MODERATOR’S MESSAGE:
OUR SAINTS AND PROPHETS
Read the entire PEC Update HERE
We need all the wisdom we can gather.
During these times of acute climate change, it is so important
to be open to ancient words and holy words, words of past and present prophets.
Recently, in the search for Earth justice, I have been gifted to meet some
amazingly wise and passionate people.
The Yukon PEC conference was certainly one of those times where
I made contact, heart and mind, with people of great wisdom and passion from
theological, scientific, and spiritual perspectives. I am grateful to have met
native persons from Alaska, particularly Larry Merculieff, an Aleut elder from
Pribilof Islands. Through his words, we learned the importance of relationship
and how silence is a great teacher.
I also am grateful for having met and worked with Curtis and
Cindee Karns in their bio-shelter, a one of a kind (in the world) home in
Anchorage. They shared about lifestyle integrity and relationship though
Christian permaculture.
During the UN Climate March, (wearing my PEC t-shirt), I
introduced myself to a woman from Syracuse, NY, standing next to me, who said,
"Perhaps you knew my father, Bill Gibson." What an honor! I truly am
grateful beyond words for his prophetic and pioneering work in eco-justice, a
term he coined.
As we look to our 20th anniversary in 2015, I am reminded of Dr.
Gibson's words:
"Eco-justice [is] the wellbeing of all humankind on a
thriving earth. As a goal, it retains and reinforces all of the church's
longstanding commitment to justice in the social order, and it adds a major new
insight of our time: that justice to human beings is inseparable from right
relationships with and within the natural order. Eco-justice includes social
and economic justice and, by combining it with ecological awareness and
appreciation, profoundly affects the way it is to be achieved. Eco-justice
means justice to all of God's creation." (From: Keeping and Healing the
Creation; a Resource Paper of the Pres-byterian Eco-justice Task Force, issued
by the Committee on Social Witness Policy of the PCUSA).
Praise be to God for Saints past and present, Prophets of wisdom
who have tilled and planted the Garden. Let us together continue to harvest and
share the harvest wisdom. Let us pray and prophesy and hold fast. For it is our
work and our calling.
Amen.
Diane Waddell,
PEC Moderator
Photo taken by Tiffany Immigan at Camp Birchwood's Psalm Lake in
Yukon Presbytery.
Care for Creation and be good stewards of the earth and God's Creation
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