Several years ago, before Covid – remember pre-Covid? -- I participated in a Finnish cultural week in Duluth, Minnesota. I had always heard about the Boundary Waters, a region of lakes and rivers straddling the U.S. Canadian border. Living in New Jersey, one loses a sense of just what distance really is. Hey, I figured, how long could it take to drive there? Longer than I had imagined.
Mining interests have targeted the Boundary Waters for decades, figuring profits were worth much more than a fragile ecosystem. Since 1966, toxic mining has occurred near the Waters. Yesterday the Bureau of Land Management cancelled the last two leases, illegally renewed in 2019, saving this important area from destruction.
If you google a map of the area, you’ll see a vast interconnected system of waterways, weaving through this area in northeastern Minnesota which is also the ancestral home of the Anishinaabe and Ojibwe/Chippewa people. Over 250 species inhabit this area which also serves to absorb carbon dioxide in this time of climate crisis.
Prayer for the Day
Reaching for the sky, the trees sing their joy to you, O God,
As deer, fox, and hare look for sustenance;
But you do not forget your creatures, for you give food,
Even in the winter cycle, they feel your care.
Grant, Great Creator, that we hold your creatures sacred,
For they, like us, find their origin in you.
In the name of the One who spoke to the birds,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Yet all how beautiful! Pillars of pearl propping the cliffs above, stalactites bright from the ice roof depending and beneath, grottoes and temples with their crystal spires and gleaming columns radiant in the sun.
- William Henry Burleigh, Unitarian hymnist (1817-1971)
Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and a talk beside the fire; it is the time for home.
- Edith Sitwell, British poet (1887-1964)
The tempest comes out from its chamber, the cold from the driving winds. The breath of God produces ice and the broad waters become frozen.
Job 37: 9-10