January 9, 2025

Loving God’s World

In our Love God, Love God’s World group, which comes to its conclusion next week, we have been learning about how things like global climate change, fracking, and pollution actually touch people’s lives. We have especially been concerned with environmental justice, looking how our misuse of God’s world disproportionately affects the poor and people of color and how even well-intentioned clean-up efforts can do the same.

Most of us do what we can. We turn down the heat and conserve energy, we walk instead of driving when we can, we recycle what we are able. But what can we do together? As our learning comes to an end, we are looking for ways Resurrection can carry resurrection to God’s creation. We have talked about spiritual approaches, like adding prayers for creation into our worship, and practical activities like removing invasives from our own land (taken from the Kalapuya people) or organizing a cleanup day down the hill along Amazon creek. We would love your input and ideas too. How can we exercise loving stewardship of the living land that has come to us, honoring those who came before and preserving it for those who follow? How can we set an example, teaching and helping others to do the same? How can we reach the governments and corporations whose hearts must be converted for true change to happen? How can we incorporate a sense of justice into this work?

Please share your thoughts and ideas with me and with one another. If you would like to help with any of these projects, please let me know. In the year ahead you’ll be hearing more about how we can love God and God’s people by loving God’s world.