The Sustaining Fire of Creation Time

 

At the beginning of the month I wrote about entering Creation Time, the liturgical season between September 1st and October 4th. 

On Sunday we attended worship at Trenton United, our congregational home. Our pastor, son Isaac, offered a thoughtful message on a Creation Time theme, along with other aspects in the service which acknowledged "to live with respect in Creation." (United Church New Creed.)

This coming Sunday I will be the guest anniversary speaker at Selby United where our nephew, Michael Putnam, is the minister. We've agreed that I will incorporate a Creation Time theme in my sermon, and that hymns and scripture passages will support this focus. This has certainly been a passion for me looking back thirty years to the days before there was a Season of Creation or Creation Time.. 

We have come to realize that caring for the marvellous web of Creation and living with a sense of awe and humility is essential to human survival and for all that lives. 

I'm mindful that both Isaac and Michael are among the younger United Church clergy, both in their early forties. They are parents of young children and the decisions we make today will have a profound impact on their lives. We have four grandchildren, all under the age of ten, and we want them to grow up in a diverse and abundant world of beauty, the way the Creator intends.

I listened to an activist in Delhi, India, a country where air quality is so poor that each year two million people have their deaths hastened because of this form of pollution. While she is committed to the cause she also expressed resignation that the lungs of her children have already been permanently damaged. Closer to home, wildfires in British Columbia have resulted in the city of Vancouver having the poorest air quality on the planet yesterday and residents have been advised to stay inside. 

Isaac upheld hope through concrete actions in his sermon -- Invest, Divest, Rest -- and I will do so as well in my message this Sunday. We pray for the sustaining rather than destructive fire of change for the sake of Holy Ground.