Just when we thought spring was right around the corner, it snowed again – well, if you call what we in New Jersey had snow. Further north, of course, there was real snow, 5 to 9 inches in the Green Mountain National Forest. Down south, in the Okefenokee Swamp, another national park, it was in the high 70s.
These two magnificent areas, national treasures of biological diversity, are threatened by mining and lumber interests that see little more from God’s handwork than a quick buck to be made. The Okefenokee is the largest wildlife habitat in the east with more than 1,000 species of plants and animals; Green Mountain contains some of the largest tracts of old growth forest existing in the east.
New Jersey is almost a thousand miles from Okefenokee. Yes, it’s a swamp, but one that needs protection from the Twin Pines Minerals plan for an 8,000 acre mine on the edge of the swamp. Just as the One we follow did more than pray, so should we by calling on the Georgia Department of Environmental Protection to protect the Swamp from the interests of greed.
Prayer for the Day
Wondrous Creator, who gave us swamps and forests,
Hold us fast to be stewards of your earth, not its exploiters;
You who are the origin of all life from large bears to tiny tree frogs,
Bestow on us an understanding of the life under your care.
Create within us a kinship with the creatures fashioned by your hand,
So we respect their habitat and living space as we would our own.
In the name of the One who walked gently on the earth,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
It’s a gigantic, ethereal, god-touched swamp in southeast Georgia that’s like no other place on earth . . .the largest blackwater swamp in North America and the largest wilderness area in the eastern U.S. A wild botanical garden …a haven for alligators and black bears, woodpeckers and ibises, bitterns and cranes.
- Janisse Ray, nature writer, from The Bitter Southern
We’re going to get out of the mindset of fear and scarcity and transition to one of abundance.
- Kim Bednarek, Executive Director, Okefenokee Swamp Park
For the mountains yield food for it, where all the wild animals play.
Under the lotus plants it lies, in the covert of the reeds and in the marsh.
Job 40: 20-21