A Pastoral Reflection, Week Five of Easter, A Year and Counting of Pandemic Living — May 7, 2021

Considering where we live, we are blessed. Yes we are. But are we good and faithful stewards of this blessing? Lately I’ve been thinking about how much the earth has suffered under our care. And how this suffering is a truly failure of faith.

Christians have long had an outsized footprint in matters of the world’s development. With manifest destiny and that sort of thinking we’ve said, this is ours to use as we see fit. But where is the evidence of our reverence for what God has made? Here’s something to consider: prayer can help us recover reverence and re-orient our poor stewardship practices.
 
Did you know that prayer times were set eons ago to help God’s people appreciate the good rhythms of day and night and the need of our human bodies to retreat from the intensity of daily work? Prayer allows us the room to reflect on what is really needed for both our lives and for creation to know God’s good.
 
Our prayers can be short. A few words at most. Or simple silence, the better to listen to creation breath around us. Because, as creation breathes, we breathe also. And that’s both a blessing and a necessity. God made it so.
 
Go faithfully,
Pr. Beth