commit to at least one day a week car free? Or is this the time to start gardening? Perhaps there are privileges of wealth and education we need to give up. Or prejudice against those of other faiths, sexual orientations, or ethnic groups. Or you might consider giving up your car or the heat in your house for several days. Whatever you choose it might make you look foolish in the eyes of your friends or the world but if it makes God’s world a better place it is worth it.

As Lent began this year, I launched a new podcast The Liturgical Rebels (https://godspacelight.com/liturgical-rebels-podcast-is-live).This podcast is for those who feel restricted to traditional spiritual practices that often seem outdated and of little relevance in today’s world. It is for those who are discouraged to express their own creative talents and develop spiritual practices that are uniquely them. The Liturgical Rebels podcast is for people who want to reimagine and reconstruct their faith and spiritual practices.

What I was not prepared for was the need to give up other commitments that it made necessary. This week I found myself letting go of webinars and unwritten blog posts that I no longer have time for. It has been a hard decision because I love what I do and like most of us I rationalize that this means I should hold on as long as possible. However, Lent is about relinquishment. It confronts us with our mortality, our vulnerability, our ambitions. It confronts us with how seriously we will follow Jesus into the future and challenges us with the need to do foolish things, like giving up ministry and practices that has been important for years.

I hope you will consider joining The Liturgical Rebels this year. Step outside the box of convention and triviality and do something more than giving up chocolate or reading a short devotional each morning. Take Lent seriously and do something foolish for God.

For love of God
For love of the world,
This beautiful yet pain filled earth
On which we live,
God does foolish things.
How strange and unwise,
To send a much beloved son
To dwell amongst us,
Knowing he would die
A tragic and painful death.
Only love would be so reckless,
And so vulnerable.
Only God would care so much
For those who
despised and rejected Holy love.
For love of the world,
God does foolish things,
That turn the world upside down.
And bring life where we expected death.

Will you join us?

I’m looking forward to getting acquainted with you, and your Red Letter Friends, and to learning more about your ideas for Jesus-rooted change-making in the turbulent new decade of the 2020s.

Dwight J. Freisen and I are both very grateful for Shane Claiborne’s kind endorsement for our book, 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change.

“Tom Sine & Dwight J Freisen invite us to reimagine the world and begin building the kind future that God wants for us and the world. Dig in and join the revolution.” ~Shane Claiborne

2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change is designed as a study book with questions at the end of each chapter to enable followers of Jesus to prepare for these rapidly changing times. Fortress Press has just reduced the price to $5 dollars per book.

I am making a special offer to Red Letter Christians and am offering to provide a Free Zoom visit for any Red Letter Group that does a study of 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change.

Foresight in terms of creating new opportunities, new ways to follow Jesus in response to new challenges that their members of their family, friends, and neighbors are likely to encounter in the rapidly changing 2020s.

In 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change. Tom & Dwight invite us to join other followers of Jesus who are using this book in group studies to: anticipate and to address new opportunities and challenges we are likely to face in 2024 and the next decade of accelerating change. Here are the three steps you will find offered in 2020s Foresight:

Step 1: Anticipating
Learning how to anticipate new opportunities & challenges you, and those you care about, are likely to encounter in the future. Then we encourage you to do active research like urban planners so you can help find the best responses for you, your family, friends both at church and in your neighborhood, so they too have time to respond.

Step 2: Reflecting
Learning from urban planners how to actively research a broad range of innovative ways to respond to the new challenges & opportunities to expand your range of options for you, those in your family, but also for friends at church and in your neighborhood locally and globally.

Step 3: Innovating
Learning to select those new innovative responses that most clearly reflect the ways of Jesus…which is always central for Red Letter Christians.

As we race into the turbulent 2024 and beyond, we are waking up to a new reality of accelerating change. Shane Claiborne urges us to see 2024 as a time of opportunity to share the good news of Jesus in tangible ways like joining Christians who are planting orchards, beating guns into garden tools, building homes for the homeless, and reaching out to all of our neighbors in ways that reflect Jesus’ teachings. This is the unique ministry of Red Letter Christians and other affiliated ministries.

AGAIN, HERE IS MY SPECIAL FREE OFFER TO RED LETTER CHRISTIANS!
As mentioned above, I am making a unique offer to Red Letter Christians or to your churches. If you have a group that becomes involved in a study of 2020s Foresight, I will offer to join your group for a 2-hour Zoom visit after you have gotten into your study, at no charge to you or your group.

I am looking forward to learning about your creative ideas of ways to both be a difference and make a difference that reflects the ways of Jesus. I will also share some other creative ideas Christine and I have come across. Contact me and tell me about your book study group and your ideas.

We invite you, our Red Letter Christians friends, to join other Christians that are anticipating new challenges and opportunities we are likely to encounter in 2024 during this decade of accelerating change. We are particularly interested in the innovative ways you and your members are creating to live and to help others make a difference in response to new challenges facing Gen Next and your neighbors locally and globally. We are interested in innovative new ways you are finding, like many in Gen Next, to make a difference that reflects the ways of Jesus instead of the seduction of Instagram envy and other distractions of this transient world.

Just a bit about my wonderful wife Christine and myself. I’m Tom Sine, and you can read a bit more about me in my bio. I have dedicated my career to empowering followers of Jesus. I am particularly a fan of Gen Y & Z and now Alpha Gen. 

I find a higher percentage of Gen Next care deeply about environmental, racial, and economic justice. I have discovered also that many of them are eager to work with churches to make a difference in their neighborhoods and particularly some of the neediest parts of our struggling world like Haiti where I worked for 7 years. Shane and I go back to when we were both younger lads doing some engaging sessions with a new generation of Christians way back then. We need more Christians of all ages to connect to the new “Good News Generations”!

Christine and I have also had the delight of hosting Shane when he has come to Christian conferences in Seattle. Christine has a very active global website on prayer and spirituality: Godspacelight.com. Her most recent book is The Gift of Wonder. 

Christine was an Australian doctor in her former life, and she was also the first doctor to head up Mercy Ships for 7 years before we were married. These days we live in an ancient house we call “Mustard Seed House”. Our home has three separate 2-bedroom apartments that we share with 2 young couples. We share a meal with a faith reflection once a week and we also share the produce from our productive garden.

May God inspire your dreaming and innovating as we race into this rapidly changing new decade in ways that reflect the teachings of Jesus. 

I am looking forward to getting acquainted with you, your innovative ideas and your Red Letter Group and your response to 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change.  I am particularly looking forward to hearing about your creative responses to the new opportunities and challenges you are likely to encounter in 2024 and beyond.

Tom Sine 206-307-7998
Mustard Seed House
Seattle Washington

Mary was said to be ‘perplexed’ when the angel Gabriel told her she was carrying the hope of a broken people. Like her, we must set aside our fears in a divided world and respond, ‘Here I am.’

Across the globe, from small communities in southern India to the splendor of the Vatican in Rome to homes across Oregon, people will gather Christmas Day to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. It is a joyful time. Families come together, churches fill up, gifts are exchanged and children can hardly contain themselves as they await Santa in his many forms — Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, Père Noël and others.

For Christians, Christmas is also a time for engaged reflection.

Howard Thurman, the theologian, author and civil rights leader, wrote a beautiful poem called “The Work of Christmas” that can help move American Christians from the commercialism of Christmas and into the heart of Jesus’ message for the world:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

Faith is work, after all.

Through the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament, those who follow Jesus are given a vision of the world that directly contrasts with the world we live in. For all that is good with the world, we also live in a time of unparalleled crisis. In times of crisis, God calls us into a partnership to find solutions.

Many of the issues that confront us today, such as greed and oppression, are issues the Hebrew prophets and Jesus would have recognized. What is different for this time? The scale of what confronts us. From the reality of human-caused climate change and the implications that brings for the future of all creation, to the growing threat of nuclear conflict, to increasing economic inequality. Crisis greets us whether or not it is a holiday.

Small children opening gifts under the tree this year, regardless of where they live, face the genuine threat that climate change will, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported this past October, produce a future of suffering that will fall hardest on those Jesus called the “least of these.” Still, all of humanity will be impacted. The chaos caused by the gathering storm increases the risk of world war, terrorism, hunger and poverty, and it will further divide people along regional and economic lines.

Religion, which is too often used to divide, can be a tool to inspire the world to action. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was said to be “perplexed” when the angel Gabriel informed her that she was carrying the son of God, and the hope of a broken people. Her first response is understandable but her second response is remarkable. Like Moses and others called by God to great tasks, Mary sets aside fear and responds: “Here I am.”

This Christmas we live in the shadow of conflict. Historians tell us the United States has not been this divided since the period before the Civil War. The world itself is in peril.

At best, our government stumbles in the face of complexity; at worst, we lash out in misdirected anger fueled by racism and xenophobia as we separate children from parents and tear gas others, refugee families not unlike Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

Our answer to all this must equal Mary’s: Here we are!

At the start of the Gospel of John, we are told: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

There is darkness today, to be sure. That darkness comes in many forms. The light of God’s people, known by different faiths and traditions, can still overcome it if we reunite this Christmas Day and each day after in common cause, as Jesus taught, to free the world from oppression and offer love in place of hate. If we genuinely honor Jesus and celebrate his birth, we cannot be the generation that allows all of creation to wither due to neglect or war. We must bring light and love to help creation grow and thrive.

Merry Christmas. Let’s get to work.

We have no more time to wait, and no more excuses to offer. The United States must end its reliance on fossil energy that is killing us slowly but surely through air pollution, toxic by-products, and further exacerbating the climate crisis.

The march was a precursor to the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s Climate Ambition Summit, which was held on September 20. The historic turnout at the march was a demonstration of growing impatience around inaction on climate change. We are no longer willing to wait.

In total, more than 75,000 people participated in the march including national environmental and faith groups, people of all ages, and even international allies. For our part, United Women in Faith marched faithfully following the lead of frontline communities and joining voices of all faiths in demanding justice for people and creation.

As I thought of the significance of the gathering and the growing frustration over the lack of action to ensure clean energy, I realized that my work has cultural and spiritual significance. As a Latina mestiza, I recognize the legacy of resilience and resistance in my Latinix community, our practices to conserve paired with trust in providence to always welcome more at the table. Many of these practices are rooted in the wisdom of our Indigenous ancestors and Indigenous communities that have long resisted and maintained a relationship with creation based in mutuality and interdependence.

Mark Magana, founder of Green Latinos calls these practices – passed down from our parents and grandparents to conserve food, energy, water – ‘cultural environmentalism.’ And while you won’t see los abuelos y abuelas; our grandparents in a ‘Who’s Who’ of climate activists, for our Latinix community they were the first teachers of environmental stewardship we had, teaching us to love all what God has created. Spiritually, I get to not only answer to my Christian call to stewardship but to see God’s love and creativity manifested in creation. I’m often in awe by the many forms it takes and how God’s love lives in relationship to complex systems which I get to witness and be part of. This is both a humbling and dignifying experience.

As a Christian woman I strive to honor the sheer act of love it took to create the world that we enjoy today. Creation is a manifestation of God’s love for humanity. And as a Christian, I should be embodying the love that God has shown. Our faith calls us to love one another and creation and to take the streets and march for justice in times like these.

Participating in the march was meaningful as it was an opportunity to see grassroots organizers of all races, ethnicities, and religious affiliation. It was a chance to see myself as part of something so much bigger than myself. But it was also a chance to be a faithful witness in the fight to end the reliance on fossil fuels. It was a chance to say to people – including Black, People of Color, Indigenous and frontline communities like mine – who are living next to oil and gas facilities and infrastructure, I see and honor you. For people impacted by fossil fuels and climate disasters across the country, this was a moment to remind ourselves that our fight is global and that we are all impacted.

I marched with the intention of carrying on the work of people like Dolores Clara Fernandez Huerta, one of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century, and Ceasar Chavez, a staunch advocate for environmental justice. I marched understanding that as a Christian, I am mandated by God to care for creation, and nothing is more caring that advocating for the elimination of fossil fuels through a prompt and just transition that leaves no one behind.

We know that our work is much broader than marches, but we cannot forget the beauty of uniting in solidarity with people who are similarly fighting as we are. We also know that important work happens between mass mobilizations such as the Sept. 17 march. We have been supporting partners’ direct action, engaging our members, sending letters to legislators, and otherwise making our voices heard. For instance, we united in solidarity with the Green Climate Fund’s appeal to the White House to for the second replenishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The GCF is the world’s largest multilateral fund dedicated to investing in developing countries to address the climate crisis. This will ensure that transitioning to just energy is broader than an intention, but an embodied commitment. We cannot achieve just energy if we are unwilling to fund it. As Christians and peacemakers, we are being called to the peripheries of this ecological crisis and respond to its many challenges, but we must see this as an opportunity to re-build our relationships with human and non-human creation centering justice, equity, and love.

IIka Vega is the executive for economic and environmental justice at United Women in Faith. 

The good news is there are ways to reduce and eliminate the growth in global warming; the bad news is I am not sure we will implement them fast enough.

(RNS) — After reading last week’s column, “Global warming is here and getting worse,” my brother, who is president of a Jesuit high school, responded, “Great article, but you just describe the problems. I’d never let you out of my office until you gave me a solution.”

The good news is there are ways to reduce and eliminate the growth in global warming; the bad news is I am not sure we will implement them fast enough.

As I mentioned in my column last week, human-caused climate change threatens life as we know it on the planet. Sadly, too many people deny the science or don’t make it a priority. As a result, some politicians are not willing to make the tough decisions to deal with climate change.

First, the good news. What can we do to deal with global warming?

Economists are almost unanimous in saying the best way to slow down global warming is through a tax on carbon emissions. This is basic economic theory. If you tax something, you make it more expensive and people will use less of it. This approach uses the power of the marketplace rather than government regulations to influence people’s decisions.

A tax on carbon emissions would make energy from fossil fuels more expensive, which makes alternative sources of energy more attractive. Customers will demand cheaper alternatives and more energy-efficient devices, and investors will be willing to put their money toward responding to these demands knowing there is a market for it.

Theoretically, this reduces the need for government regulations and investment since the market would encourage thousands of entrepreneurs to try various approaches until some succeed. This is why the auto industry preferred raising gasoline taxes to government efficiency standards.

The problem with taxing carbon is political. Voters don’t like taxes and politicians are afraid to enact them.

The Biden administration flips this idea on its head by enacting tax credits for alternative sources of energy. In other words, instead of making fossil fuels more expensive, the administration is making alternative energy cheaper. On top of this is direct government spending to foster alternative sources of energy by installing charging stations and by purchasing electric cars and trucks for government agencies.

Tax credits are politically more acceptable than taxes or government spending. Voters love tax credits, even though tax reformers hate them. Politicians find them easy to vote for and hard to criticize.

Now that the credits are in the law, Republicans are going to find it hard to repeal them. Individual and corporate taxpayers will get mad at anyone trying to repeal what they now consider their right. Republicans will be accused of trying to raise taxes, something they always accuse Democrats of doing.

Another advantage of tax credits is that, although more energy-efficient equipment is cheaper in the long run, it tends to be more expensive in the short term. A rational consumer should be willing to pay more for a refrigerator, air conditioner or car if in the long run it is cheaper. But most consumers are not rational, or they don’t have the money to afford energy-efficient purchases. Most people look at the sticker price, not the cost over a five-year period.

In response, government regulations can set energy standards for equipment or simply ban the sale of inefficient products, like incandescent lightbulbs. It can also give a tax credit for the purchase of energy-efficient equipment, which brings down the original sticker price. The Biden administration has done both.

The good news is that government and private research and investments have brought down the cost of alternative energy more dramatically than the experts expected. The cost of wind and solar energy is now cheaper than oil, gas or nuclear.

“The world has produced nearly three billion solar panels at this point, and every one of those has been an opportunity for people to try to improve the process,” Gregory Nemet, a solar power expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The New York Times. “And all of those incremental improvements add up to something very dramatic.”

Europe is now getting more energy from wind and solar than from fossil fuels, thanks in part to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. China, because of government investment, is still outperforming Europe and the United States, but the growth of solar and wind energy is expected to be dramatic in the coming years. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, with its subsidies for domestic investment in alternative energy, has forced European countries to come up with their own programs to compete.

A tsunami of investment in alternative energy is coming, and much of it is occurring in red states and rural areas that traditionally vote Republican.

Flat rural areas like the Midwest and Texas have the steady wind needed for energy production. Southern states have the sun. Green jobs in red states are going to eventually impact American politics surrounding global warming. Republicans are going to have to change their position on global warming or they are going to begin losing elections in their backyards.

The biggest obstacles to alternative energy are no longer technical or economic. They are political. First, there are campaign donations, phony science and propaganda funded by fossil fuel interests.

Second, there is NIMBY-ism, “not in my backyard.”

Liberal states in the Northeast have beach towns that don’t want their ocean views “desecrated” by wind turbines. And to make full use of wind and solar power, the electric grid needs to be upgraded, and no one wants transmission lines near their homes. Even environmentalists object to wind farms over concerns birds and bats will be killed by the turbines.

Environmental and local-control laws favored by liberals in recent decades are now making it difficult to deal with global warming. But we cannot afford to delay our response. We have ways to deal with global warming and they are improving every day. The question is, still, do we have the will to save God’s creation?

We are like frogs in a pot of water being slowly cooked as the temperature rises. We don’t have the sense to get out of the pot, let alone turn off the heat.

(RNS) — Anyone who does not believe in global warming after what we endured during July is so deep in denial they would not flee a burning house if their clothes were on fire. And yet millions of Americans still do not accept the facts revealed by science. Rather, they continue to believe the lies propagated by the fossil fuel industry, their political cronies and the pseudo scientists who have prostituted themselves to the industry.

Just as bad are all of us who accept the science of climate change, but don’t do anything to stop the madness.

We are like frogs in a pot of water being slowly cooked as the temperature rises. We don’t have the sense to get out of the pot, let alone turn off the heat.

July was the hottest month on record in all of human history. Emergency rooms in Phoenix were flooded with heatstroke victims as well as people burned by roads, sidewalks and metal equipment turned hot in the sun. Heat actually kills more people in the United States than hurricanes. Globally, 5 million people a year die from the heat.

The elderly, the sick, the poor and the homeless suffer the most from the heat. The rich and the middle class can retreat to their air-conditioned bunkers, which makes matters worse with increased CO2 emissions from the power plants that create the electricity to run our air conditioners.

Others died from floods caused by warm air that holds more water during storms. The Northeast was especially hard-hit this summer, while earlier Pakistan was devastated by floods. The western United States welcomed rains that filled reservoirs, but it was also hit by floods that destroyed homes and farmlands. Drought will inevitably return in the future.

The heat and floods cost billions of dollars in damage and in lost productivity. They are creating more climate refugees who must migrate to survive.

As awful as this all sounds, it is only the beginning. We are doing permanent damage to the home in which we live.

Around the world, mountain glaciers are shrinking. When they are gone, millions of people will lose dependable sources of water.

Warm water and increased acidity are killing coral reefs around the world, reefs that took hundreds of years to grow, reefs that are the nurseries of the ocean.

When these reefs are gone, it will be the end of thousands of ocean species that breed or live in the coral reefs. They will never recover. It will be the end of the oceans as we know them, along with the fish we eat.

Meanwhile, the oceans continue to rise. There is less ice in the water around Antarctica this winter, which does not have an immediate effect, but it means the ice on the continent will be threatened. There is less ice at the North Pole.

Not only does all this melting add to ocean levels, it also means open oceans will absorb more heat since ice reflects sunlight.

The only remaining question is how fast this climate apocalypse will come. Some scientists think the worst will not come until the next century, while others warn of tipping points that could bring it on quickly.

“If we are able to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, U.S. sea level in 2100 is projected to be around 0.6 meters (2 feet) higher on average than it was in 2000,” according to NOAA. “On a pathway with high greenhouse gas emissions and rapid ice sheet collapse, models project that average sea level rise for the contiguous United States could be 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) by 2100 and 3.9 meters (13 feet) by 2150.”

Two climate scenarios for quicker disaster are terrifying.

One is that all the ice on Greenland destabilizes and slides into the sea. If all the Greenland ice melts, sea levels will rise by 6.5 feet. If the entire Antarctic ice sheet melts, sea levels will rise by 190 feet.

Coastal cities will be flooded, displacing hundreds of millions of people. Such a catastrophe will also upset the Atlantic Gulf Stream that warms Europe. Ironically, under global warming, Europe without the Gulf Stream could become as cold as Alaska, since they are on the same latitude.

The other tipping point could come from unfreezing the Siberian permafrost, which might release enough methane (a potent greenhouse gas) to end the world as we know it. The planet could quickly warm, melting ice everywhere.

In the 22^nd century and beyond, when people have forgotten the wars, the pandemics and the economic and political crises of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, they will not honor us for our technological innovations.

They will not care about Donald Trump or who is “woke.” They will curse us for destroying our planet, their only home. Today, we ask why Germans did nothing to stop genocide under the Nazis. Future generations will ask why we did nothing to stop global warming. It’s not like we did not know.

Millions will die in the coming catastrophe, perhaps half the world’s population. Billions more will suffer privations on an impoverished planet for centuries to come. Governments will collapse into chaos; the whole world will look like Haiti does now.

The Earth will never recover. Perhaps in a few millennia, other species will evolve that can live in the wasteland that is Earth, but it will never be the same.

For believers this is even more depressing because we are destroying God’s creation, God’s greatest gift to us. Rather than treasuring this gift, we are like children who break all our toys on Christmas Day.

Christians profess that we should take up our cross and follow Jesus. Instead, we are making crosses for future generations to carry.

Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid.” I must confess that I am terrified by what is coming even though I know I will be dead before the worst happens. For once, I am happy I don’t have children. I pray for a miracle, a deus ex machina, even though we do not deserve one.

To those not yet born, all I can say is, “I’m sorry.” But I don’t expect you to forgive us.

We live in a time of conflict and polarization — in the church in its various forms and in the world at large. In fact, our religious and secular challenges are so enmeshed as to be inseparable. 

In the world at large, the planet is in crisis. From global warming to the great global insect die-off, from the impending tsunami of extinctions to multifaceted ecosystem collapse, the earth is suffering under the burden of too many people demanding too many resources while pumping out too many wastes. As Pope Francis said in Laudato Si, we are sowing filth and destruction into the earth rather than life and beauty.

The poor are also in crisis, as a tiny minority of super-rich global elites control a larger and larger percentage of power and wealth, leaving the poor farther and farther behind to survive on leftovers. Simply put: the wealth rises to the top and the troubles (what economists call “externalized costs”) trickle down to the folks at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

In addition to the crises of the planet and the poor, we face a crisis of peace. Arrogant nationalism, ignorant racism, shortsighted militarism, and post-truth propaganda empower the Putin’s of the world to bomb innocents into rubble while the NRAs of the world proliferate guns. As we pump more and more weapons of increasing kill-power into human societies, as we dump more and more carbon and other pollutants into our skies and seas, as we redistribute more and more wealth and power away from the struggling masses and toward the elite upper classes …  we create a perfect recipe for misery, for us, for our children, and for generations to come. 

We could wish that the leaders of our Christian faith were paying attention to these crises. A few are. But many — too many — are obsessed with preserving their power, protecting their privilege, and perpetuating their institutions. They obsess over liturgical gnats while ignoring existential threats, and we wonder why younger generations are turning away!

The young see our churches as being fueled by theologies of separation, shame, punishment, and damnation. They experience our liturgies as being obsessed with individual salvation, appeasing a demanding God so our individual souls can assure their ticket to heaven when we die. They encounter our institutions as being more concerned with their own power, privilege, and survival than with the common good. Many feel frustration and hopelessness. 

Younger generations know the reality articulated early in the last century by Teilhard de Chardin: “Evolve or be annihilated.” They know the reality articulated late in the last century by Thomas Berry: “We will go into the future as a single sacred community, or we will all perish in the desert.” 

When they read the gospels, they hear a resonance between Teilhard’s call to evolve and Jesus’ call to repent. And they hear a resonance between Jesus’ good news of the kingdom of God and Berry’s “single sacred community.”

When they hear or recite the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer most frequently prayed by every denomination of Christianity, they hear the words, “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” They see what so many of us miss: Jesus’ prayer is not an evacuation plan, praying to get our individual souls from earth down here to heaven up there. This prayer is a transformation plan, bringing God’s good will down here to earth from up there in heaven. The prayer asks us, “How do we join Jesus in his concern for God’s good desires to become actualized on earth?” The prayer directs us to address this world and its injustices, joining God in God’s healing work within this world. 

The Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee says, “The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness.”  Younger generations wish they could say more in our Christian communities helping to lead the way to bring healing and hope to this “suffering wholeness.”

We have a proposal that addresses both the crises in the world at large and the crises in the Christian church: the possibility of a Franciscan Renaissance.

The first biographer of St. Francis, Thomas of Celano, described Francis’ return to God as reclaiming that which would free him both from a sinful nature and from a perverted society which was Christian in name only. Thomas of Celano could just as easily be describing the state of our world and religion today. 

Neither of us are professed Franciscans. Our deep love and understanding of Franciscan spirituality came from our work and relationships with Franciscan sisters and friars in the US and across the World. When we talk about a Franciscan Renaissance, we are not referring to otherworldly piety and escapist rituals or propping up the status quo of Franciscan institutions. Rather, we advocate a Franciscan Renaissance centered in the spirit of St. Clare and St. Francis, embodied in their examples, further explored in the works of brilliant Franciscan theologians like Blessed John Dun Scotus. 

This renaissance is needed because dominant forms of Christianity are stuck. The Catholic Church is stuck; all the many forms of Protestantism are stuck. Whether you are Catholic, Evangelical Protestant or Mainline Protestant you’ve probably watched with horror from a distance as many of your leaders and fellow members were so easily sucked into Trumpism. It breaks your heart to see how many Christians have wandered into white supremacist backwaters, into QAnon and other conspiracy theories, where they’re in many ways ruled by nostalgia, dreaming of a mythical idyllic past when life made more sense to them. 

Yes, there are beautiful pockets of light and growth and redemption in all our Christian traditions. But so many are stuck in deep ruts, hardly able to see outside. Even when they know they’re in trouble, it’s so much easier to live in denial and keep on with liturgy as usual. Along with ruts of routine, so many of us are stuck in our silos, just worried about our little group. So, Lutherans are worried about renewing Lutheranism and Presbyterians are worried about renewing their Presbyterianism, just as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox can act as if their group is the only group that matters. 

Every week, more and more people, especially young people, leave the stuckness and stagnation, joining the 70 million-plus adult Americans who grew up going to Church but who no longer do. The failure of retention of younger generations brings us closer every day to what we might call a demographic cliff. 

If Christianity were in trouble only because it’s stuck in ruts of routine and silos of sectarianism, that would be bad enough. But we also have to acknowledge that there are dominant forms of Christianity that have become dangerous. Too many preach that Jesus is coming soon, so we don’t need to worry about the environment. Too many preach, ‘The Bible says that the end is going to be terrible, that things are getting worse. That just tells us that we are closer to the end. And after that it is heaven and then we will all be able to party.’ Too many preach an intoxicating cocktail of Christianity and white supremacy, Christianity and nationalism, Christianity and unregulated capitalism. As a result, the earth suffers, people of color suffer, the poor suffer, and ultimately, everyone suffers.

The words of the prophet Jeremiah (8:8) echo in our ears: 

“How can you say, “We are wise, 

for we have the law of the Lord,”

when that law has been falsified 

by the lying pen of the scribes?” 

The vision of Francis and Clare are exactly what we need at this moment of peril and opportunity. Why is that legacy so precious at this moment?

First, at this time of ecological crisis, the Franciscan legacy is powerfully ecological. Living as we do at the precipice of an environmental catastrophe; we need a spiritual vision that integrates love for God and love for our neighbor with love for the earth — exactly the vision of St. Francis and St. Clare and the movements that they gave birth to. 

Francis’ famous friendship with a wolf and his preaching to the birds are easily reduced to cute little tropes, birdbaths if you will. But the ecological vision of Francis was about more than birdbaths. It was about the interconnectedness of all creation, so that we see every creature as sister or brother. As Sr. Ilia Delio OSF wrote in her book, A Franciscan View of Creation, “Francis’ respect for creation was not a duty or obligation but arose out of an inner love by which creation and the source of creation were intimately united…” Francis saw himself as part of creation, as being in relationship with creation, and not having dominion over creation or even stewardship of creation.  

Second, in this time of violence, this time of school shootings and war in Europe, this time when many politicians seem to believe that the more guns, we have the safer we’ll be, or the more bombs we have the safer we’ll be, we need St. Francis’ message and example of nonviolence as never before. If we follow the path of maximum armament … believing that we can never have too many guns and bombs … we will discover that this is a suicidal trajectory for our species: as Jesus said, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”  We need a spirituality that is deeply nonviolent not just in words but in our action. 

It is difficult to preach nonviolence when so much of our religion is focused on the wrath and fear of God. In fact, to many Christians today, world salvation means being saved from an angry God. Carl Jung, one of our greatest 20th century psychologists, once said, “If our religion is based on salvation, our chief emotions will be fear and trembling. If our religion is based on wonder, our chief emotion will be gratitude.”  Over the centuries, many forms of Christianity have become religions of fear. But Christianity wasn’t always like that. It began as a nonviolent peace movement, a community known for love, a community gathered around a table of fellowship and reconciliation, a people armed with the basin and towel of service, not the bomb and gun of violence. A Franciscan Renaissance would invite us to become, in the language of St. Clare, not violent warriors, but nonviolent mirrors of Christ for others to see and follow.

Third, in addition to being ecological and nonviolent, the Franciscan vision is deeply economic. Today, a larger and larger percentage of wealth is being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals and families. In spite of calling ourselves democracies and free market economies, many of our nations are returning to a kind of feudal oligarchy, where a small number of powerful families exert great power over governments and collaborate with transnational crime syndicates … all while collaborating with religions that give them cover. St. Francis arose in the early stages of modern capitalism, and he saw its potential dangers. He exemplified an alternative value system where the poor, the leper, and the outcast matter more than money, luxury, and power. Our current economic model places no intrinsic value on creation, except as a source for raw materials that we consume. In so doing, it reduces us to consumers, and values us based on our productivity measured in money.  A Franciscan renaissance would help us “redeem” — which means to re-assess and revalue — everything, so we rediscover the priceless beauty of the earth and its creatures, including our neighbors and ourselves.  

Fourth, we live in a time of exclusion, division, classism, racism, and religious prejudice. We need the example of St. Francis and St. Clare, who clearly modeled deep inclusiveness and solidarity. In the iconic paintings of St. Francis embracing a leper, we do not see a shallow inclusiveness that says, ‘We’re elite and we’re going to bring a few of you as tokens into our exclusive club.’ No, we see in St. Francis profound solidarity with the last, the lost, and the least, with the other, the outcast, the outsider, and even the enemy. In this spirit of solidarity, I see that my life and your life are interconnected. I refuse to settle for my own happiness, because my life is in solidarity with yours as my neighbor. 

The relationship between Francis and Clare modeled this: we’re all equal — male and female, rich and poor, healthy and sick, well-clothed and clothed in rags, Pope and Bishop and lay person. Francis even teaches us to refuse to discriminate between Christian and Muslim, Jew and Atheist, for we all are beloved by God. We see this interfaith solidarity when Francis ventures without weapon or threat into the Sultan’s camp in Egypt, bearing a message of peace – a heart for peace. This vision has been tragically lost in so much of our Christian faith. More than ever at this moment, we need the vision of Francis and Clare for an interfaith solidarity. 

We have experienced this inclusive solidarity. Neither of us are professed Franciscans but we both have been welcomed within the Franciscan community. Not only that: in our work and travels we both have encountered Muslims, Jews, Hindus and even atheists who have a deep respect for St. Francis, his life and works. A Franciscan Renaissance will expand beyond the traditional three Franciscan orders to a fourth order — of Franciscan-hearted people.

A Franciscan Renaissance would be ecological, nonviolent, economic, and inclusive. It would also be creative theologically. Too many Christians still imagine God as a big white guy on a throne in the sky, a cosmic dictator and Zeus-like despot and who will subject people to cruelty if they don’t honor his magnificence appropriately. Looking back over the last eight centuries, it is clear that the Franciscan theological instinct was right, and we need it more than ever. 

The prevalent theology during the time of St Francis was centered around the idea of substitutionary atonement. In this view, the purpose of Jesus’ incarnation was to suffer and die as a sacrifice to appease an angry God. But for Franciscans, Jesus didn’t come to appease an angry God; he came to reveal a loving God, as Sr. Ilia Delio, OSF, says in her book, Franciscan Prayer: prayer “begins and ends with the Incarnation. It begins with encountering the God of overflowing love in the person of Jesus Christ and ends with embodying that love in one’s own life, becoming a new Incarnation.” This fresh vision of God leads to a fresh vision of everything everywhere. 

Thomas Berry wrote in The Dream of the Earth. “The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation.”  We are experiencing that crisis today, in the world and in the church. A Franciscan Renaissance will not come easily; it will be costly, challenging, even disruptive. After all, if renewal were cheap, easy, and convenient, it would have happened already. If we are willing to count the cost, commit to the challenge, and persist through obstacles, we can be agents of a true Franciscan Renaissance.

For many (most? all?) of us here in America, today is a lot of things. It’s odd, different, bizarre, quaint, lonely, dull, sad, triggering, exhausting, celebratory, energizing, or uncomfortable. This Thanksgiving holiday, regardless of how we have strived for normalcy or ignored the cautionary pleas of the CDC, there is no escaping reality: this is a complex day.

Hasn’t it always been?

I’m writing from a city called Shreveport, located in Northwest Louisiana, where a man named Captain Henry Shreve contributed to the Red River region’s settlement and in return received a legacy. But this little plot of land, where my son swings from oak branches beside the bayou . . . where we make mashed potatoes for three instead of twenty-three . . . where I call home . . . is much more than just a settler’s trophy. We live in Caddo territory, or so it was solely known before the Treaty of Cession of 1835. A whisper of the exiled blows through our walls and halls every time a resident references our “county” by name—Caddo Parish.

It is on this land of Caddo Parish where the Caddoan people were to be paid $80,000 for one-million acres of land. “Eventually these Louisiana Caddo left—their credit was cut off by local merchants, their payments ended, and the United States protection was failing—and headed for the Kiamichi River country in Oklahoma. The Caddoan presence in Louisiana, after a millennium, or more, was over.”

It is on this land of Caddo Parish where a makeshift capitol was established when Baton Rouge fell to Union forces during the Civil War. 

It is on this land of Caddo Parish where, “in the decade following the Civil War, white men . . . were killing and terrorizing African-Americans in such high numbers that the parish earned the name, ‘Bloody Caddo.’”

It is Caddo Parish where nearly 13,000 people have contracted the novel Coronavirus this year, and many continue to shame the masked as “living in fear.”

And it is on this land that I have learned who God and my neighbor are. Where I have seen love, known mercy, connected deeply to image-bearers who have shown me the way of life, death, and life after death. My family is here, living off the fruit of stolen trees nurtured by enslaved hands.

It is home—haunted and heartwarming.

It’s both/and. So, too, is Thanksgiving.

READ: Join us in Prophecy Against the Pandemics

We are grateful for life and any chance to press into joy, especially in 2020. And we are aware that this holiday is built upon a false narrative that spun exploitation into mutual affection. We are missing the warmth and awkwardness of ritualistic connection. And we know that we are citizens of an empire forged by oppression and sustained by racism and inequality. We are nurturing our paths. And we are deconstructing our paths because of how the gain of some came at the expense of many.

There is tension in our country, there is tension in our churches, there is tension in our very selves today and beyond, because these times—like our stories—are complicated.

And we don’t love complicated. We’d rather certainty, which is why dualism is fed so plentifully from our political podiums and pulpits. But for today, I wonder if we might not reject the tension and instead lean curiously into Mystery. I wonder if we might make an honest home in the uncomfortable both.

I wonder if we might pray prayers that acknowledge pain and hope for goodness at the very same time.

Maybe, we can even start here.

A Prayer for Today (and all the days after)

Spirit who hovered over the waters of our earth and our bodies throughout the generations, we give you thanks for connecting us to who we were, are, and will be.

We pause to look out over this plot of land: _____ territory.

As we remember our Native siblings—who first invited the foreigner seeking freedom from oppressive rule, who shared space and sustenance with the homeless and welcome with the sojourner—stir in us the hospitality toward those migrating and seeking refuge today.

As we remember our Native siblings—who did not possess immunity, and who were vulnerable to the diseases of colonizers—impress further upon us the responsibility of protecting those most vulnerable in our current pandemic and racial climate.

As we remember our Native siblings—who were forced to leave unceded land, who were stripped of space and identity, who were taken from home and killed—illuminate the injustices still terrorizing Native communities today. Let us hear your call to act on behalf of sacred lands and water, on behalf of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

As we remember our Native siblings of centuries past, convict us of the narratives we craft and sustain that suggest a people solely confined to history. Let us believe and affirm: you’re still here, I’m still here. Let us lend ourselves to listening, supporting, honoring, and leveraging in months beyond November.

Let us bend low to the ground now, touching the blades or soil, let us remember our baptisms in puddled water or bubbled stream, calling to mind our place in the long story of death and life.

May we feel grateful to recognize the evil and liberation within it and within us, the provision and the need, the celebration and lament and everything in between—all present today.

We give thanks for these: ______

While grieving these:______

And we ask that all which adds to the fulness of our lives is ever used to add to the fulness of others.

Till all are home again,

Amen.