blog action day 2015: #RaiseYourVoice

blog action day | Friday, 16 October 2015

BAD tags for this year are:

#BAD2015 | #RaiseYourVoice | #Oct16 | #BAD15 | #Blogaction15 | #FreeToWrite | #JustABlogger

The BAD organizers explain:

Why we picked ‪#‎RaiseYourVoice‬ as the theme for Blog Action Day 2015:

We have the power to create the world we want to see when we raise our voice to promote positive change and expose unjust actions. This Blog Action Day we will celebrate those heroes who raise their voice when faced with censorship, threats and even violence. We will overcome silence with our words and actions.

#RaiseYourVoice is good theology, first-rate activism, and an excellent fit for this blog. As scripture demonstrates, in God's reign of heaven on earth, the priest – the ritual mediator between heaven and earth – is not the one who holds true power and authority. The prophet speaks truth to unjust power, raises their voice, brings a word from heaven to earth, counters and protests the death-dealing voices of empire. The prophet carries true power and authority. Raising a voice that challenges? Yes, of course. That exposes? Indeed agreed.

The prophet becomes the voice of God; the prophet also becomes a voice for, the voice of, the broken, needy and vulnerable. The prophet brings God's call to us to partner with heaven in re-creating justice and righteousness in a broken world.

Who are these speakers of the word? Among many others, scripture brings us a couple of women who sing of a world very different from the same old, same old—a world and a way of life so different it inverts and subverts the old.

Mary's Magnificat:

Luke 1:46-55

And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior ... He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty."

Marian icon by Scott Ward

Mary must have heard and probably even memorized Hannah's Song:

1 Samuel 2

Hannah prayed and said, "My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory. ...The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up...

Sometimes God in the Spirit raises up prophets from amidst a particular gathered people—Moses. They've been known to arrive on the scene from very elsewhere: farmers like Amos! The last century heard prophetic voices like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. Because the world heard them and heeded them, their words helped create a different world. Only a couple years ago, Pakistani teen Malala got shot for advocating literacy for girls. Her voice resounded all around the world, and resulted in a lot of action, lots of change. You get the idea from my super-short list.

"Power to create the world we want to see" by raising our voices? Would any of us speak words of justice and life? Raise your voice? My voice? Someone might hear, might even listen? We know Moses and Amos made a difference; so did Hannah and Jesus and Malala.

Jesus of Nazareth became a living word from heaven, moved into the neighborhood (as Eugene Peterson's Message version of the bible puts it), spoke justice, acted justly, embodied God's authority. Jesus was and Jesus is the word that Martin Buber tells us is "incomprehensible, irregular, surprising, overwhelming, sovereign." Buber adds, "Therefore it is the virtue of this word, and of this alone, to lead, that is to say, to show the way."

How about us? Last Sunday's readings from the Revised Common Lectionary again reminded us about The Way of Jesus, the Way of the Cross. Luke's New Testament book of Acts call Jesus' people followers of The Way—a way of living and being so different it inverts and subverts the old.

Huey Lewis & the News

Everything's gonna clear up
And the sun will shine
Everybody's gonna cheer up
'Cause it's redemption time

Don't you worry 'bout a thing
'Cause you know that
Things are gonna change
When the time has come

Walls are gonna crumble
And fall into the sea
Oh, all men will be humble
That's a guarantee

When the time has come

Scripture distinguishes between chronos that's the measurable, countable time on our clocks, devices, and schedules, and then kairos, the right and ripe fullness of time that's wholeness, redemption, and shalom. Huey Lewis & The News mean kairos, and they promise it seriously. This "redemption time" is what the prophets yearn for, sing about. This redemption time is what God through the prophets calls and charges us to help enact. This redemption time is the very un-ordinary dawn of the new day of kairos time.

So we had Amos a sheepherder, MLK a pastor with a PhD, Malala, a female teenager in a culture that devalues girls. Where else can we go to hear pleas for justice and equality? Simon & Garfunkel tell us about somewhere a lot of us urbanites have been: "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence."

Overcoming silence with our words and actions? This kairos time is God's thing? Something God enacts? Remember God's dialogue with Moses: "Moses, your people!" "No, God, these are your people!" "Your people, Moses..." so it's always both/and.

Bob Dylan

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide; the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin',
for the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'

The line it is drawn; the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

Moses! Hannah! Jesus! MLK! Us!

Along with celebrating those other heroes who raise their voice, let's all raise our voices to overcome silence with our words and our actions, too.

Since 2007, Blog Action Day has inspired bloggers from different countries, interests and languages to blog about a single important global topic on the same day. Past topics have included Water, Climate Change, Poverty, Food, Power of We and Human Rights.

blog action day 2014: inequality

Inequality is the Blog Action Day topic for this year 2014.

For this year's blog action day subject of Inequality, I'm writing about aspects of life in the larger, more extended church and in the local churches. By now everyone knows separate (accommodations, considerations, requirements, opportunities) inherently is unequal. Justice and equality are at least first cousins, probably siblings, and anyone who's reached a certain age – ten years old?! – can cite countless instances of retributive and distributive injustice and inequality.

On to inequality...

For quite a few decades, many mostly mainline denominations / church bodies have been ordaining women as deacons / elders (presbyters, priests) / ministers of word and sacrament. Historically and practically, there are different configurations and permutations in terms of ordination. In some churches the diaconate is a rank of ordination; others consecrate rather than ordain deacons /diaconal ministers. Besides churches where woman deacons and pastors have become routine and expected, several other large denominations, most publicly LDS (Latter-day Saints), LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod), and RC (Roman Catholic) recently again have reaffirmed their positions.

In those church bodies, maybe mostly in response to grass roots ferment and restlessness, study of scripture on every participatory level has reopened the question of women's role and rank in church leadership. Reopened the question followed by closing the discussion. Current official position in those three church bodies – and probably in some I haven't been following – remains according in their interpretation of scripture, women cannot be ordained. On a side note, women freely preach and teach in both LDS and RC churches, though the LCMS is guarded and circumspect regarding those activities.

We absolutely need to contextualize the gospel into our current cultural and geographical setting, so what worked for someone as recently as a decade ago when they were a student at an urban New Zealand university won't be a good fit for their current living situation in rural Canadian Prairie Land. In their studies of scripture and their affirmations of Jesus Christ as the ultimate authority, some church bodies have agreed to ordain women, others haven't.

No one truly can separate culture and style from history, tradition, and (even!) scripture, and a few recently publicized events regarding women's ordination vis-à-vis church have looked suspiciously (to me and others, as well) like a focus on style rather than on substance―but whatever. Although my own reading comes out on the side of allowing and encouraging women's ordination and full participation in all levels of church leadership, it truly is "complicated," and culture, psychology, and even prejudice aside, I appreciate that some people may disagree with me.

I'm far more concerned by unequal treatment accorded to richer, more prominent, more famous church leaders regarding morality and ethics. "Unequal" in the sense of well-connected, more affluent, household names not being held fully accountable for bad behavior. There's a recently revealed case of a newly installed president of a mainline seminary where the guy had admitted to at least two extra-marital affairs whilst serving Big Steeple Churches. So he apologized and somehow gets to stay in his presidency position. In a smaller church with a lesser-known pastor, the pastor would have been expected to resign, would have quit, and would have agreed to counseling before returning to professional service in the church―or the pastor possibly would have left church altogether.

Regarding another too common example of ecclesiastical inequality, an article I read last winter spoke of the high personal, professional, financial cost of pastoral firings for any reason (not only moral misconduct) in the typical local church. The article admitted in that particular Episcopal Church tradition, bishops generally got a golden parachute no matter how severe their failings and shenanigans. Financial and sexual improprieties may be most common, but other ethical violations too frequently happen, with resulting fallout that extends far beyond the person's family, the local church "family," that town, or the denomination/tradition in question.

Not a single person can achieve the absolute obedience that is God's standard for every Christian, and most of us need to rely upon repentance, forgiveness, and grace more often than we wish were necessary. But why the double standard? Why such inequality?

blog action day 2012 | the power of we

Some of why we're blogging about The Power of We this year:

Firstly, the popularity of your suggestions; Community, Equality, Transparency/Anti-Corruption and Freedom, in our theme poll.
Secondly, The Power of We is a celebration of people working together to make a positive difference in the world, either for their own communities or for people they will never meet half way around the world.

Recently I heard a story about the "ubuntu" philosophy and lifestyle of some African tribes: an anthropologist put out a basket of fruit and told some African kids the first one who reached the fruit would win all of it. When he signaled them to run, they joined hands, ran together toward the fruit, and then sat down together to enjoy the fruit together. When the anthropologist asked why, they replied, "Ubuntu. How can one of us be happy if the others are sad?" Ubuntu can be summed up "I am because we are."

As parts of the world first became more industrialized, later on more interconnected through transportation and media, then still later on instantaneously and sometimes anonymously connected via the world wide web, people seemed to lose awareness of our true human interconnectivity and our need for one another at basic levels of clean water, nutritious food, clean air, and community.

It looks as if southern California's almost built-in literal a-no-nym-ity, or "namelessness," has extended throughout the rest of the world into every one of the more developed, post-industrial countries during the last couple decades of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first. too frequently we read and hear about university age and younger people who have lost the practice of compassion, haven't yet learned to relate to others beyond a surface level—the result of spending every waking hour plugged in, tuned in, which actually equates to what we used to call "tuned out" back in the day.

Again this year I'm participating in blog action day from my theology blog... as the church we gather to celebrate sacraments of baptism and holy communion. With its recurring confession "I believe – I believe – I believe," the Apostles' Creed is the historic baptismal creed, but after baptism, we, us, ours become the baptismal words, as we learn to live in covenantal community.

Celebrating sacraments requires human interdependence, makes working toward clean water, nutritious food, and clean air necessary. On behalf of all the world, "we" the baptized gather together to celebrate eucharist, creating a world where justice, equality, safety, sufficiency make their home, a planet without violence, without need or deprivation of any kind, a place where love and mercy reign—a foretaste of the fullness of the time of salvation promised by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, if only for a single hour at a time! In liturgical actions and afterwards, the church lives out ubuntu; at its best, the church knows none of us can be happy when others are sad—I am because we are.

blog action day 2012: #powerofwe #bad12

blog action day 2011 | food!

Action Network sponsors Blog Action Day this year and it happens on World Food Day. I'm doing some terra firma theology for the event. In scripture, terra firma on which we and other land creatures spend most of our earthbound lives and where our food is grown by ourselves or by others also is tierra santa—holy land. For this post I easily could draw upon a lot of posts from this blog, since most of my theology is theology of creation, theology of the land, the God and the people who live physically, emotionally and conceptually attached to the gift of land.

Last year for the topic of water I wrote, "As Christians we are People of the Book that begins with waters of the first creation and ends with rivers of the new, a book in which water is a persistent image." In the Hebrew scriptures the journey into the land...into the land...into the land forms an incessant theme; the garden of the first creation ultimately becomes the city of the new creation that begins in the garden of resurrection. From the earliest Pentateuch source we read about God forming the first human from the dirt of the ground and naming him A-dam, after that dirt. Later on the New Testament shows us the new Adam, Jesus of Nazareth, who reveals the divine to us most fully and completely, and like the first Adam is born out of the stuff of the earth.

In the book of Genesis in the Old Covenant scriptures, we read about Joseph's brothers betraying him and selling him into Egypt. After he spends time in prison, Joseph becomes a community leader and sits in authority at the right hand of the Egyptian pharaoh; from that position he helps distribute life-restoring grain to a hungry people. In the gospel accounts in the New Covenant Scriptures, we read about Jesus of Nazareth, who like Joseph is sold and betrayed into the ultimate prison, the ultimate bondage of death and is resurrected to new life before ascending to sovereignty at the "right hand" of God. From there, like Joseph, through his followers he has charged to be his continued presence on earth Jesus distributes life-giving grain to a starving world.

Water was the subject of last year's Blog Action Day and this year it's food! The faith and practice tradition I follow celebrates both water and bread as central to our understanding of God's gracious actions and presence in the world.

Early in the pages of scripture, God gives plants and trees and seeds for food and commands the people to care for and steward the land and the rest of creation. Central to the formation of Israel is the divine promise of deliverance from slavery and that the people would be led to a land "flowing with milk and honey," a place with pomegranates, figs, olives, vineyards, a land they would cultivate and steward in freedom rather than in grueling slavery. Scripture gives human creatures a place within the created order and a call to steward, maintain, treasure and support the rest of creation; the commandments that relate human creatures one to another and to all creation are critical for the planet's survival. The Creator God covenants with all creation, and as creatures in God's image, so do the people of God.

Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper.

You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you. Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. Deuteronomy 8:6-11

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has no national or cultural boundaries; it is "good news" of victory of life over death for all creation, yet the good news must becomes incarnate, embodied and enfleshed within particular local cultures. In the church eating events are commonplace and have achieved close to a level of caricature. Potlucks, Christmas Teas, Ice Cream Socials, Barbecues on the Bay, monthly Friday evening parties or potlucks...

Through its witness, scripture brings humanity a call to help initiate justice and redemption for all creation and an ultimate vision of the eschatological feast in which the entire earth is healthy and restored, living in mutual covenantal dependence. The Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, the Eucharist – sometimes simply referred to as "the sacrament" – is the proleptic, preliminary yet full realization of the time of redemption of all creation. It's a vernacular meal and a nutritious one! The eucharist is slow food, it's cooperatively grown and produced food, it is nourishing and it is memorable. Just as waters and rivers become holy water in baptism, in the Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, solid earth, terra firma, becomes holy land, tierra santa.

Scripture moves from the waters of the old creation to the rivers of the new; the narrative of scripture moves from the garden of the first creation to the city of the new creation. That "end time" of the no more of cycles of war, violence, famine, hatred, deceit and deprivation will be a time of the fullness of redemption for all creation, not solely human creatures. The eschatological, "final things" feast of the Eucharist is sign, symbol, realization and reality of "will you at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?" When the disciples asked Jesus that question, he told them to wait right there in Jerusalem (the center of the known world at the time) until the Spirit engulfed and engaged them with his power to enact redemption on earth. [Acts 1:6-8]

The pre-exilic writer who's sometimes referred to as 1^st Isaiah, Proto-Isaiah or Isaiah of Jerusalem brought a necessary vision for whole food and covenantal living:

In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Isaiah 2:2-4

Body of Christ, Amen!!!

twitter hash tags: #BAD11; #food

blog action day 2010: water!

9 days late...water and milk and honey!!!

Change dot org sponsors Blog Action Day again this year.

For this year's topic of water, first I considered "what do I know?" I know theology, so now I'm considering the biblical promised land of milk and honey.

Water is the womb of creation.
Genesis 1

¹ "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ² the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters."

And water is the womb of our first birth and of our re-birth, our re-creation. In baptism, we enter the state of this earth when it was yet unborn; we are submerged in the substance from which first life emerged. God's creative power engulfs us as we identify with this planet's history and with Jesus of Nazareth, who was baptized in the River Jordan.

In the story of the Exodus from slavery, the Hebrew scriptures bring us a well-known account of a 40-year long wandering through an inhospitably arid, apparently barren desert, across a river and then into a place already inhabited by "others."

Remember this? Exodus 3

Exodus 33

^3a "Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey..."

Milk and honey is a sign of the fullness of God's reign in justice and righteousness. Flowing honey and surging milk begin with fertile land and rivers of usable water. Ample milk means abundant cattle grazing on luxuriant grass, bovines that bear healthy calves--and that fertilize the ground. Bees make honey; bees pollinate fruits and flowers. Dairy, beef, honey and harvest mean nourishment for farmers, families and community, with overflowing everything to sell at market or barter and trade in order to get whatever you cannot grow.

The story of creation and of the people of God begins with water, continues with almost countless water-related experiences, including a great flood followed by God's covenant with Noah and with all creation, with Abram/Abraham and later Jacob's passage by the Jabbok River... water's scarcity in the exodus desert is central, since the desert became the place where the people learned to recognize and acknowledge water as gift rather than as taken for granted. In the desert's sparse economy, with surprises like water from the rock and manna from the sky, they also learned the kind of trust in God's provision that would enable them later to live in covenant with each other and with all creation.

Exodus 17

¹From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. ²The people quarreled with Moses, and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?" ³But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?"

Numbers 20

¹The Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there, and was buried there. ²Now there was no water for the congregation; so they gathered together against Moses and against Aaron. ³The people quarreled with Moses and said, "Would that we had died when our kindred died before the Lord! ⁴Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? ⁵Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to bring us to this wretched place? It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; and there is no water to drink."

After they left the geographic, phenomenological Egypt, the people reached into the desert of Shur, where Elim, with its twelve springs of fresh water and seventy palm trees was one of their first stops. Palm trees and fresh springs provided shade and shelter, yet Marah, "bitter waters" was the name of the gateway to Elim's sanctuary, safety and protection.

Exodus 15

²²Then Moses ordered Israel to set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. ²³When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. That is why it was called Marah. ²⁴And the people complained against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" ²⁵He cried out to the Lord; and the Lord showed him a piece of wood; he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. ... ²⁷Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees; and they camped there by the water.

Toward the last part of the texts placed last in the biblical canon there's a rich vision of rivers, trees, wholeness and integrity:

Revelation 22

¹Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. ²On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

For God's newly constituted, post-exodus people a new phase begins with the body of water that's threshold between past and future and for the Church, waters and rivers - especially The Jordan River - remain icons of baptism, the event in which God irrevocably claims us and calls us to live in trust and in covenant with all creation. For us, baptism is a liminal, a threshold event that divides a disconnected past from new life in covenant with the church in every time and every place and with all creation.

As Christians we are People of the Book that begins with waters of the first creation and ends with rivers of the new, a book in which water is a persistent image. We people of the book also are people of the journey, a faith-filled, trusting trek that is bordered, boundaried and largely defined by the gift of water and our stewardship thereof, a kind of fluid wandering during which we're never still back there but also never have quite reached what we imagined to be our destination. You know I love Carly Simon's

Let the River Run

We're coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters.

Let the river run,
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem!

Water is the womb of creation and the geographic, landed location of milk and honey cannot happen without pure, "living" water that keeps on birthing and re-birthing everything on earth. Milk and honey requires fertile ground and rivers that flow—rivers that won't catch on fire! That kind of land grows plump grains in well-stewarded prairies, juicy grapes on heavy-laden vines. Milk and honey is a lively sign of well-nourished people, animals, families and communities, of the sufficiency of shalom for everyone with neither too much nor not enough for anyone!

Only when milk and honey abounds can we offer back to heaven the feast of eucharist that gathers and welcomes all creation and all people, excluding no one (except those who exclude themselves). This "foretaste of the feast to come," as the liturgy expresses it, is the sign and realization of all creation's reconciliation, an emblem of justice and integrity of all and for all, a celebration that depends on the river that depends on the humans that depend on the river, the banquet that cannot happen without... water!

Carl Sagan observes, "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." It's a given that we cannot create the universe, but if we want to make apple pies, we must help steward the universe's re-creation and we need to take care of the water, live in covenant with the water, with each other and with all creation.

Blog Action Day 2010: water!!!

blog action day | climate change

Although I knew I had to blog about climate change on Blog Action Day, I'm well aware even people who are devoting their lives to the topic don't yet know enough and there are almost limitless resources online and in print. Instead of making an attempt to say something about a subject I know far too little about, I'm linking to a couple of my own blogs, to a pair of excellent sites about aspects of climate change that especially interest me and to a handful of the many relevant Bible passages and some quotes (all scriptures NRSV).

desert spirit's fire! is a theology blog and typically I assume readers have at least a smidgen of biblical knowledge and theological vocabulary. However, with more than 9,363 bloggers registered worldwide to participate [update: 31,000 blog posts, and a few people probably will blog later] in this special Blog Action Day for climate change, I'm trying to be a little more explicit than usual about some theological concepts. And here I'll comment the way some Christians and many assorted others have tended to concentrate on human creatures almost to the exclusion of the rest of God's creation has been infinitely sad and highly unbiblical.

Church and synagogue consider the biblical scriptures an ancient witness to the Presence of God in world and creation and to God's saving acts in history, yet despite its antiquity, the bible is very clear about the interwoven interrelatedness and interdependence of all creation and about God's call to humanity for responsible caretaking and stewardship of the earth. In the creation stories in the Hebrew bible book of Genesis, God's forms, "births" the proto human A-dam from the dust of the earth; in the New Testament scriptures, gospel-writer Luke concludes his genealogy with, "A-dam, son of God." Humanity created in the image of the Creator God, a reflection of Divinity shaped out of the dirt of the ground? Indeed, yes!

As lifestyle and worldview, although they acknowledge the essential integrity of spirit and body, the biblical religions are Spirit-filled yet earthbound, for the most part lived out amidst the world. In fact, Christianity's central proclamation is God's incarnation in the human Jesus of Nazareth, the Divine enfleshed in a finite human body entering history in a most conventional manner, "born of a woman, born under the law" [Galatians 4:4b], then marking days, seasons and years whilst requiring sustaining food and drink, protective shelter, and like all of creation – animal and plant – producing waste matter and ultimately returning to the ground of its origin. God in Christ Jesus needed a sustainable earth and environment in balance with itself and so does every single facet and molecule of creation.

In the New Testament book of Acts, probably authored by the same Dr. Luke as the gospel, as people were gathered in Jerusalem, at that time considered the center of the world, on the Day of Pentecost (a Jewish feast commemorating the Sinai Covenant, "The Law" or Ten Commandments), rushing wind and blazes of fire physically signified the Spirit of Life indwelling all creation with a new, more universal pervasiveness, yet in continuity with the Wind that breathed upon and ordered the chaos at creation's dawn.

Martin Luther, the magisterial Reformer (try "meta-Reformer") spoke of the ubiquity of the Risen and Ascended Jesus Christ. What is more, in the Church's sacraments God Self-reveals in creation's commonest stuff, in water, grain and grape, grown, nurtured, sprung and harvested from the heart of the earth.

From the UK, here's an excellent article on rainforests and climate change.

Almost daily we hear about the devastating effects of climate change on polar bears; you can follow World Wildlife Fund's Canon Polar Bear tracker.

The Holy One we know as God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God of the Prophets, God and Father of Jesus the Christ has experienced the same need for clean water, plentiful produce, fresh air and stable climate as the rainforests and the polar bears.

On my blog for Earth Day 2006 I said a lot I could repeat here for Climate Change Day, including paraphrasing Walter Brueggemann, who says essentially, "Of course the trees clap their hands--no more clear-cutting! Why wouldn't the seas and everything in them roar? No more pollution!"

During early September 2008 for Musical Musings on RevGalBlogPals, I celebrated the relatively recent liturgical Season of Creation emphasis.

The Genesis 9 account of God covenanting not only with human creatures but with all creation describes how God disarms, hanging a bow high in the sky as a recurrent symbol of the covenant of grace and provision.

Genesis 9:8-10

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark."

Genesis 9:12-13

God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth."

Job 12:7-10

But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.

check out Job 39

and Jeremiah 8

Psalm 104 as well...and concluding Blog Action Day 2009 with a hopeful reminder, a portion of Psalm 104:10-19

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 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.
You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth,
and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart.
The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
In them the birds build their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees.
The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys.
You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.