Home to every human being who ever lived and to every creature that has ever been.
Home to every sight, smell and sensation, home to all our joys and sorrows.
Home to the Spirit – to every altar, temple, mosque, cathedral, sanctuary, and shrine.
We belong here, body and soul. This is our home – our only home.
BUT TODAY we awaken to an astonishing surprise.
We are far too many and many of us are far too rich.
Because we burn fossil fuels relentlessly for ravenous economies and exploding populations, Earth has entered a new geologic era.
Earth can no longer be counted on in the ways we have known.
Not for steady seasons of seedtime and harvest.
Not for glacial waters to feed great rivers.
Not for sea levels trustworthy enough for coastal cities.
Not for flora and fauna to adjust to new diseases or drought.
Not for rainfall and snowpack to quench our thirst and the land’s.
Not for enough healthy habitat to stave off extinction for countless species.
IN THIS PERILOUS MOMENT, our religious communities are called to forge a viable way of life, for an awakening with Earth. We must do this. We can do this.
For this common undertaking science is indispensable. But science cannot give us the courage to retreat and repent from our crimes against creation.
FAITH IS NEEDED,
a faith with tenacity, commitment, and loyalty,
a faith that reaches deep enough to summon sacrifice,
a faith that locates us in communities that transcend
our egos and surpass our modest moment in time,
a faith that speaks to the mystery of our lives and honors death and renewal,
a faith that shapes our lives inwardly and outwardly,
a faith that sustains renewable moral-spiritual energy,
This is the power needed to partner with good science and technology.
WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF MONUMENTAL SHIFT. Nature has changed course.
In the past we have known ruin and rebirth, but we were always greeted by nature’s reliability. Not so now.
Our communities need a conversion to these tough truths of an altered planet.
We must generate new capacities for new responsibilities.
Climate change most harms those who contribute least to it.
Yet urgency for social justice must find its way to creation justice.
Learning from Indigenous peoples, justice must and can include the moral claims of Earth, air, fire, and water, the well-being of other species, and the needs of future generations.
Gathered here beneath the great Phoenixes in this nave, we pledge ourselves as leaders of religious, spiritual and environmental communities to care for Earth as the stunning gift of God, a sacred trust.
We pledge every effort to love our Earth home.