DAY 17

Image by Sami Keinänen

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A Greeting
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in God my heart trusts; so I am helped.
(Psalm 28:7)

A Reading
When a spirit from on high is poured out on us, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest, then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever. My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.
(Isaiah 32:14b-18)

Music


Meditative Verse
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
(Psalm 42:1)

A Prayer
Look with mercy, gracious God, upon people everywhere
who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant
companions. Rouse us from our complacency and help us to
eliminate cruelty where it is found. Strengthen those who seek
equality for all. Grant that everyone may enjoy a fair portion of
the abundance of the earth; through your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
- from "Prayers for the Oppressed",
found in Evangelical Lutheran Worship

Verse for the Day
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
God's understanding is beyond measure.
(Psalm 147:5)

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Image by Sami Keinänen

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Isaiah’s dream of having a righteous and just world comes in the image of a fruitful field or wilderness, where people “abide in a peaceful habitation”. The Sami peoples of northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland have long struggled to maintain their customs in the face of mining and logging enterprises that wreak havoc on their way of life, and in particular on the traditions of reindeer herding. In recent years, copper mining has become prominent and is ironically linked to efforts to avert climate change: copper is used for electric cars and for other modes of transporting electricity. At the northernmost point in Norway at Repparfjord, however, copper mining results in the dumping of tailings into the sea, disturbing fishing life and upsetting ecosystems. It also directly impacts the reindeer who migrate through the region and drink from the waters. Britta Marakatt Labbas is a Sami textile artist who was raised in a reindeer-herding family. Her creativity takes the form of epic embroidery: in one project called Historija, her embroidered history of the Sami people stretches twenty-four metres in length. In the video below, we see another work called Kråkan which depicts a violent conflict that took place in the early 1980s in Alta, Norway, when Norwegian police cracked down on Sami protestors who were trying to prevent the building of a hydro-electric dam on traditional Sami reindeer herding land. In the video, as the camera pans over Labbas’ work, we see smoke emerge from the tents and drift away. Eventually it crosses paths with crows who turn into and become police confronting the people. Labbas based the work on her own experience of having been present at the Alta protest. In more recent days she has turned her art toward climate change, depicting the contrasts of disappearing herding lands to expanding mining communities. As the deer pants for water, so we all thirst for justice. How can we find ways to resolve our climate challenges and find renewable forms of energy that also allow for Indigenous peoples to stay in right relationship to the creatures and traditions of the lands they have always known? How can our deep trust in a loving and restorative God guide us into peaceful solutions?

A CREATIVE PROJECT



Please note: for the next two days, the planned pages will be suspended to make space for special devotional pages that will respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.


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LC† Reimagining Justice is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto,
supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
Join us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram and on Twitter.

DAY 10

Screen shot from "Mammoth", today's creative project film
by Grant Slater

Melting Permafrost: 2


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A Greeting
Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God.
(Psalm 104:1)

A Reading
God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’
And it was so.
(Genesis 1:29-30)

Music



Meditative Verse
I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals,
the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground.
(Hosea 2:18a)

A Reflection
If we accept the popular vision that we are all headed to heaven someday, then it becomes easy to turn our back on the earth, because it doesn’t really matter. We will never foster an ecologically healing vision and practice in our lives as long we hold on to an unbiblical heaven-focused theology. Biblical hope, in Paul and throughout the canon, is decidedly this-worldly. Resurrection hope is always a bodily hope that encompasses all of creation. The Bible calls us to remember who we are: we are from the earth, we are for the earth, and we are destined for the new earth, where God will dwell with us. Or, in the language of Romans 8, we are the children of God who will one day be agents of creation’s liberation when our bodies are redeemed. This is language of resurrection, the language of hope. Throughout the book of Romans, the longing for resurrection found throughout the Scriptures is answered in Jesus.
- from Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire, Demanding Justice
by Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh


Verse for the Day
For the creation waits with eager longing
for the revealing of the children of God
(Romans 8:19)

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Screen shot from "Mammoth", today's creative project film
by Grant Slater

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Today’s reflection by Sylvia Keesmaat-Walsh and Brian Walsh appeared in the Advent 2019 devotional project Praying for Creation. On that day we reflected on how Paul’s vision of hope in Romans is one in which we must believe that the world can be healed (see that page here), noting that prayer is where God’s deepest desire for the world and our own longings meet and transformation begins. That longing for the restoration of the earth will begin with the earth, as the earth is at the very center of all climate change conversation. It is from the earth that we extract fossil fuels to burn. It is on the earth that humans and other animals make their homes. It is the earth that hosts waters and forests that are degraded by pollution and it is the frozen permafrost earth under the tundra of the Arctic that is melting. How “on earth” can we connect back to that hope we had in Advent, when we prayed for transformation and aligned ourselves with the groaning Creation? Today’s reading returns us to Genesis, where we are reminded that the flora and fauna were created before humankind was created. The very next verse is the creation of humans. God created all of the creatures of the earth before humankind and then gave humans “dominion”, a word in its origin meaning “care”, of all Creation. In the story below we hear two Siberian ecoscientists describe their vision for how to protect and preseve the permafrost. Sergey and Nikita Zimov, father and son, believe that the answer lies in returning to the Pleistocene era, when herbivore creatures roamed in the thousands. Over twenty years, first father and then son has created “Pleistocene Park”, a nature reserve on the Kolyma River in Siberia, that replicates a grassland ecosystem in which the grazing “mammoth” animals prevented insulation from forming over the permafrost, exposing the ground to the cold air and keeping it frozen. Siberia’s permafrost holds the most lethal quantity of carbon deposit of anywhere in the world. To prevent it from being exposed, the Zimovs have imported bison and yaks from other regions and already begun to see a conversion to grasslands. This kind of ingenuity is Advent thinking in a very Lent-like crisis. It is caring for Creation instead of trying to "fix" it. It is adjusting a life on earth for the sake of the earth. How can it inspire us? How can God’s deepest desire for the world and creative scientific ingenuity on the part of humankind help us to move the earth closer to healing? What role can we play, in our prayers and with our supportive voices, in helping to support those making innovative change?

A CREATIVE SCIENCE PROJECT
The whole video is twenty-five minutes and recommended to watch.
A five minute excerpt has been selected here.



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LC† Reimagining Justice is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto,
supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
Join us on Facebook and follow us @LutConnect

DAY 9

Collapsed Permafrost Tundra on Alaska's Arctic CoastImage by the United States Geological Survey

Melting Permafrost: 1


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A Greeting
Answer me when I call, O God!
Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer.
(Psalm 4:1)

A Reading
They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’
(Mark 7:32-37)

Music
This video is an excerpt from the documentary "Touch the Sound",
about deaf composer and percussionist Evelyn Glennie.
"A Little Prayer" is composed by Glennie, who performs it here.


Meditative Verse
And he said, "Let anyone with ears to hear listen!"
(Mark 4:9)

A Poem
What is it like on the road of life
To meet with a stranger who opens his mouth --
And speaks out a line at a rapid pace;
And you can't understand the look in his face
Because it is new and you're lost in the race?
You have to be deaf to understand.
What is it like to comprehend
Some nimble fingers that paint the scene,
And make you smile and feel serene,
With the "spoken word" of the moving hand
That makes you part of the word at large?
You have to be deaf to understand.
What is it like to "hear" a hand?
Yes, you have to be deaf to understand.
- from "You have to be deaf to understand" by Willard J. Madsen
found on deafpoetry.com

Verse for the Day
What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light;
and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.
(Matthew 10:27)

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Frozen Methane Bubbles
United States Geological Survey

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In today’s reading Jesus transforms a man living without hearing and speech. He is very physically engaged in the process: he puts his fingers in the man’s ears and spitting on his own hands touches the man’s tongue. In the Jesus era, saliva was believed to hold healing properties and was commonly used as a form of treatment. By healing in this way, Jesus is making it clear to the man that he is transforming him. In the New Testament, stories of Jesus’ healing often conclude with a request from Jesus that these acts of his be kept secret. But in their enthusiasm, the crowd is unable to keep from proclaiming what they have witnessed of his divine gifts. At other times he seems emphatically calling us to listen, as in the meditative verse above. Many scientists have been calling us to listen for decades to their deep concerns about the melting permafrost in the Arctic, which is caused when the frozen soil underneath the earth's surface begins to melt, causing depressions and gaps, and releasing stored carbon, including harmful methane gas, into the atmosphere, further adding to greenhouse gases there. The problem then exacerbates itself: as more gases are emitted from the methane and other hydrocarbons, the more the planet warms. In the video below, musician and environmental scientist Daniel Crawford describes the process of translating data on global warming into a string quartet. As the composition progresses through the years, we hear the sound rise gradually and then more rapidly. Elsewhere, Crawford tells us that this data-to-music mapping if progressed another ten years would take the sound beyond the range of human hearing. What will it take to open our own ears to what we don’t want to hear? Can we, like the man who cannot hear, beg to have our listening ears and hearts restored? How can we bring ourselves out of silence and into action?

A CREATIVE PROJECT

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LC† Reimagining Justice is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto,
supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
Join us on Facebook and follow us @LutConnect

DAY 6

Image by Christophe Michel

Rising Sea Levels: 1


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A Greeting
God is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
God is the stronghold of my life.
(Psalm 27:1)

A Reading
Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; there he bowed himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees. He said to his servant, ‘Go up now, look towards the sea.’ He went up and looked, and said, ‘There is nothing.’ Then he said, ‘Go again seven times.’ At the seventh time he said, ‘Look, a little cloud no bigger than a person’s hand is rising out of the sea.’ Then he said, ‘Go and say to Ahab, “Harness your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.” ’ In a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind; there was heavy rain.
(1 Kings 18:42b-45a)

Music



Meditative Verse
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
(Psalm 56:3)

A Poem
Some days I prefer
to ignore your assurances,
pave my own path, lose my own way,
cross quicksand if I have to --
anything but
relinquish my will.
Remember the blistering, narcissistic desert,
the devil who taunted you there?
You know it well - the desire, the drive
to conceive and control, predict and prevail.
You, too, have wrestled the egoistic impulse,
the credit-hoarding greed of spirit
that flares within and keeps me,
on some days, from offering praise,
stops me from seeking your face
or following your excellent way.
I'm left to my echoing solitude,
murmuring my own name.
Jesus, teach me to pray. Lend me your hand,
Talk to me of forgiveness until
all my dear falsehoods fall way.
Mend the cracked compass of my mind,
and guide me to my true desire.
 - from "All My Dear Falsehoods" in Oblation: Meditations on St. Benedict's Rule
by Rachel M. Srubas

Verse for the Day
In the daytime God led them with a cloud,
and all night long with a fiery light.
(Psalm 78:14)

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Image by Christophe Michel

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In today’s reading, the prophet Elijah is waiting for the coming of rain that will end a long drought and terrible famine. God has promised him rain and Elijah sends his servant to watch out for the coming of storm clouds on the horizon. The servant returns saying he sees nothing, but Elijah keeps sending him back to wait for it. Eventually a cloud “no bigger than a person’s hand” is spotted and the rain comes. What no one could see or believe, but Elijah knew, came to pass. It is possible to recast this story for our own times by imagining our scientists and some of our artists, as being like Elijah in our own contemporary story. Time again they have sent us warnings and documentary evidence, and yet we largely do not really want to see or believe that the problem is there or is as grave as they say. It is not until the rain cloud appears on the horizon that the servant believes Elijah. We are currently in that storm cloud phase. Right now one of the biggest concerns to climate scientists is the condition of the Thwaites glacier, one of the largest glaciers in the world, in West Antarctica. A glacier is notable for being snow and ice on the move, traveling as it gathers and accretes snow to itself. In January of this year, the ‘grounding line’ of the Thwaites Glacier, the place where the glacier meets the ground, was observed underwater by a robot which revealed that the glacier is leaking, or melting, from underneath, sending fresh water into the sea around it. Warm water has come underneath the glacier causing it to melt. The whole glacier is known to be unstable, even in the best of times, because it sits unevenly, but as long as it remains frozen, is not a threat. This sighting has raised alarm among climate scientists. It is, for our world, a small black cloud, but not one that brings a long awaited relief, but rather vivid danger. Because of its size, the collapse of this glacier has the potential to raise sea levels around the world by as much as ten feet. As we saw on Friday in Andrea Sparrow’s film about Greenland, glacier recession is happening everywhere. In 2014, British photographer and videographer Simon Norfolk visited the Lewis Glacier on Mt. Kenya, for a project he calls When I am Laid in Earth. In a series of epic photographs, he measured, in fire, the front line of that glacier as it once was in different moments over the last one hundred years, to illustrate how much of it has disappeared. He created his pyrograph by running with a lit torch, while being photographed at a slow speed. In the documentary below, we see this process documented. How do we make something so abstract — like the melting Thwaite and Lewis glaciers — relevant to the choices we will make in our own daily life today? One small decision (to take transit to where we are going, to choose not to purchase single use plastic) every day is a radical gesture if we all do it. What will be yours today?
Are you the servant? or Elijah?

A CREATIVE PROJECT
with grateful thanks to Simon Norfolk for his permission to share.
If video does not appear, please click on "Watch on Vimeo" link to view.



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  In both 2012 and 2015, the Lutherans Connect projects visited Antarctica on the first Monday of Lent. In 2012 it was to profile the beautiful Trinity Russian Orthodox Chapel on King George’s Island. It was noted then that the chapel is near to “an industrial landscape” but the pollution concerns were not a focus. (See that page here.) In 2015, we visited Bellingshausen Station near the chapel and explored the problem of waste that is going on there. (See that page here.) Just a few weeks ago on February 7, an environmental report was released documenting the increased problems of pollution at the Bellingshausen Station, particularly from heavy metals combustion and fossil fuel.


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LC† Reimagining Justice is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto,
supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
Join us on Facebook and follow us @LutConnect