Category: Creation Care

Summer Web Conversations about Creation Care

7/7/2020

Dear Friends,

Something is happening!

A group of people, who are passionate about caring for the world that God has made, are coming together to build a new Creation Care Community in the Diocese of Long Island. We want YOU to be part of it. We are longing to hear how God is already at work in your congregation, and the ways you are feeling called to care for the Earth.

Following on the success of our first conversation and relationship building event, we are hosting three more conversations over the summer. They will be regionally focused to allow for more connections to be built between folks sharing the same regional questions.

Follow the link to Register for the events, which are all at 6:30pm. You can attend more than one, or one for a different region if you wish or cannot make the date for your region!

Brooklyn - Monday, July 13
Nassau/Suffolk - Tuesday, July 28
Queens - Thursday, August 13

Bring your passions. Bring your questions.

Questions?
Email The Rev. Mary Beth Mills-Curran marybeth@stjcsh.org.

PS: Please note that these conversations are distinct from the forum on “Caring for Creation: Reflect, Renew, Respond” on 7/15, convened by our colleagues at St. Thomas (Farmingdale) and St. Boniface (Lindenhurst).

Care for Creation: REFLECT, RENEW, RESPOND

6/30/2020

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

St. Boniface, Lindenhurst and St. Thomas, Farmingdale have joined together to collaborate on a grant called Care for Creation: REFLECT, RENEW, RESPOND. Using the strengths, assets, mission and key opportunities of each parish, our goal is to to support and expand our churches’ loving, liberating, life-giving relationship with God, with each other and with Creation. With this grant, we will heed the calls to:

REFLECT (Life Giving) – changing our habits and choices to live more simply, humbly and gently on Earth and in community with one another.

RENEW (Loving) – sharing stories of concern for the Earth and connect others to care.

RESPOND (Liberating) – standing with those most vulnerable to environmental degradation and climate change.

One aspect of this grant is to create the opportunity for learning ways to experience how to REFLECT, RENEW AND RESPOND - to pause, pray and see beyond ourselves. We would like to open this opportunity to your parish as well.

Join us on Wednesday, July 15, 2020 on a Zoom Meeting from 7- 8 pm as we explore meaningful ways to promote self-reflection, renewal, and re-connection within ourselves, in each other and the natural wonders God has abundantly provided all around us. Hands-on experiences will be offered.

For additional information, and to RSVP, please email: creationcareli@gmail.com

Please RSVP no later than July 13th to receive the ZOOM ID information.

A Flyer is below. Please feel free to share with your parish!

Faithfully,

Diane L. Neuls DeBlasio+,
Priest-in-charge, St. Boniface, Lindenhurst

Christina van Liew+,
Interim, St. Thomas, Farmingdale

caring_for_creation_reflect_renew_respond_flyer_july_15_2020.pdf
File Size:	347 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

April 26, 5:30 pm Earth Day Zoom Webinar: Baptism and Earth's Ecology

4/17/2020

Dear Creation Care Community,

Connections between ecological crisis, pandemics, and your baptism? Theology and activism for the Earth and all creatures?

Justice rolling down like mighty waters and its implications for both actual clean water and our baptismal practices?

Join a (zoom) forum presented by the Creation Care Community of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island at 5:30 pm, Sunday, April 26. It will feature Ben Stewart -- academic, theologian, activist, and Lutheran pastor. Ben presented to the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island back in January. Thanks to an invitation and support from our pro-cathedral, St Ann & the Holy Trinity, we are excited to offer to everyone this time to listen, think and enter more deeply into a foundational Christian practice - baptism - and its life-giving yet challenging implications for our relationship to the Earth and other creatures of God.

>> You can register to be part of this free event here.

Dr. Benjamin Stewart is Associate Professor of Worship and Director of Advanced Studies at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

His expertise includes Wisdom in a ‘post-truth’ culture, Renewal of congregational worship life, Religion and ecology, Natural burial as a spiritual practice, And the history, theology, and renewal of Baptism

We hope you will join us and spread the word widely!

Faithfully Yours!

Mary Beth

The Rev. Mary Beth Mills-Curran
marybeth@stjcsh.org
St. John's Episcopal Church
Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724

NASA: 2018 Was The Fourth Warmest Year in Continued Warming Trend

12/5/2019

Earth’s long-term warming trend can be seen in this visualization of NASA’s global temperature record, which shows how the planet’s temperatures are changing over time, compared to a baseline average from 1951 to 1980. The record is shown as a running five-year average. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Kathryn Mersmann.

The impacts of long-term global warming are already being felt — in coastal flooding, heat waves, intense precipitation and ecosystem change

At UN climate conference, Episcopal delegation urges nations to act swiftly and justly

12/4/2019

By Egan Millard

[Episcopal News Service] As the impacts of the climate crisis become more dire with each passing year and the catastrophic future scientists predicted decades ago inches closer to reality, governments have still not taken the actions necessary to protect humanity. Instead of declining, emissions of greenhouse gases have been increasing. And while nations are being warned that the commitments they have already made – such as the Paris Accord – are not enough to ensure a livable future and must do more, the Trump administration has chosen to abandon that agreement.

It is a bleak backdrop for the United Nations Climate Conference, known as COP 25, being held Dec. 2-13 in Madrid, Spain. But a delegation of Episcopalians representing Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is bringing a Christian perspective to the summit, grounded in hope yet committed to substantive action. They are in Spain to share the church’s views on the sanctity of creation and humanity’s moral duty to care for it, as well as the dangers facing the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

The delegation’s objective is “to build relationships – and to do lots of listening, praying, and meeting with global leaders because of our commitment to God’s justice and sustained vision for the earth,” said the Rev. Melanie Mullen, the church’s director of reconciliation, justice and creation care. “We are not alone as religious bodies in this forum – along with ecumenical partners, Episcopalians are expressing our commitment to living a public faith and witness in the world.”

COP 25, or the 25th Conference of the Parties, is critically important because it is seen by many as the last chance to amend the current insufficient emissions commitments to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The U.N. has established that benchmark as the recommended limit, beyond which humanity runs the risk of inflicting “increasingly severe and expensive impacts” on itself. Based on today’s commitments, emissions will be twice what they should be by 2030, missing the 1.5-degree target. Because so little action has been taken, emissions must now drop 7.6 percent every year between 2020 and 2030 in order to reach the target, which the U.N. says is “ambitious but still possible.”

“The overarching theme, which continues to remain uppermost on the agenda, is the need to ramp up ambition significantly, not only by member states but by all parties, including private sector, civil society and individuals,” Lynnaia Main, the church’s representative to the United Nations, told Episcopal News Service.

The presiding bishop has sent a delegation to each COP conference since COP 21 in 2015. This year, the delegation is headed by California Bishop Marc Andrus, an outspoken climate action advocate. Andrus suffered a stroke in October and is participating remotely from California. The team in Madrid consists of Main, Mullen and Jack Cobb, senior policy adviser in The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations.

So far, the delegation has been busy forging new partnerships, Main told ENS, especially with ACT Alliance – a coalition of 156 churches and adjacent organizations working on humanitarian goals around the world.

“The Episcopal Church delegation has spent the past few days focusing on developing new partnerships and advocacy strategies with Anglican Alliance partners who are here – Archbishop Julio Murray and Dr. Elizabeth Perry – and for the first time has joined up with ACT Alliance’s ecumenical delegation which also includes the World Council of Churches and Lutheran World Federation. The Anglican Alliance also has been working with us on this partnership,” Main said by email.

“As a delegation, we are advocating for several priorities that link to our 2018 General Convention resolutions. Among these are accelerating ambition, increasing support for loss and damage, protecting human rights in addressing adaptation and mitigation and boosting financial resources and mechanisms. These priorities connect to our overarching goal of ensuring climate justice for the most vulnerable. After all, Jesus calls us most especially to care for the marginalized, and in U.N. terms there is a parallel principle at work: We speak of ‘leaving no one behind’ and ‘reaching the furthest behind first.’”

The delegation is not only urging political leaders to strengthen their policies. It is sharing the ways that The Episcopal Church has already acted to reduce its impact.

“We continue to be surprised and encouraged as national delegations at COP look to faith bodies as the place civil society nurtures hope and progress,” Mullen told ENS. “The Episcopal Church is already doing many kinds of important local climate work. For instance, the General Convention mandates funding creation care ministries are exactly what government negotiators mean when they talk about local-level ‘ambition’ and climate ‘mitigation efforts.’”

And joining forces with other faith organizations has strengthened the impact of The Episcopal Church’s efforts. On Dec. 2, the delegation and its ecumenical allies held a prayer service on the theme of "Praying For Climate Justice."

Partnerships like these, Mullen said, magnify the powerful message The Episcopal Church has to offer: that “a life-giving, liberating and loving vision for the world matters in addressing climate change.”

– Egan Millard is an assistant editor and reporter for the Episcopal News Service. He can be reached at emillard@episcopalchurch.org.

Summer Web Conversations about Creation Care

Care for Creation: REFLECT, RENEW, RESPOND

April 26, 5:30 pm Earth Day Zoom Webinar: Baptism and Earth's Ecology

NASA: 2018 Was The Fourth Warmest Year in Continued Warming Trend

At UN climate conference, Episcopal delegation urges nations to act swiftly and justly

CJM
News & Views

Categories

Archives

CJM HOME

News&Views

Photos / Videos

CJMNews & Views

Categories

Archives

CJM
News & Views