Just as Sunday’s reading juxtaposed Isaiah’s vision of a peaceable kingdom with John’s warning to those who were full of corruption, so today juxtaposes the memory of the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor with a vision of protecting the world’s biodiversity for all living creatures. How do we live with both violence and peace in today’s world?
Creating peace means not just for humans, but for the vast spectrum of non-human life. In Montreal this week nations are putting together a ten-year plan to protect biodiversity, something which is important to all of us. What’s at the bottom supports the top, us.
Take the oak tree, for example, any of the 11 species. An oak supports at least 600 types of caterpillars, food for birds, which forage in oaks, and acorns support birds as well as squirrels, and the leaves become compost enriching the earth and our gardens, not to mention the fact that in the oak leaf litter there are thousands of arthropods and fungi, some of which are basic building blocks of life on earth.
Prayer for the Day
So small we often do not even notice them, your creatures,
Who are out of sight and sometimes beneath our feet,
But as we walk your good earth, let us step gently
For the smallest of creatures belong to you, O God.
May we move beyond our preoccupation with material wealth,
So we recognize the true wealth you have given us.
In the name of the One who walked gently on this earth,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
We depend on ecosystems for the water we drink and the food we eat, and ecosystems are built from biodiversity. All life-forms, from bacteria to bears, each play a role in its ecosystem.
- Catrin Einhorn, environmental journalist for The New York Times
The scientists underlined to us that this is our last chance to act. Unfortunately, we have no planet B.
- Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, UN Convention on Biological Diversity
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know! Or stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk, or who laid the cornerstone
When the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
Job 38: 4-7