Day 20
Tuesday, September 20, 2022

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Scripture
the land dries up, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea are swept away.  — Hosea 4:3

Wisdom
In 2005, Australian Philosopher Glenn Albrecht published a paper naming a new emotion: solastalgia. The word describes the pain we feel when we see environmental change in the places we call home. Albrecht found plenty of examples of solastalgia: among Australian farmers during lengthy droughts, residents of Louisiana following Katrina, and survivors of the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004…in this time of climate change, we feel outright grief: a grief unique enough and pervasive enough to have its own name. Ecological grief, or climate grief…the prophet Hosea knew that power. Hosea’s is an ecological lament. His world like ours is awash in grief. All of creation is grieving, or languishing, or outright perishing. “Therefore the land mourns” he says “and all who live on it languish” (4:3)…. When we become participants in the holy work of lament, we join our voices to the creation-wide expression of grief that is even now pouring forth. To do so is to recognize our interdependence and to affirm our interconnectedness by stepping into a deeper solidarity with one another and with all God’s creatures.  — Andi Lloyd, The Land Mourns, ‘Christian Century’, September 2022

Prayer
You do not leave us abandoned, O God of fecundity and abundant creation. We know you when we lament for the pain of the earth, for the ecological sorrow of this era. Let your spirit join us in solidarity with all creation. Let your spirit accompany us all the long day. Amen. —The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster