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Creation Care: A Voice for the Voiceless

Reflections on participation in Lutherans Restoring Creation Retreat and Training, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, January 25-26, 2013

By Ann Dentry, Gettysburg PA

There are many ways to think about workshops; weekends when people convene from different parts of Pennsylvania to put the passions closest to their hearts into action. Over the past weekend, the group Lutherans Restoring Creation offered training at the seminary in Gettysburg. Purpose: To give Christians concerned for the fate of our earth tools for common effort. Those tools include knowing one another. In your mind’s eye, imagine small pieces of a puzzle scattered all over south-central PA. The pieces can’t form a picture until they’ve come together and tested how (and where and when) each fits. From the human point-of-view, we’re accustomed to call this ‘networking’. But I like to step back and watch it as the Spirit’s gathering and timing at work. Who made it to the event? …and whom did they end up talking to ‘by accident’? “Behold!” Two more links in the chain of Care for Creation fuse.

Advocating on behalf of the environment may be a well-worn thread in many of our lives. It includes concrete avocations like gardening for our households and for our community, utilizing the green-space around our churches. Keeping an eye on the legislative agenda, on how energy is harvested and renewed (or not), also gives a voice to the rivers, old-growth forests, and wild creatures who can’t offer words – or votes, or letters of concern/letters to the editor – in their own defense. Imagine, again, an environmental bill coming to a voice-vote. Senators and representatives look out over their constituencies… but the seats are occupied; one by a soft-shouldered mountain, another by a trout. Their testimony…? Let’s say that God has entrusted that to our voice-boxes. Lutherans Restoring Creation invites you to take part in a “train the trainers” event (and share the inside joke on The Larynx and The Lorax)!
– See more at: http://www.lutheranadvocacypa.org/blogs/creation-advocacy-a-voice-for-the-voiceless/#sthash.M0sODR8l.dpuf