Christian Life Community



CLC Meeting 9: Simplicity and Planet Earth

Equipment List:

1. Candle & Lighter

2. Copies of this meeting itinerary for everyone

3. Reflective music to play during reflection

4. Scrap paper and pens just in case people do not bring their journals

5. Computer if you want to watch the Mountain Top Coal removal during your CLC (if you do, you might go a little over your 1 hour meeting time, so check with your CLC to see what they want to do).

Opening Prayer: Call to Prayer - 1 minute

Check-In/Moment Closest: 15 minutes

• This week we will expand our notion of Simple Living to encompass Planet Earth. To put us in the mood, we’ll start with a variation on an old theme. Take a moment to identify one of your Moments Closest to God in Nature. Similar to how we do our weekly ‘Moment Closests’, try to think of a specific time (“last year during our family vacation to the Ozarks, I saw an incredible sunset and felt truly close to God”), as opposed to speaking in generalities (“I feel close to God when I see a beautiful sunset”).

• Take time to share these moments.

Scripture Reflection : 30 minutes

Read the following passage from the Book of Daniel and allow some silent time for reflection:

Let the Earth bless the Creator, praise and exalt God above all forever. Mountains and hills bless the Creator, praise and exalt God above all forever. Everything growing from the Earth, bless the Creator, praise and exalt God above all forever. Seas and rivers bless the Creator, praise and exalt God above all forever. You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Creator, praise and exalt God above all forever. All you birds of the air, bless the Creator, praise and exalt God above all forever. All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Creator, praise and exalt God above all forever.

Daniel 3:74 – 76, 78 – 81

• How do you praise God in your life?

• Have you ever considered that all of God’s creatures – not just humans – are called to praise their Creator? How do animals and plants praise God?

• How does our lack of simplicity, or our poor relationship with Planet Earth affect the mountains’, seas’, rivers’, birds’, fish’s and animals’ ability to praise their Creator, as prescribed in the above passage from the Book of Daniel? Consider the following:

Beluga Whales in the St. Lawrence (info from Canadian Government sites and )

Before 1885, there were as many as 10,000 belugas in the St. Lawrence River system. Recent estimates put the current population at just 1,000. Why?

• Excessive hunting from 1880 to 1950.

• Habitat destruction

• Pollution:

o Under Canadian law, a PCB (toxic chemical formerly used in the electrical industry) level of 500 parts per million (ppm) in soil or water is considered toxic waste. PCB levels in St. Lawrence Beluga Whales range from 240 ppm to 800 ppm: technically, some Belugas from the St. Lawrence Seaway can themselves be classified as toxic waste.

o A toxicologist at the St. Lawrence National Institute of Ecotoxicology in Montreal, found that only 20 percent of female St. Lawrence belugas were pregnant or had recently given birth, as opposed to 66 percent of their female counterparts in the Canadian Arctic, where there is less pollution.

Birds and fish of the Pacific Ocean (info from Sierra Magazine)

Plastic waste from countries on both sides of the Pacific Ocean cause trouble for marine lif:

• In 2005 researchers sampled the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers over three days following a big storm and estimated that 60 tons--some 2.3 billion individual pieces of trash--were pouring into the sea.

• A giant patch of garbage floats in the northern Pacific Ocean. Scientists estimate it to be two to three times the size of Texas, but in fact it might be far larger--as much as 5 million square miles, or one and a half times the size of the United States. Sailors encounter it within 500 miles of the California coast and 200 miles off Japan.

• Plastic objects kill an estimated 100,000 marine mammals and one million birds every year, including the albatross: mistaking trash for fish, albatrosses starve with a stomach full of cigarette lighters and disposable forks.

• In 2008, scientists harvested hundreds of lantern fish, two-inch midgets that make up 90 percent of the biomass in the middle depths of the ocean. Ninety percent of the lantern fish had eaten plastic--one had 84 fragments in its belly.

Mountain Top Coal Removal (info from LA Times, the journal Science, KC Star, CBS, State of MO DNR)

Mountaintop coal mining involves blowing up mountain peaks to get access to the coal that we use to generate electricity. Coal companies say the practice is more efficient and safer than traditional deep-shaft mining, and that steps are taken to mitigate damage. Environmentalists say it degrades the landscape, destroys habitat and pollutes streams that get filled with debris from explosions.

• Mountaintop removal mining operators have destroyed approximately 2,040 square miles, 500 mountain peaks, and 2000 miles of streams in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky.

• The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that by 2012, two decades of mountaintop removal will have destroyed or degraded 11.5% of the forests in those four states, an area larger than Delaware.

• Massey Energy has been cited for 12,000 violations of the Clean Water Act and surface mining laws for their mining operations in West Virginia.

• In October of 2000, 300 million gallons of coal slurry - thick pudding-like waste from mountain top removal mining operations - flooded land, polluted rivers and destroyed property in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. The slurry contained hazardous chemicals, including arsenic and mercury.

• According to the National Mining Association, Missouri generates 80% of its electricity from coal, which makes us the sixth most coal-dependent state in the country.

• To learn more about mountain top removal, check out this 20-minute film, either during your CLC or on your own afterwards:

If we were to expand our Spirituality of Simplicity to encompass our relationship to Earth, what might that entail?

• Changing our individual behavior

• Changing our CLC’s behavior

• Changing our society’s behavior

Closing Prayer: 2 minutes

Ask for intentions

Business/Announcements: 5 minutes

• More retreats this semester:

o Silent Retreat: Friday, April 15th through Saturday April 16th

o SuperNatural Christians Retreat: Monday, May 16th – Saturday, May 21st

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