 What if today, instead of opting to spend our money and energy online and in stores, we opted to spend our time out in creation? Today, our team is choosing to #OptOutside, pausing in gratitude and delight in God’s creation. #OptOutside was started by REI in 2015 as a way of encouraging their staff and patrons to spend the day after Thanksgiving not consuming, but rather delighting in an outdoor activity they enjoy. Our world today often feels frenzied, chaotic, and uncertain. I’m reflecting on how my own hurried purchases during this season might stem from a desire to control something, anything, in my daily life, as so much feels outside of my control. What would it look like not to buy our way into security and safety in this time, but rather be shepherded into the welcoming and protective presence of God through spending time in his creation? Creation knows well seasons of upheaval and disruption and yet, abiding in God’s care, resiliently and steadily continues on, creating life and beauty that reflects its Creator. Let us follow that example today, choosing to connect with the creation we are part of and express gratitude for the wisdom it shares with us on how to persist amidst uncertain times. Instead of spending the day controlling and consuming, let us learn, delight, and take refuge alongside creation, encountering the God who holds us and accompanies us through all seasons. Practice for Engaging CreationWhen I’m needing to combat anxiousness or the need to control, I find grounding myself in the physical reality around me to be particularly helpful in tuning in to the Holy Spirit’s presence and peace. As you spend time out in creation today, take a moment to engage all of your senses, ground yourself in God’s creation, and encounter His presence. As you wander, find a comfortable spot to sit and take a few minutes in silence, paying attention to your breath as your body rests in stillness. When you are ready, take notice of the creation around you with: 5 things you can see 4 things you can touch 3 things you can hear 2 things you can smell 1 thing you can taste Give thanks to God for each of these things. I invite you to sit in awe and wonder of a creation that persists amidst upheaval, and be encouraged that in Christ and in community with creation, we can too.  Marissa Salgado Church Engagement Manager Creation Justice Ministries
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For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16  We throw around the word 'love' a lot. “Love it!” I often say in support of something. “Love You” I say at the end of phone calls. If you play song association, the easiest word to win on is “Love,” because most songs are about strong emotions that we usually characterize as love. In this advent Season, I'm challenged to think of love in relation to the incarnation of Christ. In light of Jesus joining the created world, I’m invited to think of love as a pilgrimage. In light of Jesus joining the created world, I’m invited to think of love as a pilgrimage. A journey that traverses realms and statuses to meet someone or thing where they are and care for them. If the Incarnation is a demonstration of Love, that perhaps love has less to do with strong emotion, and more to do with strong action. As I seek to love my fellow creature, what realms must I cross? Is there a valley of woes separating me from my fellow human? Is there an emotion wall separating me from the trees in the land? Is the chasm of knowledge between me and my ability to advocate for creation too deep for me to wade through? Perhaps it would be an act of love to traverse those lengths. Perhaps on the other side when I say “Love You” to my fellow creatures, it will be a summary of evidence rather than a declaration of sentiment.  Naomi François Seminary Intern Creation Justice Ministries Isaiah 35:1-6, 10 The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom. They will bloom with abundant flowers, and rejoice with joyful song. The glory of Lebanon will be given to them, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God. Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing. Those whom the LORD has ransomed will return and enter Zion singing, crowned with everlasting joy; they will meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning will flee.  For much of my adult life with God, joy has been a significant, anchoring part of my faith. Through times of great delight and times of deep sorrow, the Spirit has graciously and kindly planted joy as the lens through which I both celebrate and mourn. It’s not a joy that removes or disregards pain; it’s one that anchors me in deep hope and in faith in a God who promises to make all things right. It has always felt like something not of my own doing, a gift for which I have been immensely grateful. I must confess, however, that throughout this last year, joy as the lens through which to process all that I, my community, and creation are going through has been elusive. It’s been a year of grief, anger, loss, and confusion. I’ve waited for that replanting of joy to make itself known again, and in this season of Advent that longing has only grown. In extended seasons of waiting, we can lose sight of what exactly we are in anticipation of. We can begin to feel as if we are alone in our waiting, sinking further into questions like: God, will the restoration you promise, the planting of joy from your Spirit and the making of all things right, truly come to pass? Isaiah 35:1–6, 10 reminds us not only of what we are waiting for, but of who we are waiting with. Isaiah 35:1–6, 10 reminds us not only of what we are waiting for, but of who we are waiting with. It offers a vision of human and more-than-human creation together being crowned with everlasting joy. The prophet tells us that the deserts will exalt the Lord and the flowers will burst forth in bloom and praise. We see those who are blind, deaf, lame, and mute finding healing, and all of creation being met by the Lord with joy and gladness. Sorrow and mourning are far from creation’s sight as we delight in communion with our Creator. Though the full planting of joy I know is God’s desire for me is something I’m still waiting for in many ways, I’ve taken great comfort in waiting alongside the community of creation in this Advent season. The songs and prayers of my multilingual church family, the laughter of children, the sunset over the Pacific, the company of trees on long sabbath hikes… each has accompanied me in my waiting and has graciously invited me to accompany them in theirs. This Advent, I’m in awe of a creation that chooses to persist, sometimes even defiantly, and continue living as it waits for its restoration. If creation can persist through chaos and destruction, I can too. We wait together, we long for joy together, we build a community expectant for our Messiah together. And that, I’m realizing, is an expression of joy in and of itself. When we find community and solidarity with creation - a creation that reminds us we are not alone in our waiting - our radical commitment to continue living together becomes a planting of joy, joy rooted in the Spirit of our Creator as he continues to work and move and usher us all into the kingdom. In this Advent season, as all of creation remembers that it has waited before and waits once again for its Redeemer, let us hold joy for and with one another. May this joy be what sustains us as we wait, grounding us in the patience James 5 calls us to, especially in times of suffering. We do not wait in suffering alone. We do not wait in suffering without joy. Though not yet complete, creation is singing. Creation is praising our God. Let us join that song, and let it be a proclamation of resistance and a proclamation of joy.  Marissa Salgado Church Engagement Manager Creation Justice Ministries Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches? Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised. “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath! I send him against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a people who anger me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets. But this is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind; his purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations. ‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says. ‘Has not Kalno fared like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad, and Samaria like Damascus? As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols, kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria-- shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’ " Isaiah 10:1-11  Peace will be the norm! Not only do these verses tell of the joyous coming birth of Jesus, but also the peace and unity that will manifest through the Spirit of God in Jesus. That same Spirit stretches across millennia into today’s world. The text shares that Jesus would judge from a greater truth originating deep within, where the Spirit of God dwells, the seat of righteousness. What seems impossible to human senses will be the norm. What seems impossible to human senses will be the norm. Jesus will advocate for the needy and the poor of the earth. The wicked will be measured and judged by Christ’s word - not by outdoing them in wickedness. Differences that normally divide will unite. Might will not threaten gentleness, and gentleness will not be disdained by might. Unity through interconnectedness, where each being has its fit, will flourish. On the Holy mountain of God, no one and nothing will harm or destroy because to be in the knowledge of God is to be life-giving. The knowledge of God will saturate the earth as the waters cover the sea. And so, in the words of the great teacher Howard Thurman: ‘Do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, my friend, to tunnel all the way down through all these layers, until you hit this eternal residue in you. For it is where nothing can abide that is not authentic. It is where there is no barrier. It is in you. And when the God in your spirit makes contact with the God of life, then there is established, in that moment, a courage that can turn any darkness into light-- any darkness into light. What seems impossible to the human understanding, for ushering peace and wholeness into the world, was declared possible millennia ago and continues to apply today.  Shema Roberts Seminary Intern Creation Justice Ministries It's a tricky thing to talk about hope these days. On one hand, we don’t want to be completely without it. Giving into cynicism and fear not only feels defeatist, but in this season of Advent, it also feels unfaithful. But there is a thin line between “hope” and a blind optimism that refuses to acknowledge the grim nature of reality. For hope to be the kind of hope that our world both needs and demands, it has to be a hope that is rooted deeply in the realities of our time. The world is crying for a hope that has a clear eyed vision of the world as it is and yet has the courage to imagine the world that can be.  Imagination, we’re finding more and more is a muscle that needs to be exercised. As a friend said to me recently, “everything that now is was once imagined”. Believe it or not, the world that we live in is the world that someone (or groups of someones) dreamed into existence. Hope, then, demands better dreams, better vision, and better imagination. But hope also demands that we do a little bit each day to remind ourselves of those better dreams and that we work a little bit each day to make those dreams a reality. So then this work of hope is the work of imagining a different future and then doing everything in our power to have the present be a little more like that imagined future. It’s a tricky thing to talk about hope these days. Trickier still if that talk isn’t matched with hopeful actions. So may this Advent be a season not just of waiting, but of building. May our hope be bold enough to imagine, and brave enough to act.  Derrick Weston Director of Theological Educations and Formation Creation Justice Ministries As the season turns and the trees outside my window give themselves back to the soil, I find myself reflecting on what I’m most grateful for. At the top of that list is you — this ecumenical community committed to protecting, restoring, and rightly sharing God’s creation. Thanksgiving is a complicated day. It carries both the language of gratitude and the legacy of harm. It’s a holiday that invites us to give thanks even as it sits atop a history of violence and dispossession of Indigenous Peoples and lands. In a world of wounds, gratitude and truth-telling belong together  This year, I’m holding both. I’m grateful for you — for the congregations learning to love their watersheds again, for the pastors preaching courage in a climate-changed world, for the advocates who refuse to look away. And I’m committed, with you, to the ongoing work of repair: listening to Indigenous neighbors, facing the truth of our history, and tending the land and waters that sustain us.ot your gratitude in place: As you gather around your table, I invite you to take a moment to
root your gratitude in place: Learn the land and watershed where you gather. A simple practice of orienting ourselves to place — and to the peoples who have stewarded it since long before this country existed. Use our Faithful Resilience StoryMap to help identify your watershed and the Indigenous communities historically and currently connected to your area. Offer a word of acknowledgment and commitment. Not as a performative gesture, but as a small act of truth-telling: a reminder that gratitude requires responsibility. Hear Vance Blackfox’s reflections on Land Acknowledgement as a first step, and find his example as a starting place. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America also offers a Land Acknowledgement Guide for those who are looking for references on how to do so within their church. Consider a gift of repair. Contribute to a settler land tax (or back rent). Consider including this as part of your Thanksgiving offering. Voluntary reparations funds support Indigenous groups who have experienced land dispossession and genocide. Explore the Shuumi Land Tax and the Wiyot Honor Tax as examples. Wherever you find yourself this week — around crowded tables or in quiet, wild places — may you sense the mercy that holds us all. May your gratitude deepen your courage and commitment to justice, especially for our Indigenous siblings. And may the God who dwells in river and soil, in forest and feast, draw you into the sacred work of healing the world. I am deeply thankful to do this work alongside you.  Avery Davis Lamb Executive Director Creation Justice Ministries |
About this BlogThis blog shares the activities of Creation Justice Ministries. We educate and equip Christians to protect, restore, and rightly share God's creation. Archives
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- About
- Action
-
Programs
- Donate
- Resources
- Blog
-
Creation Justice Store
- Power of God
- Plastic Jesus: Real Faith in a Synthetic World
- Truth, Healing and Repair: A Resource for Churches on Environmental Justice with Indigenous Peoples
- (Digital) Power of God: From Extractive Theology to Transformative Faith
- (Digital) Plastic Jesus: Real Faith in a Synthetic World
- (Digital) Truth, Healing and Repair: A Resource for Churches on Environmental Justice with Indigenous Peoples
- (Digital) Faithful Resilience: The Six-Part Guide to Building Spiritual, Physical, and Social Climate Resilience
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