Hot!

Our corner of Northwest Arkansas has been under extreme heat warnings for several weeks now. Back in May, when I started working in the yard after a wet Spring, I figured "what I don't get done in May, I can do in June". Not so. The heat moved in quickly and forcefully. I'm still plugging along on the yard a few minutes at a time as I come home from the barn already hot and sweaty. I will help next week with another (final) round of horse camp. I can only tolerate the mornings and will head for home by noon. 

I wonder how anyone can still argue with the advance of climate change. The signs are pretty unmistakable as measurable weather trends continue to break records. I remember pondering from a tender age how our 'advanced' society, with its vehicles and machines of production (I grew up in a refinery town), fit in with God's creation. It has always seemed to me that our American way of life conflicted in many ways with the natural world. I am as dependent as anyone on my gasoline powered car and my air conditioning, but I fear we have crossed a tipping point with our environment. Woe be unto us as ocean currents shift and the very rhythm of life is disrupted.

God of Creation, we have failed at our role as caretakers of Your earth. Let me fall on my knees before you to ask forgiveness. It may be too late to salvage certain lands and ways of living as the industrialized world has gobbled up resources at the expense of the developing world. Much of our sinfulness can be attributed to greed. We want products and creature comforts that degrade the environment, and we are loath to rein in our habits. Give me and my fellow wealthy brothers and sisters the will and the commitment to change our ways and to consider first how our behaviors affect our neighbors. Our neighbors include everyone on "this fragile earth, our island home." (Eucharistic Prayer C, BCP, p. 370)