Although the Nordic countries celebrate what is called Midsummer on the first day of summer, we actually crossed the true middle of summer last week. The days are getting shorter and the sun doesn’t come over the trees until about 6:30 AM now although on a flat plain the sun has made it over the horizon a little after 6:00.
It’s going to warm up this week; in fact, it’s going to get hot. The Weather Channel says it’s going to rain today and tomorrow. I hope so because in spite of the misty rain yesterday, the ground is still pretty dry. It’s very dry in other parts of the country and the world, and according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it’s going to get hotter and drier unless we do something serious, really serious.
The summers are hotter, the oceans are warmer, the fires more serious. The really frightening thing is no matter how dire the warnings, Congress just sits in the lap of fossil fuel companies and nothing gets done. I shudder at the thought of the world my grandchildren will inherit due to the political lockjaw we are experiencing.
Prayer for the Day
Seeing images of wildfires in the West and even above Athens,
We wonder, O God, what it will take to wake up those who hold power;
Stepping in water on city streets near the shore even on sunny days,
We shudder at the thought of rusting support beams for high rises.
Tear open the heavens, O God, and shake us into action
Before we destroy all that is around us with our greedy consumption.
In the name of the One who shook powers and principalities,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Climate change is now causing amplified weather extremes of the sort we’ve been witnessing this summer – droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, floods, superstorms. The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. We see them playing out in real time in the form of these unprecedented extreme weather disasters.
Michael Mann, Professor Atmospheric Science, Penn State
Every inhabited region around the world is experiencing the effects of climate change. Human influence has caused an increase in frequency & intensity of heatwaves.
Friederike Otto, Associate Director, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford
Lord our Master, how majestic your name in all the earth!
Whose splendor was told over the heavens.. . .
When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars,
Who are we that you should note us, human creatures that you pay us heed,
You make us less than the gods with glory and grandeur you crown us?
Psalm 8: 1, 4-6 (Trans. Robert Alter, modified)