HELLO!

This Sunday we will give thanks for the Earth, our home, God’s gift to us. As you enter our sacred space, you will see many pieces of Creation, chosen by our Sunday School and youth over the last several weeks. Please pause, look at these natural gifts, and discover if any speak to you. Select the one that does and take it, and your bulletin, to your seat. There will come a time, early in the service, where Bethe will ask you to turn to the one who sits near you, and share why you chose this piece.

Before I tell you about the April 26^th service I want to remind you about the Fish Chowder Lunch on Saturday May 2^nd. If you want to order a fabulous $12 meal, with Ralph’s secret recipe, call Ralph at 902-434-7786 or email him at ralphsams@ns.sympatico.ca After Wednesday April 29^th at 8 pm you can still try but there is no guarantee Ralph, and his hardworking team, can fill your order. See attachment for details.

In his book The Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the 21^st Century, the late Fr. Thomas Berry writes, "We need a way of designating the Earth-human world in its continuity and identity rather than exclusively by its discontinuity and difference." The journey of deepening our spirituality beyond what concerns each of us as individuals, toward recognizing a deeper relationship with the whole of creation, is what Berry called "ecological conversion." This is what Earth Sunday is for.

Rachel Wheeler, a theology professor, recently published, Ecospirituality: An Introduction. She reminds us ecological spirituality has been part of the Christian tradition dating back to the Bible, through the Middle Ages, and into the modern Christian era. Wheeler writes, "Ecology has to do with one's home — the root meaning of 'eco' — ecospirituality describes how one relates to the sacred within our natural homes". Wheeler believes Christians need to understand God has a relationship with us in Creation, that when we constantly use the word “seeking” it leaves us feeling like outsiders “looking in”, rather than how God “relates” to us at this very sacred moment. Wheeler provides examples: "Many of us have hiked to the top of a mountain or into a forest and felt some sense of presence or wonder and awe." To develop an ecospirituality is to focus on the ways God is seen and experienced in the world around us, the "Lord and Giver of Life," who is still active in the world — both within and beyond the human family — and draws near to us in divine intimacy.

To some Christians, the concept of ecospirituality is oddly discomfiting. Such folks often throw around words like "pagan" to describe and attack what they perceive as non-Christian recognition of God's continued action in the world, or at least beyond the human world. But as the opening verses in Genesis make clear, God's Spirit draws near to all Creation and brings life and order to the cosmos. A renewed ecospirituality helps us see the world more like the way God sees it, as one integrated whole.

Peace, Kevin