I will encourage any congregation I serve to be engaged fully in the pursuit of healthy earth relations.  I consider this a right-relations issue, and think that anything less than excellent and loving care for our world is unacceptable.  As stewards, lovers, and dependents of this precious earth, it is our greatest calling to think intentionally about how we treat our water, air, plants, and fellow beings on this planet.  The earth is our great body. It should be our honor to care for it and our duty to respect and revere that which we are completely and utterly dependent on.

 

Climate Change and Intersectionality

Most UU’s continue to have access to the world’s cleanest water, healthiest food, and safest living locations.  This is a blessing that we ought to care for with the highest gravity and sense of purpose.

Our own well-being and caring for our water and air is a spiritual issue, but access to resources and use of the poor and incarcerated for cleaning up climate change disasters is a justice issue. For many people living today, scarcity and lack of resources are an ever-present reality.  As a minister I will encourage my congregation to engage publicly in community awareness of global impact and to consider sharing materials with other UU congregations and community institutions. For many people in my generation (who are saddled with unpayable student debt and may not be facing a reality where even owning a house seems feasible), shared material realities seem mighty attractive…and even fun!

Climate change is a chance for us to come together and fight for something that we all share so deeply: the earth.  This is an opportunity for economic and racial barrier to be crossed in love and camaraderie as we learn to care for the earth and make action plans for our neighborhoods.

 

IN OUR HANDS by Peter Mayer

The world was very big long ago

The forests and the fields and the oceans

Seemed to roll on forever

If you could see beyond the horizon

You’d never know what you’d find

And then as if before our very eyes

The world began shrinking in size

And we were closer together

Until it seems if we all reached out

That we could reach the whole way round.

CHORUS

And now it’s so small

So small that we have

We have the whole

World in our hands

To carry with love

And give to tomorrow

To all who live there

The World was very big long ago

Stretching on so endlessly so

That we never expected so

That we never expected

That it was just a speck floating by

In an infinite sky

So now we know it isn’t so vast

This lovely little world in our grasp

And everything is connected

So everything we send around the bed

Always comes back around again