Global warming, notes this article by Jon Queally on CommonDreams.org, is making the world hot and dry and also cold and wet. It snowed last week in Jerusalem. China is enduring its coldest winter in nearly 30 years. Brazil is in the grip of a heat spell. There have been bush fires in Australia and floods in Pakistan and the United Kingdom. "Such events are increasing in intensity as well as frequency," said Omar Baddour of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva.

And so we pray this news . . .

For the Broken Earth by Bill Leonard

We believe it is your good earth, O God, and our celebration of your world is tempered by our recognition of the pollution that surrounds us, most of which is our own creation. The water is full of chemicals, the air of heavy with pollution, the rain is killing the trees, and we are scared. We are tampering with the grand scheme of things in ways that both bless us and contaminate us and the earth; its air, sea, and land are stretched to the breaking point.

Give us courage to speak out in moments such as this, but open our own eyes to see how we are the problem in ways large and small -- we and the processing plants that are so destructive. We want justice until it inconveniences us. We whine about the strip mines, but we patronize the strip malls. We are all accomplices in the rush to rob the earth.

So forgive us this day our daily pollutions, and give us strength to change our ways. Let us speak out to the powerful, who can change policies even as we examine our own lives and lifestyles. Help us to change the little habits that seem innocent until multiplied by six billion. With the psalmist let us lift up our eyes to the hills, Your hills and mountains, O God, and seek your help, for our going out and coming in, from this day forth and even forever more.

Amen.

— from Prayers for the New Social Awakening by Christian Iosso and Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty


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