2014 Advent
Devotional
Prepare ye the way of the Lord...make straight in the desert a
highway for our God (Isaiah 40:3b)
Presbyterians for
Earth Care presents our Advent/Christmas devotions based on the work of
PEC throughout 2014 as we have joined members and other partners in
seeking eco-justice. We have asked members of PEC to weave reflections
of their witness in that great work and integrate it with the beauty, hope
and Mystery that is coming as we anticipate The Gift, The Christ. All the reflections from pre-Advent
to Epiphany are available on the PEC website. The devotional for the
First Week of Advent is below.
A Report Card: Working
to make straight in the desert a highway
By Holly Hallman, PEC Vice Moderator
Prepare ye the way of The Lord...make straight in the desert a
highway for our God.. (Isaiah 40:3b)
Two years ago the Presbyterians for Earth
Care Steering Committee met at Stony Point for their annual retreat. Rick
Ufford-Chase joined us for a day and after reflecting on who PEC is and how we
work he made some suggestions. His ideas seemed like good ones! He
thought we might bring together many overtures for the General Assembly (GA) in
Detroit—enough, in fact, to have a committee just for issues around the
environment. Underneath the obvious goodness of such an endeavor was a
more subtle idea. He was really inviting the steering committee to be
less of an advisory group and more of a team of front-line activists.
That was and is a big shift. It started us dreaming!
All
sorts of ideas flew on to paper and lined our walls at Stony Point. Our
resounding “yes” was followed by “how?” We affirmed our “yes” last year
at our Ferncliff retreat. And, it is time to reflect on where we are in
that journey! First, we didn’t flood GA with dozens of environmental
overtures. We took three that our steering committee members wrote and one that
we supported and participated in crafting. All of what we took to Detroit
got a great hearing! Two of the four were passed in committee by such a
margin that they went on the consent agenda. The third and fourth, got a
lot of attention and were argued on the floor of the assembly.
Our booth
at GA was well used. We shared our space with Fossil Free PCUSA as a way
of supporting their work. Off-site we had a luncheon with Bill McKibben
(by video) and Fletcher Harper of Green Faith as our keynoters.
And here is the best part.
We are growing our advocacy. We have two sub-groups on the
west coast. Yukon Presbyterians for Earth Care did a regional conference
in September and is looking at the long list of issues that are unique to the
polar regions of our globe. Presbyterians for Earth Care Northwest is
addressing the Carbon Corridor that is erupting across the shaky rail lines of
the area that suddenly are seen as links for coal and oil exports to Asia.
We
are still working on the “how” mentioned above. We are few and the issues
are many. For most of us we know “meeting” to mean something with eye
contact. In a world challenged by the overuse of fossil fuels for travel,
that has to change. We are connecting more and more often—we have to
because there is such an urgency to what we are about—and we are using free
conference calls, lots of them. We are using email groups, list serves
and Skype. The indigenous voices that have spoken to us this year have
all admonished us to listen! That takes on new meaning as we work hard to
hear each other without the eye contact, body language and subtle intonation
that are so much a part of our cultural communications.
My
prayer is that we are “hearing” you, that you are finding groups and issues
that you will lend your voice to, and that PEC will be in your heart through
this Advent season as we await the gift that is born to us again each
Christmas.
Contributor: Holly Hallman lives on the Puget Sound in the
Northwest. She spends a lot of time “listening” to the voices there that
human ears find it hard to hear. She is so grateful for the teachers who
found her and her husband this year. Their nations include the Lummi,
Yupik, Yuchi and Aleut.
