Make Our Climate Great Again!

Great Spirit, help us to live in balance with you, with one another, and with our Mother Earth. Teach us to love with the humble generosity of nature. Give us the patience and faith of the ancient forests as you guide us along your path of healing and transformation. Help us awaken like the springtime earth and open our eyes to the presence of your living spirit in all beings. Give us the courage and boldness of sprouting seedlings, that we may act with compassion while growing towards your light.

Mother Earth is waking up. Spring is upon us and the frozen woodland trails here in Michigan have once again become muddy paths. The silent winter mornings have been replaced with symphonies of bird songs and frog choruses. The shapes of streams and rivers have been reformed as their water levels rise and currents turn into rapids.

As Mother Earth reawakens, she teaches us about resilience, transformation, and generosity. Her life-giving forces continue to support us all; the two-legged, four-legged, winged, and finned. All species, all humans, without discrimination. Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals. All nations, colors, religions, languages, ethnicities, and tribes. We are all children of this same precious Mother Earth.

And yet we walk and drive around as if we were separate, individual owners of the land. We make plans like we were in control of the seasons. We sell the water. We continue to pollute the air with toxins and greenhouse gases. We shift disproportionate environmental burdens on the poor and communities of color. We forget that in doing so we are selling and poisoning ourselves and each other, and are cheating future generations out of their health and well-being.

Here in the US, our new president has decided to roll back regulations meant to protect the air and the water from such destruction. Instead of strengthening environmental protections, this administration seems interested only in enriching itself at the expense of a stable climate, clean water, and fresh air.

It is up to us to respond with radical compassion, not only for ourselves but on behalf of future generations. Not only for our fellow humans but for all species. How do we restore balance to Mother Earth? How do we make heard the voices of the voiceless, of those calling out to us to protect the earth? How do we make the climate great again?

The answer is simple but challenging. We need to find ways to consume less fossil fuels. We need to raise less livestock and reduce the amount of materials sent to landfills. We need to simplify our lives and learn ways to work together across differences, sharing the understanding that we all depend on clean air, clean water, and a stable climate.

We need to work for environmental justice for all, especially for the most vulnerable among us.

Just as our Mother Earth is waking up, we humans must also awaken to the reality of our interdependence with each other and all of nature. We must recognize our common humanity and vulnerability to climate change, and act to stop environmental destruction. Our survival depends on it.

I will continue to celebrate our Mother Earth and all of her communities each time I sing. I am grateful to have many opportunities to do so and invite you and your family to sing with me. On April 29^th Allison and I will join with people all over the country to march for jobs, justice, and the climate in DC. We hope that you will join a march near you and that together we will continue to sing, love, and work to protect our Mother Earth. Let us wake up and make our climate great again, for the benefit of future generations.

Trusting in our Mother Earth,
Joe