Reflection

Reflection by Rev. Barbara McKusick Liscord April 19, 2006

It was Easter Sunday afternoon. We had a good morning at church. Our small family returned home to snack on yummies, while preparing the real meal. After a huge mid afternoon feast, the sunshine beckoned and we went outside. As soon as we stepped outside, we were surprised to find the wind quickly cooling our skin. We went back in, put on more layers and tried again. We found a quiet, protected place on the sunny side of the shed. We dragged out a few signs left over from failed political campaigns to sit on and leaned our backs against the warmed wood. We talked about the state of the world. First, about the crisis in Darfur and my plans to go to the rally in Washington on April 30 and then, my daughter’s plan to try to serve on some kind of medical mission there next summer. Before long, the conversation turned to the topic of climate change. This spring, the earth in my herb garden box looks like the cracked desert sand and the freshet in the field below the shed is only slightly wet. I had been watching the gleaming green needled white pines and newly red budded tree tops swaying briskly in the wind. I pictured our blue-green planet with swirls of wind and clouds circling as we spin around the sun. The wind that caused us mild inconveniences that afternoon, in other places whips up fierce power, raising water and bringing destruction of home, life and limb. As it did on the Gulf coast last hurricane season and more recently in Australia. There are voices on the wind. Voices of people who have families and friends and communities they love as much as I do. They have already experienced global climate changes in ways I just read about. Those voices joined us in our conversation in that sunny spot by the shed and urged us to get up again off those old political signs and try again. To do what we can to change our behavior, culture and public policy to save our fragile planet. I’m grateful for our Unitarian Universalist community here in Milford, where we are living our faith in our Green Sanctuary work. Let us all join in. Invite others to join in. Now is the time. Here is the joy.