“At start of spring I open a trench In the ground. I put into it
The winter’s accumulation of paper,
Pages I do not want to read Again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it the contents of the outhouse:
light of the suns, growth of the ground, Finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then, and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise, have been inattentive to wonders,
have lusted after praise.
And then upon the gathered refuse, of mind and body, I close the trench
folding shut again the dark, the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new.”
Wendell Berry, New Collected Poems
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Earth Day in the NEMN Synod |
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Check out the ways several congregations in our Synod celebrated Earth Day! |
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Grand Marais
28 booths/organizations, 9 speakers, 3 great music acts, and a couple hundred community members or more at the Earth Day event this year!
Check out the podcast about Earth Care made by Marcia Hyatt from Grand Marais here.
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St. Andrews, Grand Rapids
Congregants were greeted with bird songs in the sanctuary on April 24 at St. Andrews in Grand Rapids, not because there were loose avians but through the wonders of Youtube to introduce our first Earth Sunday. Liturgy, hymns, music and sermon all focused on the care of creation. At our annual meeting last June, action was taken to officially sign a covenant a Caring for Creation Covenant and worship brought this to the surface again.
Following the service, members could see the displays of climate change information, plastic bag impact, relevant library books, a whiteboard with positive action that has been taken by the church and laying out future steps, and they could pick up their reusable bag with the St. Andrews EcoFaith logo and a packet of milkweed seeds to plant for monarch habitat.
Left: 12th Iron Range Earth Fest in Mountain Iron, MN
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Mowing your lawn less creates habitat and can increase the abundance and diversity of wildlife including bees and other pollinators. One way to reduce mowing is by participating in No Mow May. The goal of No Mow May is to allow grass to grow unmown for the month of May, creating habitat and forage for early season pollinators. This is particularly important in urban areas where floral resources are often limited.
Learn more about No Mow May here.
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Northland Renewable Energy Tour
Join MNIPL and the Minnesota Just Solar Coalition on a Renewable Energy Tour in Pine River and Brainerd ending with live music and food!
Saturday, May 14th
Tour starts at 11:30
4:30-6:30 Food, Music, and Envisioning a new renewable economy in Brainerd
Learn more and register here.
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Check out the Pollinator Marketplace in June and learn more about the Duluth Monarch Buddies here.
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Pollinating Your Church's Garden Thurs. May 12th
As a follow up from the Creation Care events, join the EcoFaith Network in discussing ways you could expand or add pollinator gardens in your community!
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Rev. John Sippola
May 1st
3rd Sunday of Easter
John 21:1-19 Acts 9:1-6
Most sermons on today's Gospel reading usually focus on the dramatic encounter between Peter and Jesus. For this sermon, I invite you to come down to the shore of Lake Tiberias (the name of the modern-day freshwater Sea of Galilee, the lowest freshwater lake in the world) and hop into the boat and go fishing with Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, and the sons of Zebedee, James and John. Before we push off, I need to tell you about my relationship with Lake Superior. The big waters of Lake Superior are one of my spiritual directors, and I consider myself a Lake Superior watershed disciple.
Read the whole reflection here.
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Claire Repsholdt
May 8th Fourth Sunday of Easter
Psalm 23
This week we reflect on one of the most essential scriptural ruminations on nature of all time—the 23rd Psalm. I choose to concentrate my reflection on this one text of the week because it seems to me that it is at the heart of all of the selections. In fact, it’s hard to miss the connections the lectionary makers must have seen as they sought to plan this Sunday. A famous Hebrew poem about a peaceful shepherd, and a tidy lesson from Jesus to his disciples about how to be sheep. Here we have faith at its most distilled: we have a caretaker who not only guides us in life but offers lavish gifts of rest, beauty, protection, nourishment, goodness, and mercy along the way.
Read the whole reflection here.
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Rachel Wyffels
May 15th Fifth Sunday Easter
In the first reading for this Sunday, Peter finds himself explaining to his fellow Judeans in
Jerusalem how he could possibly have baptized Gentiles and eaten with them, thus becoming
ritually unclean. Peter narrates how he fell into a trance and experienced a vision that
transformed his understanding of God’s presence and promise in the world. In the vision, a
great cloth like a linen sheet or a sail descends from heaven at four points, the number that symbolizes the completeness of creation. As Peter looks closer, he sees that on the sheet are a multitude of animals that are considered unclean, and a voice tells him to do something unthinkable: to kill and eat one of these animals, thus becoming ritually unclean himself.
Read the whole reflection here.
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Rev. Melinda Quivik,
May 22nd,Year C, Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 22––22:5
John 14:23–29
This day God’s Word preaches community, including the women praying at the river and the tree
of life feeding and healing the nations. The Trinity will make its home in the midst of those who
keep God’s Word. At the center of this resurrection celebration is the river of the water of life
nourishing the tree of life.
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (22:1-2). Scripture builds faith by giving us images, visions, insights, and sudden illuminations much like the teaching that comes when we take notice of the structure of trees.
Read the whole reflection here.
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Pr. Daphne Urban
May 29th
Acts 16: 16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22: 12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17: 20-26
The gospel reading talks about the love between God and Christ and how it is now in us. God’s love for us and for His son are amazingly intimate. Regardless of how we react to the love of our God, Christ continues to dwell within us, and we continue to receive the divine indwelling of love. The love for us continues outward into the creation all around us that God so lovingly made. We humans and the creation around us cannot live apart. Nature can live without us, but we cannot live without nature. By God loving us to no end, we are to love back, with such a force that allows us to take care of not only those around us, but all that is around us too. The unity we have in our love for God is what ties us together with all creation.
Read the whole reflection here.
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If you missed the 2022 EcoFaith Summit,
Here is where the recordings and summit booklet are located.
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EcoFaith Book of the Month
Saving Us, A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World
by Katherine Hayhoe
She is a Canadian climate scientist living in Texas. She is a Christian and an activist, lecturing around the world. And the most important thing anyone can do to address the reality of climate change and ensuing problems is to talk about it, simple but so difficult a task. The main theme of her book is to help you and I become aware of climate change and share that
awareness with others, friends, family, church groups, neighbors, strangers. The book begins with the worrisome facts of climate change, that we humans are responsible for it, and then ends with “Climate change stands between us and a breathtaking, exhilarating future. We
cannot afford to be paralyzed by fear or shame. We must act, with power, love, and a sound mind. Together we can save ourselves.”
Read the whole review here.
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This book review is by John Hanson, a retired pastor living on Turtle Lake, north of Grand Rapids, with his wife, Linda. He is a member of the NE MN Synod EcoFaith Leadership Team.
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This Month's Green Tips
Use these in your congregation's bulletins, Facebook pages, websites, or newsletters!
Here are Steve Spigarelli's
Green Tips from First Lutheran, Aitkin
Here are Laura Raedeke's Green Tips from Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa
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“Free-market” economists, committed to growing GDP, believe,
“if climate breakdown ends up starving and displacing a few
hundred million poor Africans and Asians, that will register as
only a tiny negative blip in world GDP. After all, poor people
don’t add much value to the global economy. The same goes for
things like insects and birds and wildlife.” (I’m not making this
up.)
Here is the rest of John McDonald's Earth Stewardship Tip this month from Gloria Dei, Duluth
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The EcoFaith Network is growing through your support!
Thank YOU to our current congregational partners:
Trinity, Hovland
Gloria Dei, Duluth
Holden Lutheran, Isle
Trinity, Cass Lake
Calvary Lutheran, Mora
We invite you to join them in
supporting this grassroots work.
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Read. Watch. Listen. Share!
Earth Month Edition
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350.org Climate Conversations Guide
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We want to hear from you!
If you are interested in sharing anything with the network in the newsletter, email ecofaith@nemnsynod.org
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Green Blades Rising is an initiative of the EcoFaith Network NEMN Synod
Click here to see previous
Green Blades Rising newsletters
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The EcoFaith Network NEMN Synod
Living out God's call to be stewards of the earth for the sake of the whole creation.
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