Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, MaryAnn McKibben Dana is curating a series on the Sarasota Statement, which we unveiled a year ago and continue to promote for use in our congregations and communities, along with the accompanying study guide. You will hear from a variety of voices and contexts throughout March, reacting to phrases in the statement, and sharing ways it is being used. How have you used the Sarasota Statement? What is your reaction to these phrases? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!
Editor’s note: In this blog post, abby reflects on the end of Part III of the Sarasota Statement, which reads, ” We work for the healing of our planet from the wounds our own carelessness inflicts.”
by abby mohaupt
I am running next to the ocean; this is the place I call home. While I divide my time between so many places because of God’s call on my life, it is this bend in the path that reminds me who I am. Running here, as the waves lap against the rocks, I remember what the coastline looked like when we first moved here. Four years ago, it was further out…. We could climb down the rocks and into the surf, letting the waves kiss our toes. Our first Thanksgiving by the ocean, the county brought in big rocks to stop the erosion from the king tides. The ocean has been rising; the place I call home is slowly disappearing.
So here, when I look at the sky with its purple and pink and green in the sunset, I fall in love again with this little part of the planet that is groaning.
We work for the healing of our planet
I can hear the leaves crunch under my feet as I wander through the arboretum. I’m picking up the litter the undergrads have left behind. I catch my breath when I see the upturned roots of the tree that fell last spring; I forget what it’s like to watch a tree return to the ground. Ashes to ashes, topsoil to topsoil. This is a death that is part of life. I pick up more litter. This is a death that is not natural but part of a life we have created for ourselves. These are left behind clues of consumerism that will not decay. I listen to the birds call to each other, wondering what they tell each other about us.
And here, when I look at the branches that are just beginning to bud into spring, I fall in love again with this little part of the planet that is groaning.
We work for the healing of our planet
I am on my third conference call for the day, and this time I push my niece in her stroller as I listen to my co-organizer imagine a world without climate change. We are writing an overture, arguing for the moral mandate to divest from fossil fuels. My niece wakes from her sleep and stares at me; I make faces at her to make her smile as we walk down the path back to her house. My mic is on mute because the wind keeps blowing. So, I listen and pray.
Then here, when I look into my niece’s face as she begins to smile, I fall in love again with this little part of the planet that is groaning.
We work for the healing of our planet
I do not know how to love God’s good creation. I know only that in the beginning God breathed everything into being and loved it — all of it. I know only that our first call has been to love creation with our whole selves — with our hearts and souls and minds and strength. I know only that we must do all we can in all the ways we can to love creation with our liturgy, ritual, buildings, and wallets.
So, here I am, looking out onto the whole big lovely world, falling in love with it and letting my heart break for the groaning of this little planet.
We work for the healing of our planet
abby mohaupt is a minister member of San Francisco Presbytery, a PhD student in New Jersey, and a native of Northern Illinois. She is the moderator of Fossil Free PCUSA, a member of the Presbyterian Hunger Program Advisory Committee, and co-editor of Presbyterians for Earth Care’s “EARTH.” abby is a long distance runner, multi-media artist, and deep lover of Jesus and all creation.