Dear *|FIRSTNAME|*,
This week I have been encouraged by the bold assertions of some leaders to cut carbon emissions, as unveiled in the global online climate summit. I feel we need to pray for the leaders at every level of our society to take courageous steps to clean up our act with regards to planet earth. Yet I sense that we also need to be praying daily for courage to live differently ourselves, adopting a Sabbath vision of life that is willing to regularly step away from consumption, production, activity, always more. I was challenged this morning as I joined in a conversation with our “Coffee, Cake and Catch Up” group who were discussing “the art of saying No.” (This is a chapter in “An Altar in the World” by Barbara Brown Taylor).
This Sabbath vision can potentially permeate every aspect of our lives and help us to become far less focused on grasping the resources of creation and instead giving us space to reverence what is. Just one small example was around the purchase of strawberries that have appeared on our supermarket shelves. Maybe you do this already, but we discussed being well informed about what we are buying. For example, we can check the label, know where they come from, how much precious water was used to irrigate them, how much pesticide, the extent of travel to reach our shops. A Sabbath approach nurtures contentment with what is in season around us, encourages us to wait for local produce and to be more thankful when at last it does arrive.
Here is a prayer to help us tune in to Sabbath resistance, cherishing and preserving the fragile beauty of our world in a way that might just turn us into mini revolutionaries!
Loving God,
Thank you that you invite us into Sabbath rest in our own lives. Help us to live into a pattern of work, play and rest that you ordain for our good.
Thank you, Creator God, for this Sabbath way of being that you long for all creation.
Deepen our wonder for the natural world – as we learn to stop and see that it is good.
Help us to honour you, the Maker of all, with daily steps to care more and to cherish the resources that we have.
Inspire us each day to know when to say no, when to wait, how to give away, rather than to grasp for more.
Creator God, in your great mercy, hear our prayer.
Carolyn
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