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Mardi Tindal

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Earth Day Excitement Builds in the Easter season

I arrived home from Kootenay presbytery at midnight last night, bursting with resurrection soul-energy for God’s wonderful world and wonderful church. The packed choir loft of Kimberley United Church in Kimberley B.C. yesterday couldn’t contain the harmonies of trumpet and voice in singing and playing What a Wonderful World (music and lyrics by Weiss and Thiele, arranged by Russ Robinson.)

Joyful soungs echoed out into the surrounding mountains and community, and at the end of our exuberant worship, we recommitted our energies and voices as all ages, as we set out for home to plan Earth Day celebrations for this Sunday, April 22nd.

Throughout the weekend I heard stories of ecological suffering and ecological hope. Mark Creek in Kimberley, for example, used to run orange as a result of mining in the area. Today it runs clean and is full of fish, thanks to an abundant communal effort involving the whole community – including the mining industry. And we also spoke honestly and directly to the huge environmental challenges facing us, sharing stories of perceived scarcity and abundant possibilities for how to participate in God's healing and mending work. Some spoke of how folks in the environmental movement are expressing gratitude for our church’s care and commitment.

If you’re planning to bring Earth day energy to your community in worship and work next Sunday, I invite you to join others throughout The United Church of Canada in Earth Day worship and celebration. There are a number of ways to join in, with details for each are now posted on the website, including how to feed-in your stories (via facebook and twitter or comments here) about on how you are - or will be - celebrating Earth Day wherever you are!

You can find a common United Church liturgy for our worship next Sunday, newly created inspiring and child-friendly hymns chosen from an abundant response to a sacred song writing contest for this day, and instructions on how to join us for an our hour-long live interactive webcast hosted by me and the Hon. (and Rev.) David MacDonald from 3:00pm Eastern time:

http://www.united-church.ca/earthday

I look forward to being with you next Sunday, joined together in more expressions of our participation in God's Easter healing of soul, community and creation!

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