In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth … (Genesis 1:1, KJV)

Earth Day is April 22. While the urgency of the climate crisis continues to reveal itself, we have been commissioned as people of faith to do all that we can to take care of God’s creation, the garden in which we have been set, and to tend to it. But caring for our natural world also creates justice for those living within it:

Creation Care and Environmental Justice

• In Before the Streetlights Come On, Heather McTeer Toney notes that while Black Americans make up 13% of the US population, they tend to be breathing 40% dirtier air than white Americans (the EPA offers further analysis of the impact of climate change on racial and ethnic minority communities). Creation care includes reckoning with the legacy and current realities of racism.
• A pilot project in Philadelphia found that re-greening a city block, that is, “transform[ing] run-down vacant parcels of land by planting new grass and trees, installing low wooden post-and-rail fences around the perimeter and performing regular maintenance" (NYT), and even picking up trash around the targeted area, reduced crime, including gun violence, significantly. Is there potential for such a project or can you support one that already exists near your parish?
• It is clear to even the casual observer that the weather effects of climate change – extreme heat, cold, and storms – disproportionately affect those with the least access to resources and safe housing to withstand them. Has your parish become, or has it potential to become, a warming or cooling shelter for those most at risk?

Guns to Gardens

Guns to Gardens is a unique bridge-builder between gun violence reduction and creation care efforts. Guns to Gardens safe surrender events allow members of the community to have unwanted firearms safely destroyed so that they cannot be returned to the marketplace and potentially fall into unsafe hands. Many guns are turned in because they are not safe in a home with growing children, or aging loved ones, or are vulnerable to misuse or theft. But many people use the Guns to Gardens service because they like that their former weapons will be transformed into tools for planting new life: swords into plowshares, guns into garden tools. In fact, garden tools made from former gun parts have been used in parishes and community gardens across our Diocese!

Upcoming Guns to Gardens events include:

• April 13 at St Barnabas, Bay Village
• June 8 at St Paul’s, Fremont
• June 8 at Church of the Epiphany, Euclid

An online Action Circle to learn how to host a Guns to Gardens event begins April 3. Further information is available online. You can also contact the Rev. Rosalind Hughes, Missioner for Peace, for more information about any of the above.

A prayer for a planting activity, written for a Guns to Gardens demo at Trinity Cathedral’s Urban Farm in 2023

God of wisdom and truth, you have spoken by your prophets and taught us the ways of peace. We will beat swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks.

God of life, we repent of the ways that we have stained your creation with blood, lead, and tears. We will beat swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks.

God of justice, we ask your mercy upon us and all who bear your image, that we may find life together. We will beat swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks.

God of abundance, you have promised that all shall sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid. We will beat swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks.

God of love, bless this planting to your purpose. Let it be a blessing to your people, in body, mind, and spirit. For we have beaten swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks. Amen

Rosalind +