Rev. Fletcher Harper 2013-05-24T15:38:19-04:00 Rev. Fletcher Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=rev-fletcher-harper Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rev. Fletcher Harper Good old fashioned elbow grease. Sacred Writings on the Environment tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.806558 2011-01-12T20:44:39-05:00 2011-05-25T18:25:24-04:00 Rev. Fletcher Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-fletcher-harper/

Six years you may sow your field. But in the seventh year the land shall have a blessing of complete rest, a Sabbath of the Lord. --Leviticus 25: 2-5


Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. --Psalm 150:6


There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this, the land mourns and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying. --Hosea 4:1-4


(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers -- all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. --Colossians 1:15-20


The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. --Revelation 22:3


O children of Adam, eat and drink, but do not be wasteful. Allah does not like prodigals! --Quran 7:31


Allah most gracious! It is Allah who has taught the Quran. Allah has created humankind, taught humanity speech and intelligence. It is Allah who has set the sun and the moon to follow courses exactly computed. The herbs and the trees alike bow in adoration. Allah has raised the firmament high and has set up the balance of justice in order that we may not transgress due balance. So let us establish a commitment to justice and not fall short in the balance.

It is Allah who has spread out the earth for Allah's creatures; the date palm and fruit trees, the corn with its stalks for fodder, all sweet smelling plants. How numerous are the favors of Allah! Can you not see? --Quran 55: 1-13


The Temple bell stops.
But the sound keeps coming
Out of the flowers.
--Basho, 17th Century Buddhist Poet


Supreme Lord let there be peace in the sky and in the atmosphere. Let there be peace in the plant world and in the forests. Let the cosmic powers be peaceful. Let the Brahman, the true essence and source of life, be peaceful. Let there be undiluted and fulfilling peace everywhere. --Atharva Veda (Hindu)


The great sea has set me in motion,
Set me adrift,
And I move as a reed in the river.

The arch of sky
And mightiness of storms
Encompass me,
And I am left
Trembling with joy.
--Eskimo Poem
]]> God is My Rock: How the Earth Reveals the Divine tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.806384 2011-01-09T22:16:30-05:00 2011-05-25T18:25:24-04:00 Rev. Fletcher Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-fletcher-harper/ I will love thee, O Lord, my strength; the Lord is my stony rock, and my defense. -- Psalm 18:1

When I was eight or nine, I was playing outside on a hillside near the sea in Rhode Island, where my family spent time during the summer. It was overcast. The air was heavily damp, opaque with mist at a distance of 150 yards. The sound of a foghorn bleated from an offshore buoy like a blind person groping in darkness. I was running around with my brother and friends, barefoot. The stiff blades of crabgrass and the sandy soil were abrasive and cold on my feet. Slivers of moisture hit my cheek as I ran.

Then, my foot ran across a rock whose rough face stuck up above the surface of the ground. And suddenly, inwardly, I felt something very different, coming up through the rock.

An enormous depth opened up from the earth into my body and suffused the air around me. I felt a remarkable presence, eternity packed into a nanosecond, a fullness of time. It was loving and stern, beautiful and awesome, silent and strong, all at once. It stopped me in my tracks. Chronologically, the experience lasted less than an instant. But in a very real sense it has lasted over 40 years, as I remember it clearly today. It was an experience of the presence of God, and I am so grateful.

Because of a rock.

Years later, I am a Christian minister and I run a religious environmental group. Much of our work organizes religious groups to protect the environment. But I've found over the years that most people have powerful spiritual experiences outdoors, experiences which move them deeply and which connect them with the divine as powerfully as anything else. These stories -- of God entering their lives through plants and animals and landscapes and storms and flowers and rocks -- are spiritual touchstones, cornerstones in the foundation of their faith. These are often the most real experiences of God with which they are blessed. When I read in the New Testament about Jesus regularly heading for the hills to pray, I know exactly what he was doing, just as I understand why God called creation "good" day after day after day at the very beginning of Genesis. The earth reveals God to us and connects us to the Spirit.

And yet, people's stories of their outdoor spiritual experiences rarely see the light of day. I've asked hundreds of people. Most of them have never shared their experiences with another person. They're often embarrassed, reluctant or afraid. It's not a compliment today to be called a tree-hugger, and too many Christians still believe that if you get too close to the earth you cease being a follower of Jesus.

This is sad. God offers so much through the earth. Look at what Jesus does at his last supper, taking the fruit of the earth and the vine, and calling them "my body" and "my blood." (Matthew 26:26-29) Read Paul writing about the awe inspired by the fact that the whole universe holds together "in Christ" (Colossians 1:15-20). See how God reminds Job of God's majesty by describing the near-infinite details of the characteristics of wild animals, all owing their complex beauty to their Creator (Job 39-42). Read the psalmist, who writes that "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork," (Ps. 19:1) and who describes all creation -- animals, plants, landscapes, weather, and people -- giving praise to God (Ps. 148). The earth reveals and connects us to God. In the experiences of our lives and in the Bible, it's right there. What are we so afraid of?

There are few sources of the knowledge of God more powerful than the earth. Christians have known this across the centuries. Augustine -- a theological giant from the fourth century -- described in his classic, The City of God, the "two books" that people can read to find God. "Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? Why, heaven and earth shout to you: 'God made me!'"

Every Sunday, as I start my sermon, I say a prayer aloud: "Lord God, may the words of our mouths and the meditations deep within our hearts be acceptable in your sight, because you are our rock and our redeemer." I don't think that most people realize that when I say "rock," I mean it literally. Thanks to that rock forty years ago, thanks to the earth, I know God. And I am so grateful.

The Rev. Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an interfaith environmental coalition.]]> Choose Life: The Religious Mandate for Chemical Policy Reform tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.662234 2010-08-01T08:22:20-04:00 2011-05-25T17:10:24-04:00 Rev. Fletcher Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-fletcher-harper/ ahimsa, or non-violence; the Koran's recognition that good health is a sign of Allah's mercy; Judaism's demand that society and individuals protect human health: each of these teachings recognizes life's value, and that protecting health is a sacred duty.

When I left the parish to work as a religious environmentalist, I didn't expect to spend time with cancer victims. To my surprise, when I visited sites polluted with toxic chemicals, many of them in poor communities, I continued to meet people with cancer, people who wondered why so many others in their community had cancer, too.

I learned about cancer clusters and the health threats posed by toxins. And there was more. I visited Appalachian mining counties where everyone's water was stored in ugly plastic tanks in their backyard because the groundwater was poisoned. I visited urban and rural communities within an hour of New York City where there's so much chemical pollution in the ground that the clean-up strategy is to pump groundwater through filtering systems and back into the ground, 24/7, for years on end.

I met a New Jersey scientist who, when asked at a forum about what he would do to protect his family from cancer-causing chemicals, said, "I wouldn't drink well water in New Jersey."

And I've started reading that new genre of environmental stories, the mutating reptile stories -- frogs growing extra legs, alligators growing stunted genitals, male fish inexplicably laying eggs -- with growing scientific proof that chemicals called endocrine disruptors are to blame.

The more I read about this topic, the more I got the sense that there's a massive science experiment taking place, that we're all being exposed to a growing number of toxic chemicals in varying doses, without knowing anything about it.

I don't know about you, but I never signed the release form for this.

Then, earlier this year, the President's Cancer Panel issued its report for 2008-2009, dedicated to the topic of environmental cancer. This panel, whose members were appointed by President Bush, called for surprisingly strong government action to reduce the public's risk of cancer from chemical exposure. The panel's co-chairs reported the following:

With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are un- or understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread ... [T]he public remains unaware of many common environmental carcinogens ... [and are] also unaware that children are far more vulnerable to environmental toxins and radiation than adults. Efforts to inform the public of such harmful exposures and how to prevent them must be increased. All levels of government, from federal to local, must work to protect every American from needless disease through rigorous regulation of environmental pollutants.


Make sure you read that last sentence carefully. Yes, in our day and age, it really does represent an unashamed call for stricter, tougher regulation.

Last Thursday, the House of Representatives introduced the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act, an important piece of legislation that would go a long way towards protecting people and the environment from toxic chemicals.

This would be the first major overhaul of our nation's chemical policy since 1976, when Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). TSCA (pronounced like the opera) is in a woeful state of affairs. Around 62,000 chemicals were grandfathered under TSCA. About 20,000 more have entered commercial use since then. But since 1976, according to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office -- a widely respected government agency -- only 200 chemicals have been tested for safety.

The evidence that chemical policy reform is needed is clear and convincing, and more and more groups are calling for action. In recent years, scientists have found that numerous chemicals once thought to be safe are dangerous at very low levels. Environmental justice groups, concerned about pollution's impact on communities of color and poor communities, have been watching the studies and sounding the alarm for years.

Now, religious groups are getting involved. Last month, GreenFaith, the National Council of Churches, the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, and religious groups in ten states released The Interfaith Statement for Chemical Policy Reform.

The statement calls for increased protections for our nation's most vulnerable communities; for workers, children, and pregnant mothers; and for natural systems. It also calls for investments in a "green" economy, so that our economy creates jobs and products that protect the web of life rather than tearing it apart. The groups are collecting signatures from concerned people of faith in an effort to move public opinion on this issue.

In the end, chemical policy reform is about protecting health and life -- the lives of people, the life of the planet. The Bible puts it succinctly when it says, "Choose life." It's time for our country to do exactly that.

The Rev. Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an interfaith environmental coalition.

]]> Silence, God, and the Gulf Coast Oil Spill tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.567834 2010-05-07T12:39:00-04:00 2011-05-25T16:25:21-04:00 Rev. Fletcher Harper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-fletcher-harper/
For Dr. Trible, the most powerful passage in Job described the initial reactions of Job's comforters to the hideous spectacle their friend had become. Before these friends spend 34 chapters pressing their useless explanations and misplaced faithfulness on a blameless man with a shattered life, their initial actions -- before they open their mouths -- offer more help than their subsequent 600 verses of speech. When they first realize what has happened, they "wept aloud and tore their robes ... They sat with Job on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, because they saw that his suffering was very great" (Job 2:12-13).

In the first seven days after the Gulf Coast oil spill, I've heard a lot of responses that fall into two primary categories. One reaction is from various industry experts, who've observed that oil spills are unavoidable. Like Job's comforters, these experts appear to believe that their response is adequate, and that we need to accept that the price of a steady energy supply is an ongoing litany of environmental and humanitarian disasters. Several of these experts have noted without irony that the US has it good because our environmental laws are so tough -- citing the example of less-regulated countries like Nigeria, which apparently has suffered an Exxon Valdez-equivalent spill every year since 1969. This kind of response is the pastoral equivalent of telling a family that's just lost a loved one in a horrible accident that "stuff happens." It doesn't cut it.

A second, more heartening reaction has been that of the thousands of volunteers who've wanted to act. NPR carried a story about the effectiveness of human and animal hair as an attractor for oil, and described hundreds of barber shops and salons nationwide shipping their trimmings to a central location where volunteers are stuffing the hair into cloth tubes, creating sausage-shaped, hair-filled booms to skim the Gulf's surface and to collect the oil.

In the wake of these two initial reactions -- one avoiding the heart of the matter while the other sought to make it right -- I heard two other stories, one directly related, the other indirectly. The first described Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's Executive Director, taking a helicopter ride to view part of the spill from the air. The report noted that Mr. Brune was silent during the ride, and that he said very little after it. The report went on to relate several of Mr. Brune's words -- and I don't remember even one of them. But I do remember being grateful for his relative silence, and for his allowing himself to be moved. Like the initial reaction of Job's comforters, his sobriety felt more evocative to me than most of the ink that's been spilled on this catastrophe. It created space to recognize the pain of the victims -- human and beyond. People deprived of their livelihoods and culture. A vulnerable coastline battered by a second cataclysm in less than a decade. Sea turtles, fish, birds -- oil-suffocated and washing up dead. These images and this suffering command silence, at least in part. And if we can't manage that silence, I doubt we'll find the humanity to respond in a genuinely decent and effective way.

The second story was on the release of the President's Cancer Panel report, a 200-page report that, according to those who'd seen advance copies, expressed grave concerns about the impacts of thousands of unregulated chemicals on human health. The report described the growing prevalence of certain cancers in children, the fact that "many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated," the warning that "to a disturbing extent, babies are born 'pre-polluted'" because of chemical exposure in the womb. "We wanted to let people know that we're concerned, and that they should be concerned," Professor LaSalle Leffall, Jr., a leader of the Panel and an oncologist and professor of surgery at Howard University, told The New York Times.

Silence, followed by the larger view that this report provides, can create the space for the disaster in the Gulf to strike a chord. The world's religious traditions teach that we owe respect and care to the earth, to our own bodies, and to the world's most vulnerable communities. In the wake of the Deepwater disaster it's time to listen to these traditions, to strengthen our resolve, and to act.

For example, numerous classical Jewish sources mandate the proper disposal of waste, and state that noxious products from industrial production be kept far from human habitation (Deuteronomy 23:13-15, Mishnah Baba Batra 2:9). The New Testament teaches that Jesus Christ died to redeem people and all of creation (Colossians 1:15-20), and joins with its Jewish forbearers in affirming repeatedly the goodness of the earth (Genesis 1). Islam teaches that human beings are the "vice-regents" of Allah, responsible for the earth's care, and warns against human self-destructiveness: "Neither kill or destroy yourselves: for verily God hath been to you Most Merciful." (Quran 4:29). Hinduism's Atharva Veda offers a beautiful prayer: "Supreme Lord let there be peace in the sky and in the atmosphere. Let there be peace in the plant world and in the forests. Let the cosmic powers be peaceful. Let the Brahman, the true essence and source of life, be peaceful. Let there be undiluted and fulfilling peace everywhere." Basho, the acclaimed 17th-century Buddhist poet, describes the entire earth as a sanctuary with his succinct offering: "The Temple bell stops. But the sound keeps coming - out of the flowers." And there's more, much more. We just need to be quiet and listen -- and then act.

Nothing can undo the suffering that this oil spill is creating. There will be no immediate balm in Gilead. But we can redeem ourselves by understanding this disaster for what it is -- yet another indication, along with the President's Cancer Panel report, that we need to change course. Developing strong federal policies to create renewable energy and fight climate change, and to regulate and replace the toxins we're spewing into the earth, would be a good start. Do we have the ears to hear, the eyes to see, and the resolve to act?]]>