Aug
13
2010
William Wordsworth’s most famous work is “Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Reflections of Early Childhood.” It is one of my favorite poems, exploring the lost pleasures of childhood that Wordsworth believes are hints of the immortality we left behind:
- It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
- Turn wheresoe’er I may,
- By night or day,
- The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
And again,
- Not in entire forgetfulness,
- And not in utter nakedness,
- But trailing clouds of glory do we come
- From God, who is our home:
- Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Setting aside theological mysteries and controversies for another day, what has preoccupied me for that last month and a half has not been immortality, past or future, but increasing intimations of mortality: My own,as I have experienced an unusual and thought provoking spell of genuine illness, something unusual for me; but also increasing intimations of mortality in the world in which we live, highlighted by the Gulf oil spill but buttressed by a host of other events. Read more »
Jun
25
2010
Care of Creation and Eden Vigil are cohosting a Consultation on Environmental Missions in Manhattan KS July 12-16. A small group of environmental and missions leaders will spend three days together hashing out issues that will help us to establish Environmental Missions as a new category of missions. You can read the announcement of the event here – and you can contact Robynn Bliss, event registrar, here if you would like to join us.
Meanwhile, Lowell recently wrote the following piece for the Evangelicals for Social Action newsletter, answering the question, What do we mean by “Environmental Missionary”. Enjoy!
What Is an Environmental Missionary?
At first, the question remained the same, but my answer would change.
People asked me, “Lowell, why are you a missionary?” Before I left for India in 1993, I’d tell them my conviction that Jesus is worthy of the worship of India, that the Great Commission is a mandate given to us all, and that those who die without Christ are lost eternally. But then after just a few months on the field, while those central convictions had not changed, I added to my answer, “I love Indians.” Over time, however, I had to change that answer, too, and admit, “Well, I don’t know if I can say that I love Indians, but I do love Shivraj, Munnu-ji, Prakash, and Prem Kumar.” I would rattle off names of individual friends. It’s hard to love disembodied aggregates, but it’s impossible not to love those God has placed in your heart.
Now, however, the question has changed. People are curious: “Lowell, why do you call yourself an environmental missionary?” The question has changed, but the answer is remarkably the same: I love Shivraj, Munnu-ji, Prakash, and Prem Kumar. Read more »
Mar
03
2010
“Old Literature” is an occasional feature that highlights long-forgotten books, articles, speeches or poems that still speak to us today. As it happens, there’s some new material that also deserves our attention. Today, Tending to Eden by Scott Sabin, Director of Plant with Purpose (formerly Floresta).
Scott Sabin and I met about 7 years ago at a conference in Kenya. He tells about that conference in his new book,Tending to Eden that was just released two weeks ago:
Edith and I took several pastors to a conference on creation care in Kenya. I was one of the presenters, and in the course of my presentation I showed a slide of the devasted forests around Mt Kilimanjaro National Park. Pastor Lyamuya approached me later and, with an embarassed smile, explained how convicting it was to see the photo from his own community. “God entrusted it to us to take care of, and we aren’t doing our job.” Read more »
Jan
08
2010
All done!
Three months of planning, writing, praying and creativity and now, a bit of rest before we get into 2010.
The first day of the new year of 2010, was spent driving back to Madison, WI from St. Louis, MO where we had spent the previous week with about 13,000 students and 3,000 other attendees both experiencing — and in some ways helping to shape — the future of missions in the US.
Read more »
Jan
08
2010
No one comes to Urbana for fun. This is not a “winter break” vacation. Not by a long shot.
There are a couple of common threads that we have heard from each of the over 100 students we have talked to at our Urbana09 booth and the countless others that we have sat next to in the morning worship service, met in the lunch line or ridden with in the hotel elevator.
Read more »
Jan
08
2010
From Urbana09 in St. Louis, Missouri, the question is raised … What are the challenges that students face (and we face) with this thing we call Environmental Missions or creation care?
We had the first of the “Environmental Track” seminars today and the students, through their questions and extremely outgoing personalities told us a lot about what they think, what they fear and what they expect.
Here’s the story in a nutshell.
Read more »
