Creation cries out
Fiona Reynolds
September 09, 2019
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Jeremiah 12:4 (IB)
4 How much longer must our land lay parched
and the grass in the fields wither?
No birds or animals remain in it,
for its people are corrupt,
saying, ‘God can’t see what we do.’
This verse from Jeremiah just feels far too close to home right now. As our screens are filled by politicians across the world bickering — sometimes over not inconsequential matters — our world is quietly being destroyed. The damage being done to creation is not making headlines as often as it should or as loudly as it ought. Droughts are leading to failed crops and starvation. Fires are raging uncontrollably from the Amazon to the Arctic. Flood waters are washing away livestock and homes. Hundreds of animals and plants face extinction, just as our own food security demands diversification. And for what? For a small minority to gain more zeros at the bottom of their bank statement? For millions to consume more meat than is good for them? Yet, for too many of us, too much of the time, it is out of sight and so out of mind.
Where is the compassion, God?
Where is the understanding?
How many more animals must die?
Or children starve?
Or families go homeless?
What will it take for you to change the course of history?
Restart creation once more?
Destroy the evil ones?
What will it take for us to sit up and notice?
To care enough to change our lives?
To see that it is your creative power that is going up in smoke?
Or drowning in the torrents?
Or withering away to nothing?
Redeeming God,
Give to all of us:
eyes to see and ears to hear,
hearts for justice and hands for action,
faith to know we can make a difference
and the humility to know it starts with us, AMEN.
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