Season of Creation Series 2019: #BlessTheAnimals

It is the fifth and final week of the Season of Creation. On October 4, some Christians commemorate Saint Francis of Assisi as a patron saint of God's creatures. In his spirit, they sometimes conduct animal blessings in October. If you participate in an animal blessing, please share photos on social media at #BlessTheAnimals and #SeasonOfCreation.
About Our Work

The Creation Justice community protects and restores God's bio-diverse creation through prayer, awareness-raising, habitat protection, and advocacy. We encourage faith communities to honor International Endangered Species Day, which will be on May 15 in 2020. We have cosponsored animal blessings in Washington DC, and we are promoting one in the Rayburn US House Office Building Courtyard at 3:30pm on October 17.
We encourage faith communities to use their land as habitat protection for local creatures. This may involve choosing native plants, tending pollinator gardens, or conserving natural lands and waters on property in your stewardship.
We also advocate to uphold the Endangered Species Act and protect vital habitats and wildlife corridors on our public lands.
Learn more about our work, and get involved at www.creationjustice.org/endangered
In the News
In May 2019, the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released a report on the extinction crisis. If you missed it when it came out, please take a look. It is an important read. Only months after the release of this report, the Trump Administration announced a new policy for the Department of Interior: economic analysis will help decide whether a species warrants protection.
Action: Uphold & Strengthen the Endangered Species Act
Call your members of Congress at 202-224-3121. Here are some talking points:

• As a person of faith, I show respect for our Creator by taking care of creation. Every part of that creation has a divine purpose in God's eyes. It is a profound sin to knowingly cause a species to disappear forever from the Earth.
• Please restore recently lost protections under the Endangered Species Act, and uphold species protections whenever you can.
• One current opportunity to restore lost Endangered Species Act protections is to support the PAW and FIN Act of 2019 (S.2491 & H.R. 4348).

Featured Education Resources: Care for God's Creatures was our 2016 Earth Day Sunday resource. It has great content to consider as you talk with your communities on the importance of protecting God's bio-diverse creation, and it has links to animal blessing liturgies. Another older resource of value is Tending the Garden: Stewardship of Biodiversity and Endangered Species.
As we wrap up the 2019 Season of Creation, we hope our email series has helped you get to know more opportunities to become active in the Creation Justice community's efforts to educate, equip, and mobilize people of faith to protect, restore, and more rightly share God's creation.