Mardi Tindal
Moderator Mardi Tindal's blog: To you, O God, I call
Posted on: 03/18/2011 10:02
Disturbing stories of suffering in Japan and our own anxieties about hazards from damaged nuclear reactors have focused our prayers for more than a week. The death of a beloved daughter of friends has broken my heart open further. I have taken my broken heart to be with other broken hearts in an online Lenten community, in part because travelling has made it impossible to sit regularly with any one physical circle of friends in Christ. In the mystery that is of God, we unite our broken hearts and as a result are able to take heart again.
Irshad Manji writes in today’s Globe and Mail, “The media vessels that can overwhelm us with information and misinformation can also be used to draw strength, serenity and, on occasion, wisdom.”
Our shared online prayers this morning seemed particularly poignant, beginning with the words, “From the depth of my being, I call to you, Blessed Energy of this expansive cosmos…”
Receiving the name of God as Blessed Energy and Blessed Unity frames the week’s unfolding. After contacting our 10 Japanese United Church of Canada congregations last Saturday, I was amazed by the grateful and grace-filled responses and reminded of how Blessed Unity is known in the assurance of communal prayer. On behalf of United Church members I have also written to our partner churches and overseas personnel serving in Japan. While I’m sometimes tempted to think that prayer isn’t much to offer, again I am proven wrong.
Many of you are using new media vessels to add to “expressions of strength, serenity and wisdom” that are of God. I was particularly grateful this week for the Very Rev. Peter Short’s willingness to allow us to retrieve and post his words of wisdom that were first offered at the time of another tsunami. In 2005, he wrote,
Even as we do what we can—giving generously to bring relief, keeping vigil with those still frantic to account for loved ones, trying to contemplate the rebuilding—we cannot escape this: we are dismantled inside.
We are dismantled inside, and we lean on Blessed Unity to help us gather up and piece together all that is dismantled. We rely on Blessed Energy to participate in God’s healing.
Peter goes on to say, “I have come to believe that God’s ultimate commitment to the world and its creatures is not a commitment to control but a commitment to love.”
May our commitment as God’s people be a commitment to love. There are many ways to love and to participate in God’s healing of soul, community, and creation. To hear the latest church news from Japan and about opportunities to love there, and for Peter Short’s full text, visit the Japan Relief page on the United Church website.
“I lift my hands toward your most holy sanctuary” (Psalm 28:2). May we lift our hands and broken hearts to God, and extend our hands and broken hearts to one another.
Whether your community is located in time and space or in the digital realm, I wonder how you’re extending hands and hearts for Japan.
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Comments
SophiaWisdom
Posted on: 03/22/2011 11:11
I am praying for the people of Japan and I think about all those around the world who are being affected by tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornados..... There is a part of me that wonders whether people are suffering because of what is being done to the earth. A friend reassured me that the tsunami in Japan is a natural occurrence and has to do with plates shifting, but I wonder if plates shifting can be caused by oil drilling and mine blasting, for example. We put a lot of pressure on this earth. Are we causing the earth to shift?
In the meantime, I will continue praying and sending healing energy to those affected by such catastrophic events.
Mardi Tindal
Posted on: 03/26/2011 18:08
Thank you for this, and for expressing what many of us have been wondering. I share your concern, and before you read the troubling reports below, let me tell you that I've just written a Good Friday to Easter article, out of this concern. Earth Day and Good Friday both fall on April 22nd, 2011 - and Earth Day 2012 will fall on the third Sunday of Easter. The hope is that the article will become available not only through the church but through mainstream media.
There is a liturgical opportunity with this coincidence of dates, to face into truth and regain deep hope that will help us meet the enormous challenges facing the world God loves.
There is much written about the connection between floods, droughts and global warming. Until recently, we weren't hearing much about the connection with earthquakes. However, there seems to be one, and I have been sent a number of related reports/links.
Following is an excerpt from an email message sent by a reliable which a friend. Again, before you read these comments, remember that a community of Christ is a community of hope:
"When the ice is lost, the earth's crust bounces back up again and that
triggers earthquakes, which trigger submarine landslides, which cause
tsunamis," Bill McGuire, professor at University College London, told
Reuters. Melting ice masses change the pressures on the underlying earth, which can
lead to earthquakes and tsunamis, but that's just the beginning. Rising seas
also change the balance of mass across earth's surface, putting new strain
on old earthquake faults, and may have been partly to blame for the
devastating 2004 tsunami that struck Southeast Asia, according to experts
from the China Meteorological Administration.
Even a simple change in the weather can dramatically affect the earth
beneath our feet:
David Pyle of Oxford University said small changes in the mass of the
earth's surface seems to affect volcanic activity in general, not just in
places where ice receded after a cold spell. Weather patterns also seem to
affect volcanic activity - not just the other way round, he told the
conference.
Scientists have known for some time that climate change affects not just the
atmosphere and the oceans but also the Earth's crust. These effects are not
widely understood by the public.