Dear Friends,
I write from Washington, where tomorrow I will risk arrest in front of the White House. Together with other members of the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate (IMAC), at noon on Thursday I will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience to make clear to President Obama that his inspired pledge to halt the destruction of the Earth from climate change requires that he take bold and courageous actions, including rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
As religious leaders and individuals, we recognize the moral imperative of taking unified, visible action to ensure that our national leaders act responsibly to address climate change.
So we have called on people of faith to join us in Washington for "Palms, Matzah, Our Planet, and the White House" or to hold an Interfaith Healing Seder for the Earth in your own community.
This is an opportunity to use the coming holy days as a period of reflection and action on our ancient sacred wisdoms, which remind us that top-down power must be called to account for us to win through to the Promised Land, the Beloved Community.
Last month, tens of thousands of people rallied in Washington, San Francisco, and elsewhere to urge the president to act now to help heal and sustain our communities and the earth. In response to the State of the Union speech, and in preparation for that national mobilization, I wrote the following poem. It is published on FOR's Facebook page as part of my regular "Search for Right Relationship" poetry series.
Weathering Politics iii
A market based response to climate change
Should mean a profit for everyone he hinted
Citing science as the source of the promise
Some of the science more political than physical
Some of the gas that was heating the room rising
From a composting rhetoric, some of the wind
Was far removed from the engine of the sun,
But the message was that the future of our children
The very possibilities for life on planet earth
Will be a result of how much we choose to change
Our understanding of profit, take its measure,
Make the market one of well-being, our wealth
What we leave for those to come, not what we take.
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IMAC members are a diverse group of faith-rooted activists, representing such organizations as the NAACP, the Hip Hop Caucus, The Shalom Center, the Muslim American Society, the Franciscan Action Network, FOR and others. We mobilize faith community support for national calls to action led by our ally groups, such as this open letter to President Obama launched by 350.org, and we work to engage grassroots interfaith activists -- reply to this email to tell us what your local faith community is doing to address the climate crisis!
Follow us via Twitter via @FORpeace as we continue to press #ForwardOnClimate!
In peace and for a sustainable future,
Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Fellowship of Reconciliation |
