Inspiration from Voices for the Earth
Rev. Woody Bartlett, GIPL Co-Founder and current Board Member, wrote this text for Holy Trinity Parish's Voices for the Earth event on November 5th. Please enjoy these inspiring words and view more event photos here.
The 18th Century English hymnist, Isaac Watts, states as well as anyone that God is everywhere present in the Creation. God is behind the mountains, the stars, the creatures, everything. “Everywhere that I could be, thou, God, art present there.” Let us sing together one of Watts’ most compelling hymns, “I sing the almighty power of God”. But our present day experience is far from the awe-inspiring vision of Isaac Watts. We humans have often had a crushing impact upon the Earth. Just take Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, as it is described by John Prine in “Paradise”.
We humans are drastically changing the land upon which we live. Habitats, upon which local life depends, are changing at a rate faster than the local life can change. Whole species are going extinct. The weather itself is being changed by the activities of humans. These changes are happening on a global scale. And they are also happening locally, one environmental tragedy at a time. Take the case of the baby killed as the result of mountaintop removal. Caroline Herring tells the story through a song that she wrote, “Black Mountain Lullaby”.Increasingly, we are getting warnings that come to us in the language of Nature itself. Temperatures hit all-time highs. Hurricanes set records for viciousness and damage. Sea levels rise and floods are worse than ever. Nature seems to be stepping up to warn us of some important things. Charles Absher tells us that it’s “Nature’s Way”.It wasn’t too long ago that we had fairly temperate summer weather in the South. No longer. A good dose of climate change and many paved parking lots later, temperate summers are a thing of the past. As always, we don’t know what we got until it’s gone. Deanna Pope Ozio sings “Big Yellow Taxi”.But this is not our handiwork that we are tinkering with. These mountains that are having their peaks destroyed; these glaciers that are m
elting into oblivion; these forests that are being clear-cut; these beauties of the natural world, they are not our creation. The Lord God made them all. The Chapel Choir from Glenn Memorial UMC explains it in “All Things Bright and Beautiful”.We live in a wonderful garden, entrusted to us by the Lord God as stewards of that garden. We may live in this garden if we care for it responsibly. We do not own the garden. We are caretakers of the garden. Charles Absher has the word on it in “The Cool of the Day”.God gave us the garden to enjoy as long as we take care of it. However, we are despoiling the garden entrusted to us. The damage has become so pervasive that it is difficult to see a clear way out of our mess. We need help! Kaitlin Curtis invites us “Down in the River to Pray”.But we know that we must do more than pray. Yes, we must pray. But our prayers must lead to action, concrete changes in the ways we relate to the earth. And we know that there will be no quick fix, tempting as that might be. So we had better start, even an inch at a time. Liz Grant Hilton urges us on in “Garden Song”.Don’t think it’s going to be as easy as planting a small garden. The changes we must make involve great systems: the ways we transport ourselves, the ways we feed ourselves, the ways we generate and use electricity. We’re going to have to wade in some deep waters. And to be sure that we really get it, God’s going to trouble those waters. Caitlin Curtis puts it into song with “Wade in the Water”.
Despite the difficult situation in which we find ourselves, still we are a people of faith, a people of hope. As God provided escape to God’s people enslaved in Egypt, as God conquered death itself through the Resurrection, so we live on hope. We do not know what form the deliverance will take. We just trust that God is stronger than anything we can face, stronger even than death itself, stronger, surely, than the powers of hell. So hush, little baby, let go of your fear. There will be new streams and new hope. Lift up your wings and fly. Listen to “The Great Storm is Over” from Caroline Herring.God promises us a New Jerusalem, a new creation where the wolf shall lie down with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them. And there will be crying no more. Even the most faithful among us strain to see this vision of tomorrow. And yet we long for it. So we work for it with all of our strength. And we put our hope in God. Mary Martha Clark reminds us of the promise in “Morning Has Broken”.Finally, this fragile earth, our island home, is the place where we live. And it is beautiful. So we sing lovingly for “This Pretty Planet”.