Holy One,
We send our prayers to you for strength and courage for all those who find themselves in unexpected circumstances that are tearing them away from their homes.
Many will not know if they can return, or when they can return. This journey they are on will be long and hard.
May our hearts connect us with compassion so that we can offer each other support, empathy and fierce love in these trying times.
Open our heads to allow us to find ways to offer what we can, in ways large and small, to hold the hurting, to give comfort, to be the ways of love that your people need.
Inspired by your love, lifted by your spirit, may we be all that you need us to be in these moments.
Amen.
Helen Reed Chair of Northern Spirit Regional Council Executive United Church of Canada
I'm trying to recall if the last time I was in Jasper, Alberta was when I was nineteen. I headed out west with two friends in a VW Beetle hippie-mobile and we kicked around Banff, camping in that national park. Did we also travel to Jasper? I know that I was there as a kid with my family. This area is now part of a Unesco World Heritage Site because of its unique natural beauty.
Now a significant part of the town of 4.500 has been destroyed by a wildfire that simply couldn't be stopped, despite every effort. Key instrastructure was saved, including the hospital and schools, but home and businesses were burned to ashes. And, of course, the verdant green of the surrounding forests has been blackened. It will take generations for new growth and it won't be the same. The thousands of displaced people live in dread of what they will return to.
The premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, shed tears as she toured the stricken community, and I have to admit that this made me angry. She is essentially a climate change denier in practical terms and she consistently fails in leadership on this front. She fights the feds at every turn when it comes to addressing the crisis. What will it take for Smith and her government to take this threat seriously?
The prayer above sensitively addresses the crisis for the people of Jasper and the surrounding area. We can certainly pray these words.
It's important to be aware that there are more than 100 wildfires burning in Alberta, many of them out of control. Other communities are under threat and a number of them are Indigenous. We are regularly reminded by Indigenous leaders that their communities are often most vulnerable and they pay the price for the climate change they have not created The evacuations are calamitous for the residents, culturally and materially. They tend to be "out of sight and out of mind" compared to a tourist centre such as Jasper.
When I was a child and a teen wildfires were a real threat, but these conflagrations sweeping away communities were unthinkable. We can't be in denial as our world changes. Officials are offering assurances that the town will rebuild, but residents have been traumatized and forests take generations to regenerate.
Our prayers can have a broad reach in the midst of this crisis.
2 comments:
Just one of many reasons we need to pray that neither Trump nor Poilievre win their elections. Neither of them would do anything to deal with climate change, and in fact would accelerate the change.
It's so frustrating listening to these climate-change deniers, when the vast majority of scientists insist it's real.
Yes Roger, this brings me back --again -- to the expression "there are none so blind as those who will not see." I'm not sure how the climate scientists don't fall into total despair. We need leaders with courage and foresight, not pathetic slogans and sound bites.
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