This post is the Christmas letter my wife and I have just sent out to our friends and financial partners in our ministry.  Suspecting that a few of the regular visitors to Our Father’s World might not be on our distribution list, here are our thoughts this Christmas season.  Note that the first half is a devotional – we’ve been doing this in our letters for at least 15 years – and the second contains brief news about our family.  You are welcome to read both – we’d love to have you meet our family in this way, if not in person!  And feel free to contact me directly if you’d like to be added to the direct distribution list or click here if you would like to partner with us by donating to our ministry.  Our work is mostly provided for my small-ish gifts from ordinary people. –End of Commercial– !

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Dear Friends,

Of all the common Christmas carols echoing in shopping malls, elevators and on the radio – not to mention in churches and on our music players – surely the most interesting and subversive is “Joy to the World.”

You’re not in the habit of thinking of Christmas carols as subversive?  Take another look at this carol:

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Have you noticed that this carol is not about Christmas at all?  We are not singing here about what is commonly called Christ’s first advent – angels, shepherds, manger, magi.  No, this song is a look into the future – when Jesus returns to establish his kingdom of righteousness and justice on the earth.  Far from being sweetness and light and romance, this is a song of triumph and of victory over evil.  Its message should make the powers that rule this world quake with fear!  And – not coincidentally –  it is perhaps one of the best expositions of a major theme in my own teaching, that redemption is more than salvation!  “Heaven and nature” are singing.  “Fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains” are echoing the sound.  Thorns will no longer “infest the ground”.  He – Jesus – will be present and will “rule the world with truth and grace”.  All of this is profoundly biblical (check out Romans 8:21, Psalm 148 to start with).

So why do we sing this at Christmas?  Because Christmas is only one chapter in the long story of God’s work in human history. The first Advent and the second Advent are two parts of one great plan.  As beautiful and romantic as the Christmas story is, it only becomes meaningful when we see the connections.  The baby is Savior.  The Savior is King.  The King is coming to restore his Kingdom.  And we, his subjects, demonstrate that by preparing for his coming by allowing him to rule our lives now.

We give meaning to Christmas and we prepare for the coming of our King by bringing his rule into our present in anticipation of this great future.  We learn to love the King and to accept his love.  We allow his Spirit to work in our lives to be more like him.  We practice our love for him by loving each other in family and in community and reflecting that love to all those in need around us.  We learn to live in God’s creation in a way that the “rocks, hills and plains” will rejoice and “heaven and nature” will sing, not just because King is coming, but because we, his people are already here, preparing the way for Him!

That, in a nutshell, is why this interesting and subversive Christmas carol is and should remain part of the standard list of carols we sing.

It’s also why we do what we do with Care of Creation!

And we thank you for your interest, partnership in and support of our life and ministry.  It is now almost 5 years since we sent out our “Sometimes you have to leap, and build your wings on the way down” letter marking the beginning of this adventure.  We now see a genuine movement beginning in the evangelical community – in the US and abroad – and we find ourselves right in the middle of it:

• Urbana09 – in St Louis right after Christmas –will feature an evening focusing on environment as an issue and no less than 9 seminars (workshops) on creation care, half of which will be taught by Care of Creation staff or our close ministry partners, Renewal and Eden Vigil.
• A new Zondervan book release – Zealous Love – features a chapter by me and Susanna on our call to the ministry of creation care, and Our Father’s World continues to sell moderately well.
• We are involved directly or in partnership with the Creation Care Consultation, a fellowship of like-minded organizations; with the National Association of Evangelicals, the Evangelical Environmental Network, the Evangelical Press Association, the US Committee of the Micah Challenge, and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES).
• Our recent experience of bringing the Our Father’s World seminar to the Philippines and Japan is opening doors to many other countries.  It is our goal, everywhere we go, to seek to lay the foundation for a self-sustaining, biblical creation care movement.  This is already happening in the Philippines.

[But we’re still building the wings to sustain all of this.  Our current financial situation is precarious – personally and organizationally.  We anticipate losing our largest supporting church in February due to their own budget difficulties.  We need you!  Thanks for taking a look at the enclosed response form…]

Family wise, it’s been a good year.  We had the whole family together in June for a few brief days at a cousin’s wedding.  Tim even came from the Dominican Republic, where he is well into his second year with the Peace Corps, along with his lovely girlfriend Kim Dykwell.  He will end that service in May, and has been heavily engaged in submitting graduate school applications.  Other members of the family will also be transitioning in the coming year: Katrina graduates from University of Wisconsin in May, is also looking at grad schools and would like to do her Masters degree in China.  Amy will graduate from the University of Minnesota the same weekend and is still deciding what God has in store for her next year. She’s loved being a Nanny this year.  Melanie changed her position at Cornerstone Christian Academy in Philadelphia where she’s been for a number of years.  She’s now working in Administration, which she seems to be enjoying, and has been active with some significant leadership positions in her church.

And the parents are hanging on to the empty nest with glee.  (Most of the bedrooms have been repurposed so it stays that way.)  Susanna came through knee replacement surgery in April better than expected, and is now more mobile than in many years.  With improved health she has steadily added activities, including a bible study for three young(er) women, and involvement with some of the needy people on our street.  And I (Ed) keep on keeping on, grateful for good friends, health and strength sufficient (usually) for the demands of the day.

Thank you again for your love, prayers, and partnership.  We appreciate every one of you.

Ed and Susanna Brown

Not long ago I was reading a 26 year old essay by Wendell Berry (“Two Economies” – included in Berry, The Art of the Commonplace) in which he refers to a short section of a 200 year old poem by William Blake, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, when I discovered a one month old news release – and it suddenly all made sense. Sort of.

Okay, I’ll explain. Here’s a bit of the poem:

I turn my eyes to the Schools & Universities of Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof rages dire
Washd by the Water-wheels of Newton. black the cloth
In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation; cruel Works
Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic
Moving by compulsion each other: not as those in Eden: which
Wheel within Wheel in freedom revolve in harmony & peace.

Now the essay. Berry is trying to untangle Blake’s sometimes mysterious language for us, noting a double Biblical reference to both the harmony of Eden and the Prophet Ezekiel’s vision of “wheels within wheels” (Ezekiel 1):

By “wheel without wheel”, Blake meant wheel outside of wheel, one wheel communicating motion to the other in the manner of two cogwheels, the point being that one wheel can turn another wheel outside of itself only in a direction opposite to its own. [This metaphor] becomes “Satanic” when it becomes a ruling metaphor and is used to describe and to organize fundamental relationships. Against the Satanic “wheel without wheel”, Blake set the wheels of Eden, which “Wheel within wheel in freedom revolve in harmony and peace.”

There’s more in Berry, and a lot more mystery in the Blake poem itself – I commend them both to you! – but the irony of this reading experience came with a brief excursion into multi-tasking, which is how I found the news release. The National Science Foundation used this headline on their release: Earth’s biogeochemical cycles, once in concert, falling out of sync .

The NSF was reporting on some research that had just come out at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America:

Researchers are discovering that biogeochemical cycles–whether the water cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle, or others–happen in concert with one another. Biogeochemical cycles are “coupled” to each other and to Earth’s physical features.

“Historically, biogeochemists have focused on specific cycles, such as the carbon cycle or the nitrogen cycle,” said Tim Killeen, NSF assistant director for geosciences. “Biogeochemical cycles don’t exist in isolation, however. There is no nitrogen cycle without a carbon cycle, a hydrogen cycle, an oxygen cycle, and even cycles of trace metals such as iron.”

Now, with global warming and other planet-wide impacts, biogeochemical cycles are being drastically altered. Like broken gears in machinery that was once finely-tuned, these cycles are falling out of sync.

Do you see what grabbed my attention? “Like broken gears in machinery that was once finely tuned…” Blake’s Satanic cogs? It would appear so…

What is my point?

200 years ago William Blake witnessed the arrival of the industrial revolution with great misgiving. He saw giant factories belching smoke and fumes and filled with whirling machinery (“Satanic wheels”) as far more dangerous than sources of smoke and pollution, far more damaging than the injuries being caused. They represented a new force, a force in fundamental opposition to the harmony in God’s creation. But who listens to poets?

26 years ago Wendell Berry sees the same process at work, grown that much more powerful, that much more virulent, that much more dangerous. Who listens to essayists?

And now, in 2009, we can hear scientists – no wooly headed poets these guys – saying the fundamental cycles of creation, cycles we never even knew existed until a few years ago, are “out of sync”. Now there is a lovely modern euphemism whose gentle sound belies its potential for calamity. “Out of sync” in a wrist watch or wall clock means little – precision doesn’t matter. “Out of sync” (or out of tune) in a musical instrument means disaster for the performer but no harm for the rest of us (unless we have to listen). “Out of sync” in a medical instrument, however, probably means death.

What do you suppose “out of sync” means when we’re talking about some of the fundamental processes of God’s creation? I don’t know either, but I don’t think it’s good.

So what shall we do?

Well, if we want to get ourselves “back in sync” with God’s creation wouldn’t you think it would be good to get “back in sync” with God?

Now, there’s a thought…

A good friend, who doesn’t think himself an intellectual but who in fact is one of the best-read people in my life, sent me two different pieces over the last couple of months, both of which qualify as being old, if not ancient.  But which both speak volumes to our present environmental predicament:

Today, a poem that is at least 150 years old:

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge |&| shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast |&| with ah! bright wings.

[Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1848-1889]

It’s all here – creation’s glory, humanity’s abuse (“all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;/And wears man’s smudge”), our alienation (“nor can foot feel, being shod”  – what a great line!).

If Hopkins could see and write about the world as he did in the 19th century, what might he have had to say about the world as we see it today?

But look – the poet has left us with hope.  Not hope in technology, and not hope in policy or regulation – but hope in God:  “Nature is never spent…” not because of a mystical belief in the resilience of nature, but

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast |&| with ah! bright wings.

We have said before, and will repeat often on these pages (you’ve been warned) – the environmental crisis is a spiritual crisis.  And though technology, policy, regulation and activism all have their place, in the end it is only a return to the God who made the place that will give us hope, and help, and health – and peace.