Mar
14
2011
Oil Spills are bad enough – but how do you pray about a Tsunami?
It hasn’t been a year since the Gulf oil spill, which we rightly saw as the worst environmental disaster in memory. At that time I wrote a piece trying to come to terms with that situation: “How Do You Pray about an Oil Spill?” And now I sit pondering a disaster that could turn out to be exponentially greater than the BP/Halliburton fiasco. I am doing so at my dining room table, in a part of the world that is seismically if not politically stable, many miles from the nearest nuclear facility. I am looking out at a landscape where the first birds of spring have arrived and are singing up a storm: Robins, redwing blackbirds, a cedar waxwing and (I think) a pine warbler (see pic below and tell me if I’m right, birders!) just this morning. The contrast between my window and the stories on my computer screen could not be more different, and I am forced to ask the same question I asked last summer: How do I pray about what is now happening in Japan? Read more »
Tags: earthquake, God's Creation, God's Grandeur, japan, junk food, linkedin, nature, redemption, robins, Sin, spring, tsunami
God, Our Role | Ed | 
Feb
15
2011
Lowell Bliss is the director of Eden Vigil and Care of Creation’s partner in environmental missions. He’s appeared already in these pages as a guest blogger and has now agreed to be a regular contributor. Having spent fourteen years in India and Pakistan, Lowell, his wife Robynn, and three kids now reside in Manhattan, KS.
I know that YouTube is primarily used to apprise ourselves of this week’s media spectacle, but it’s also a wonderful tool for nostalgia. Every once in a while, sitting at the computer, I announce to my family, “Classic Rock Night!” The kids groan and the speakers play Creedence Clearwater Revival. One day I went to YouTube in order to relive my childhood environmentalism. When the world celebrated its first Earth Day in 1970, I was still in second grade. YouTube allowed me to revisit the Ad Council PSA familiar to my generation of Saturday morning cartoon watchers. I typed in “Crying Indian,” the name under which the ad is apparently archived in our collective memory, and watched the old chief paddle his canoe past a riverfront factory. He beaches it on a littered shore and climbs an embankment alongside an eight-lane highway. The narrator’s voice is deep and accusatory, “Some people have a deep abiding respect for the natural beauty that was once this country. “ We then see a bag of fast-food garbage flung out from a car window. It splatters the Indian’s moccasins. “And some people don’t.” The camera then pans closely to his face and we see the famous tear. “People start pollution; people can stop it.”
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Nov
12
2010
The word “ordeal” was what caught my attention first. It was a news story about the Carnival Splendor, one of the largest cruise ships in the world, disabled off the coast of California early this week. Ordeal? Amid all that luxury? This must be journalistic overstatement.
Little by little, the details started to emerge as the ship was towed back to San Diego, then came a flood of reports yesterday after the ship reached port. Smoky corridors. Blocked up toilets. Stench filled hallways. Interior rooms with no light or ventilation. And two hour waits to be served hot dog salad and Spam. (It is a strange footnote to this entire episode that the only thing the cruise line has disputed is that Spam was served to the passengers. What’s the big deal about Spam among all of the other hardships? But I digress…) Read more »
May
10
2010
“Old Literature” is an occasional series pointing to works of the past, sometimes well known, sometimes not, that have embedded in them a clear creation care message. [Check out previous posts in the series here.] C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books are perfect subjects for this series, and have long been on my mental list. Before I got to him, though, Dean Ohlman at Wonder of Creation blog did the job for me, with a little Isaac Watts and John Newton thrown in for good measure. Here is his meditation on Narnia – reposted by permission:
[Peter said,] “Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets (Acts 3:18-21)
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May
05
2010
Situations like the oil spill in the gulf tend to leave us deflated and discouraged. It’s good, therefore, to be reminded that amid the rubble that we have created in God’s world, he occasionally shows us that there is (still) beauty and wonder when we can shout “Stop!” and look. This post from our friend Donn Ring is a perfect counterpoint to the last one on praying over the oil spill. Enjoy, and spend some time pondering his fantastic photography. Then get yourself *outside* today and look for some wonders yourself!
A few weeks ago we heard rumors of wild flowers in bloom on the south side of the Superstition Mountains east-northeast of Phoenix. We hopped in Dennis’ Honda Element “Pudge” and charged up the road from Arizona City. Once spring temperatures heat up, desert flower displays can be very short lived. We must move!
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May
02
2010
How do you pray about an oil spill?
It’s a legitimate question: The news is getting worse by the day for those of us many miles away, and no doubt by the hour for those living in the area of impact. This morning we learned that some experts believe the amount of oil leaking may be much more than even the revised estimate of 5,000 barrels per day. More worrisome than that, there is now real concern that the oil may join the Gulf stream ocean current, which would send it around the tip of Florida and all the way up the East Coast of the United States, staining beaches and killing wildlife as it goes. Read more »
