good grief

From Soul Pancake, page 84-- "It's morbid, but eye-opening: Put on your finest black and crash a funeral. Without an emotional connection to the deceased, observe love manifesting itself as grief."

(Soul Pancake is a book I picked up because Rainn Wilson started the movement, and Josh Ritter wrote a song for it. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's a book full of art and weird facts and fantastic questions about art, science, spirituality, philosophy, and life. They also produce wonderful videos.)

I didn't quite crash a funeral, but I volunteered at the last minute to be the musician for a children's memorial service at Tulane Hospital. I didn't know any of the families, just one of the chaplains. It was a bit of a scramble to figure out songs for a secular memorial service, and I decided to bring my ukulele this morning because it's a little easier to play so might quell whatever nervousness I came up with. This whole thing probably could have been kind of awkward, but I decided to focus on how beautiful it was, which reminded me of that Soul Pancake page.

Only a few families showed up out of the probably two or three dozen children whom we lit candles for. I can only imagine reentering the place where your child died. One family showed up well after the service ended, during the reception. The chaplain told me this was typical-- families want to grieve, but are unsure of how they want to or are able to.

I heard a lot of stories and saw a lot of pictures of really awesome kids, kids who rode their little bikes through the hospital hallways and banged on the piano in the chapel the day before they passed, kids who lit up the world around them. Lives cut short.


I've had a lot of heavy, morbid thoughts the last few days. On Thursday night, while taking some visitors to the French Quarter, I was driving at a reasonable speed down a decently lit road. It had been raining on and off all evening, so I was focusing on the road, trying not to find any deep water with my little car. It was so dim and misty out, I didn't notice until it was almost too late that a person was meandering slowly across Claiborne Ave with a shopping cart full of stuff, not too far in front of me. I hit the brakes, but I hit water. We weren't slowing down fast enough. I swerved. I fish tailed. I regained control of the car, just barely, without hitting the far curb or the person and their shopping cart.

That entire evening, I had horrifying images flashing across my brain of that person flying up the hood of my car.

I thought a lot about what would have happened. That person was almost certainly homeless. I wondered if they were altered, or actually trying to get hit by a car. I wondered what would have happened if I hit them. I wondered if the police or paramedics would come quickly or not. I wondered if my car swerving at about 30mph was enough to seriously injure or kill a human pushing a shopping cart. I wondered who would grieve for the loss of this person.

I thought about the people laid to rest at the Katrina Memorial and wondered who was grieving for them.

Today, at the children's service, I also heard stories about homicides (and the good work of the police and detectives and chaplains involved). I found myself grieving for the children, for their families,and for this city. I've seen so many beautiful things in South Louisiana this year, and it can be incredibly hard to balance that beauty with all of the terrible things. The wetlands disappearing. Homeless people being forgotten. Children being murdered.

This page in Soul Pancake was really an exercise in beauty. You don't really grieve for things you don't care about. Being part of that service this morning was really lovely, and I'm so glad that I could offer my gift of music in that way. There were a lot of dark thoughts swirling around in my head, but ultimately, it's incredible to think about how much I love this world. It's worth a little sadness from time to time.

Today, I fell through the flotant marsh.

My week of flora fieldwork continued today, with vegetation monitoring along Bayou Segnette in the Jean Lafitte Barataria Preserve (my favorite park I've found).


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We were measuring bald cypress trees that were planted 1-3 years ago, and assessing their health. For the most part, they're looking good! This involved hiking through a spoil bank (basically the sides of the waterway that are built up with the stuff that gets dredged to keep the waterway clear), which was very dense with brambles and trees, and into the marsh, which had several inches of standing water.

I usually try to find out the landscape before I go out to do fieldwork, so I can make well-informed choices about my footwear. Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm not the kind of person who has a million pairs of shoes, but I do have several kinds of boots and outdoor/work footwear. With me in Louisiana, I have an old pair of awesome trail running shoes that serve as my water planting shoes; I have my yellow knee boots; I have my epic hiking boots; and a pair of cleaner, newer sneakers mostly reserved for doing active things that don't involve the wetlands.

Last time I planted in the Barataria Preserve, the ground was fairly high and dry, but after some thought about the recent rains and high water, I decided on knee boots. I was thankful that I did. Once past the spoil bank, there was several inches of standing water in the marsh.



Just before lunch, I discovered the hard way that it was a floating marsh, which is called flotant here. How did I discover this, you might ask?

I fell through it.

One misstep, and down I went. I was stuck in the mud up to my chest, with water up to my shoulders. I had an instantaneous moment in which I thought that I should be claustrophobic or scared or something, but it passed immediately and I focused on getting my legs out WITH my boots. I was certain I had lost one, but I managed to get myself and my wellies out. I had noticed all morning that the ground was shaking beneath our feet whenever a big, loud boat went by. I mean, they do call it trembling prairie.



I have entertained the idea of acquiring hip waders for some time, but most of the field work I do here is shallow enough for knee boots or in water so high that hip waders can't help me. I guess today it didn't really matter what footwear I chose anyway.

Today, I swam through an oil slick.

I'm having a fantastic week. Today was day 2/5 of planting projects. Plants! All week! Doing conservation!



Today's project was putting about 800 gallon buckets of bullrush along the edge of Blind River in St. James Parish. This was to protect a bulkhead from further erosion. I love planting in water! The river was really high because of recent heavy rains and a strong south wind earlier this week, so the banks were flooded. The ground was a mixed bag-- really mucky and easy in some places, really hard and requiring a dibble or sharpshooter in others.



As we were really struggling to get the rushes to stay. in. the. ground. along this particular area, I imagine we looked pretty funny from shore. We would just stand still in one spot for a while, basically treating the root ball like a pogo stick trying to get it to stay in the thin layer of mucky soil in water that was chin deep. So I'd look around a little bit because I couldn't see what I was doing anyway.



I was startled at one point in this stretch to notice something almost reddish to my right. At first, I thought I was bleeding. I checked my arms to see if I had nicked myself or something, but nothing. It kind of dissipated. I finally got the rush in the ground, and stepped sideways to plant another one, when I noticed I was in a pool of oil, all rainbow and shiny.



As soon as I moved, it began to break up slowly and spread out. It was really bizarre, because I imagine oil and water to look kind of blobby like when you pour vegetable oil into water. I suppose without the limitations of the bowl or measuring cup, the oil spreads out very thinly. The edges looked so strange.

I didn't think much of it at the time, because we still had a bit of work to do and I really enjoy that work. On my drive back to New Orleans, I began to contemplate good and bad things that happened to me during the week, because it's Tuesday-- we have house meetings on Tuesday nights that generally begin with our highs and lows. High: I have five days of planting projects IN A ROW! Low:... wait a second, swimming through oil was messed up. Really messed up.

Full disclosure: I didn't actually say "messed up" in my head.

The more I thought about it, the more angry and sad I got. This is almost definitely not oil from that epic oil spill several years ago that is still producing tar balls and mats down along the Gulf. It's far more likely that this was just a leak from someone's boat, or an example of one of my biggest fears in South Louisiana: some slow leak of an oil pipeline that no one is watching.

Was swimming through oil good for me? Probably not. One of the few things I'm cynical about in this world though is health risks. We risk our lives every day by exposing ourselves to highly processed foods, cell phones, plastics, and sunlight. This alone will not give me cancer.

Just nightmares.

I'm sad that this is the reality of this environment, and so many others. I'm sad that I have to put myself in situations like this, that are questionable to my health, to do some good work. I'm really, really sad and angry and frustrated and helpless about how much we rely on oil and gas in the world. I mean, I'm really guilty (two roadtrips across Canada, a roadtrip around the eastern US, a roadtrip to get to Louisiana, even just driving to the site today was an hour to Thibodaux and another 45 minutes to get to the park where we planted; I've flown once a month every month since December till this month, and will be getting on a plane again next month).

Witnessing human impacts on this planet is exhausting me. It is really hard to convince myself to get up and work when it feels like I'm fighting a losing battle. What's easy here, is to get completely overwhelmed. Things are bad here. Really bad. And not just here.

All I can do is focus on the little things. Like each blade of bullrush now planted along the banks of Blind River. And all of the bitter panicum, phragmites and cordgrass we're putting into the ground on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain tomorrow, and all of the sand live oaks going in the ground later this week. And all of the people who have listened to me talk about the wetlands here in Louisiana, and here on this blog. Thanks for reading this. Change won't happen all at once, but I can still add a little bit at a time, and so can you.

I'm a young adult who wants to stay with the church!

I don't really know where to start with this one, but I have some feelings I want to put in writing while I'm on this crazy spiritual journey of vocational discernment. It's been an interesting few years navigating my relationship with my church and The Church, especially this past year as a mission worker. I've had some really great GREAT conversations this week with wonderful people working for the church all over the country, some at the national level, that leave me feeling hopeful.

Some of these conversations have surrounded the fact that I'm going to General Assembly as a Presbyterian Peace Fellowship intern, to sit in on the (Immigration and) Environmental Committee (parenthesis are mine) and get sent to the Presbyterians for Earth Care lunch. Or, in one pastor's words, I'm a big ol' "Presbyterian hippie". True, and I'm growing quite fond of that as my angle from which to approach the church.

One of the conversations this week had to do with my fears of growing out of my "young adult" age group before I can really embrace being part of it, and contribute to The Church as one of those elusive young adults.

I've also had several conversations this week about environmental and food initiatives at Presbyterian camps and conference centers. One was a conference call with a lot of people doing great work in really lovely places, all directors at different camps around the country. I introduced myself something like, "I'm Colleen, and I don't currently have a camp or garden, but I am (doing all sorts of environmental work with YAV) and (have a long history in camping ministry), and I'm a young adult who wants to stay with the church!" to which people responded with some Amens and Awesomes and even a Bless You, Child.

That last one was kind of the opposite of what I was going for with the whole trying-to-be-successful-at-being-a-young-adult-in-the-church thing, but I appreciated the sentiment.

After the camps phone conference, one friend on the call, who works for the national church, followed up with me individually. We talked a lot about what the national church is doing to hang on to and connect with young adults, and he offered me personal encouragement and support.

And I do feel encouraged and supported. I'm feeling really hopeful about what this denomination is doing, and I want to be part of it. I'm still floundering on a local level, but I'm not giving up. I'm still enjoying learning, and exploring different faiths and worship styles, and being part of a lot of good work happening through different congregations. Doing environmental work for the church is really exciting. I feel like I'm part of something big, some change in the conversations: for the environment, kind of reversing this idea that God created earth and left us in charge to do whatever we want; for the young adults, that we still matter after we're too old to be in youth group but before we're old enough to have kids in youth group. I'm not even quite sure what it is yet, but it feels good to be connected to a lot of good people doing good work. My relationship with The Church is getting pretty good, which motivates me to keep working on my relationship with the church/ my church despite the many challenges that entails.

Ten Things I See Every Day in Louisiana

Yesterday morning, I left New Orleans early for Thibodaux for a BTNEP meeting, where smart people talk about good coastal conservation and education. I really, really like that organization (plus they were great hosts for Paddle Bayou Lafourche, the highlights of which were shown to the group, including our bayou yoga which everyone seemed impressed by).

As I drove just over an hour to Nicholls State University for the meeting, I noticed all sorts of things that I'm really enjoying about the springtime drive. Magnolia trees have finally blossomed, and I smell jasmine nearly constantly. I have come to love the winding roads along the bayou, and the sun was shining and the clouds were so fluffy against the bright blue sky. I laughed as I saw a car drive by without a front bumper-- a common sight in and around New Orleans, where people are terrible drivers. It made me think, what things do I see every time I leave Zimpel Manor?

In New Orleans
1. cars without bumpers
2. live oaks lining the streets
3. busted up streets and sidewalks due to said live oaks, among other things
4. people sitting on porches
5. fleur de lis bumper stickers (often on windows because of said lack of bumpers)
6. shotgun two family homes
7. streetcars
8. people standing near intersections, asking for money
9. people exercising on the neutral grounds
10. beads in trees

In South Louisiana, including but not limited to New Orleans
1. bayous
2. sugarcane farms
3. drive through daquiri shops
4. Catholic Church
5. Baptist Church
6. A different Catholic Church
7. Another different Catholic Church (bonus: St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, which confuses me every time)
8. GIGANTIC live oak trees off in the middle of old plantation land, totally unencumbered by power lines or houses, covered in Spanish moss
9. roadkill armadillo
10. people fishing in ditches and bayous along the side of the road

ok, ok, ok, more about South Louisiana because that was a lot of Catholic churches:
11. person playing or blasting music that includes some combination of accordians, fiddles, and/or French language (ok, today I was that person)
12. farms stands full of things that don't grow in New Jersey till July or August
13. old plantations
14. burning piles of tree trimmings or crop residue (sometimes it's just old junk, too)
15. unintelligible signs that I have no shot of pronouncing correctly (French? French pronounced in English? French spellings of German names? NO ONE KNOWS. Well, someone knows, but it isn't me.)

Truth is, I see and hear and smell and enjoy many more things than this every day. I'm constantly looking around, seeing and learning and experiencing new things. All kidding about roadkill armadillo  and missing bumpers aside, Louisiana is lovely.

Third time's the charm...

...unless you're talking about my Masters thesis, in which case, tenth time was the charm.

Speaking of my Masters, I really haven't had but a handful of half cups of hot coffee since then. I took my coffee with milk, and the shelf-safe milk in Mexico really, really upset my stomach. I still liked iced coffee all this time, with milk, but if I wanted a hot beverage, I'd stick to tea. 

Well, last week when I visited Lafayette to preach, I poured a small cup of hot coffee before realizing there was no milk left. Not wanting to waste it, I figured I'd just suck it up and suck it down.

But I liked it.

Just to test this, I had a cup of coffee, black, with my friend Miss Ruth while visiting her in the nursing home, and another cup of coffee, black, during my early morning drive to Baton Rouge for a meeting yesterday. 

And I still like it.

I've always thought myself to be a reasonable blend of my parents, though perhaps more strongly resembling the Spains in many ways. However, despite my lack of blue eyes, despite the fact that I'm kind of average height, this is a clear, direct connection to my mother and her people. I can't believe it either, but I like my hot coffee pollutant free now. (Iced coffee will still require milk. Mmm.) (And let's be clear: I still really, really like tea.)

Growing and changing is good. As I mentioned, I preached in Lafayette last weekend. I also preached in Morgan City this winter, and this morning, I preached at Bayou Blue. It's changed a little bit each time, but I've generally been preaching about my work in the wetlands in South Louisiana, and water issues in general. I'm a little nervous, but I thought I'd share a sort of composite of my sermons. Consider this a Presbyterian environmental geography lesson:




Isaiah 43:16-21

Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Psalm 65

Psalm 104:1-13 
Romans 8:18-25 

John 1:1-5 

John 4:7-15

 

I am here today to talk with you about water. April 22 was Earth Day, and with a little help from curriculum put forth by Creation Justice Ministries, many churches are celebrating creation through the lens of water.

             

Now, I love water. I grew up in coastal New Jersey, a town called Toms River, nestled between two rivers, a bay and the ocean, as well as a beautiful stretch of brackish wetlands. My childhood memories of summer are almost entirely connected to these beautiful places. Surely there are a few rivers, lakes and bayous, or perhaps even the Gulf of Mexico that you have similar memories of. The other connection I had growing up to water in my hometown is that it was very, very polluted—a chemical company had buried hundreds of drums of waste, drums that were not sealed properly and leaked toxins into the local water supply. There were high rates of childhood cancer that weren’t “officially” traced back to our drinking water supply until I was in high school. There are some areas of Louisiana that can relate to this experience, too.

             

As an adult, I’ve studied geography and natural resources, making an effort to take an active part in conservation. God called me here for a year of service through the Presbytery of South Louisiana, to advocate for the wetlands here. This has involved a lot of hands-on conservation, planting cord grass in old canals and eroded spaces to help capture loose sediments and rebuild the area; planting trees in urban spaces to help improve water quality and reduce the effects of runoff; planting trees along fresh water diversions to help speed up the natural reconstruction of long gone wetlands. This also involves teaching volunteers who are visiting New Orleans about coastal issues in Louisiana, to give them greater context to their work. I network with organizations like Presbyterians for Earth Care and the First People’s Conservation Council, I run an online newsletter every month and a half or so to keep the story of Louisiana’s wetlands fresh in people’s minds, and I try to help others organize to learn about and take care of the incredible wetlands and waterways of this region.

            

I also get invited to preach once in a while.

One of the main reasons that we are so able to inhabit this planet is water. The average human body is about 2/3 water, which regulates body temperature, carries nutrients and oxygen to cells, and overall helps organs to function. A human can die from dehydration in three days, as opposed to three weeks without food. The earth we’re living on is also about 3/4 water, over 97% of which is salt water, with almost 99% of the remaining fresh water locked up in glaciers. If you’re keeping up with the numbers here, that’s less than 1% of all the water on the planet—the same water that was on the planet billions of years ago—that is actually accessible to us. We should obviously take some interest in water as individuals.

             

As a church, there are certainly spiritual interests in water. Water is some form is mentioned in the Bible 722 times, as streams, wells, rain, rivers, and so on. For your reference, I’ve only mentioned water 35 times so far. God created water on the second day, right after creating light. Jesus is baptized with it, uses water as a conversation piece with a Samaritan woman by a well, turns it into wine, and later walks on it. The Psalms are full of references to being lead beside still waters, and our readings today all discussed springs and rivers in the wilderness. Many, many verses in the Bible talk about living waters, about never being thirsty again if we would just drink God’s living water.

            

So as it turns out, water is pretty important to the church, plus you need something to make your coffee with for fellowship and meetings.

             

I am often asked how my work with the wetlands is relevant to the church. When people ask why the Presbytery is sponsoring a Young Adult Volunteer to focus on wetlands issues, I generally start with the simple answer: creation. God created the earth. If we are going to honor God, we should honor His creation by showing respect and practicing conservation to the best of our collective ability.

             

Answers can certainly go more in depth than this. One of my favorite ideas concerning our responsibility for creation has to do with how we behave as humans in the first place. If we are created in God’s image, and we are reflections of God, and God has greatly blessed us, then we should be blessing others. When we bless others, “others” is not limited to people. I like this idea from the Iroquois Nation, that maintains that there are many persons on the plant, and humans are just some of them. If we are to be reflections of God, we should love and cherish all of creation just as God loves and cherishes each one of us and every part of creation. He knows every grain of sand, He knows every hair on our heads, and He knows each one of us by name. That’s a pretty big charge to reflect, but we can at least do our best by starting with the world surrounding us.

             

I want to encourage you to think about water three different ways today: as a local resource, as a global system, and as a form of spiritual capital.

             

Locally, I think there are two problems with water: too much of it, or not enough. I’ve heard many stories about how different areas used to be high and dry but now stand as open water. I’ve heard about the flooding that happens after big storms, or maybe not even such big storms. I’ve seen it pool on my street in New Orleans after an average thunder storm. The Gulf of Mexico is slowly creeping north, gaining speed and opening up new pathways through the marshes and swamps. Between erosion, subsidence, and industry cutting open canals, this region loses land faster than anywhere else in the world, nearly two football fields an hour disappearing being overtaken by the water.

             

But this water has its limits. The Gulf brings salt water, which kills trees, grasses, and freshwater creatures. It threatens the drinking water supply, and is hardly the only thing doing so. About a month ago, my friend Lindsey and I participated in the Paddle Bayou Lafourche canoe trip through the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, or BTNEP. The trip is intended to raise awareness of Bayou Lafourche, which is the main drinking water supply for over 300,000 people in this region. As we paddled 50 miles from Donaldsonville to Lockport, we passed under many bridges. The grated bridges caught my attention, as cars passed over. What could those cars possibly be dripping into the bayou, straight into the drinking water supply? As we passed over countless oil and gas pipelines, I thought about the Department of Natural Resources’ orphaned well program. I find it interesting that it has such a cute name, like we should feel sorry for this pipelines that don’t have parents, like they’re some kind of Disney character that might grow up to be a fantastic princess. Truth is, there are over 3000 wells that have no obvious owners, no paperwork filed, no one keeping track of them. That’s 3000 potential slow leaks that the state is very slowly checking up on to see that they are properly closed. That’s not to mention thousands of other pipelines that could be leaking without companies’ knowledge.

             

Don’t get me wrong—tap water in this country is very strictly regulated, much more so than bottled water. Bottled water is good in times of emergency, but there are many facilities cleaning water before it comes to your home. It’s still critical that we remember what’s going into our water, because it has to go somewhere if it’s not going to our sinks. There is a lot of pollution, too—BTNEP hosts a bayou cleanup a few weeks before the paddling trip. The totals haven’t been published yet this year, but in March 2013, several hundred people pulled over 24,000 pieces of garbage from Bayou Lafourche. This ranges from cigarette butts, which aren’t biodegradable and need to be disposed of properly, to empty drink containers, to tires, to toilets, to couches.

             

Thinking on a larger scale, let’s consider the Mississippi River watershed. The waters that come down by New Orleans originated in 31 different states as well as 2 provinces in Canada. Most of those states are in the major agricultural areas of our country, so aside from whatever random litter and mismanaged pollutants, there are also a lot of chemical pesticides and fertilizers washing off the fields and heading this way. Scary thought.

            

Globally, water is just as precious as it is here and still carrying the precarious status of being both threatened and threatening. We heard about major flooding along the Gulf Coast in Alabama and Florida last week, with those storms that largely missed us in Louisiana. There were also major floods in the Middle East in the past few days, affecting refugee communities in Syria and causing a landslide in northern Pakistan. The rainy season in some African countries has caused a surge in mosquito populations, carrying diseases like malaria. The Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea in the Pacific have been completely and permanently evacuated because the seas have gotten too high too consistently to stay any longer.

             

And what about pollution? It’s a scary world out there. We have giant floating islands of trash collected in the Pacific. Oil spills don’t just happen in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, they happen in Kuwait in the Middle East, in Russia, in Scotland, in Nova Scotia in Canada. Over 800,000 people around the world lack access to safe drinking water, leaving people susceptible to waterborne illness like dysentery, which can kill in days if left untreated. 3.4 million people die each year from water-related illnesses. That’s like 75% of the population of Louisiana dying every year.

             

And to think, we as a planet share exactly ONE supply of water.

             

I don’t tell you all of this to scare you or keep you up at night. I tell you this because to fix it, we have to start somewhere, and I think learning about it is a good place. Creation is ongoing. Romans 11:36 reads, “For from him and through him and to him are all things.” God created the world in Genesis, and will create a new world according to Revelation. The world we are in now is not static, but ever changing according to the actions taking place on it, for better or worse.

           

The good news is, God’s forgiveness is also ongoing. It seems like forever ago, but it was only two weeks ago that we celebrated Easter, the penultimate example of forgiveness. God did not leave us here to suffer from our own miscalculated actions. God loves us so much, that we received Jesus as a sacrifice to wash us clean from the terrible things we have done to each other and the earth we live on.

             

However, this free and clear doesn’t mean we get to keep coasting and just keeping doing what we’ve been doing. We need to take this truly awesome gift of forgiveness and new life to create a new life here and now. As a church, we have a great network set up to handle these injustices. I attended a conference for the Presbyterians for Earth Care group in October, an association of members of PC(USA) who are focused on caring for creation, seeking environmental wholeness with social justice. One morning, our keynote speaker asked the room, “What are you experts in?” The answers were varied. Biology. Chemistry. Architecture. Education. Geography. Engineering. Art. Pastoral care. Political science. Math. Agriculture. The list went on. Our keynote speaker pointed out, “Where else will you just find this diverse a group of experts already together?” That really resonated with me. Right here, in this church, in this congregation, in this denomination, we have a diverse group of experts. Environmental injustices happen in many ways, for many reasons, with many results that can be measured using many methods. We as a church hardly need to outsource to get help combating these types of problems. We have a network of experts right here who can approach such issues from the many angles they present.

             

So from our diverse group of experts, certainly there are some lawyers and judges, but even people without law degrees can seek justice. Academically speaking, environmental justice goes far beyond regulations and governance, including environmental science, political science, planners and policy makers, as well as ecologists and other environmentally inclined fields. As geography major, I studied environmental justice as problems with sustainability and access to resources vary across space according to local environments, customs and governments. But environmental justice is a bigger social movement that includes anyone who wants to see a fair distribution of environmental benefits, like having access to good farmland and timber wood and oil reserves, as well as the burdens, like soil erosion, deforestation and the many pollutants that come with petroleum exploration. That means no matter who lives in a community, whether they are rich or poor, young or old, conservative or liberal, Catholic or Protestant or something else entirely or nothing at all—doesn’t matter. Just as we want to be included in the wealth of resources, we need to share the weight of the side effects, too.

             

Seeking environmental justice in this community might come in different forms. There’s something for every expert! Maybe you have a heart for the pollution that affects the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. You can support organic agriculture or practice it at home in your own garden. You can participate in watershed clean up projects. You can support organizations that raise awareness and affect policy change to protect these precious waterways, as well as countless other bayous and lakes in this region. There are many organizations planting grasses and trees to replenish areas affected by erosion. Consider driving a more fuel efficient vehicle or finding other alternative sources of energy for your home and car. Contact elected officials encouraging policy change to protect the people who work so hard to supply so much of this country’s energy, and the land they live on and live off of.

             

It’s about much more than just “going green” though—it’s about being aware of the people and places we don’t always see, and how they might be affected by our every day choices, and then finding ways of partnering with them so that we can all share in the glory of God’s creation as well as our shortcomings as the temporary managers of it all.

             

We share a very finite amount of water on this planet. It can be easy to forget about the injustices in the world and the mismanagement of our natural resources when it’s so readily and safely accessible in this country. It is important to remember the source of these waters upstream as well as our neighbors downstream who will be affected by our every action. Isn’t that what our baptism in this church is? Remembering our Creator as well as our neighbors.

             

When we accept the living waters that Jesus is talking about with the Samaritan woman, and we accept new life in Christ, we accept a new life and a new creation here and now. And we share that new life with the entire world around us, no matter how nearby or far away or similar or different they are, just as Christ was ready to share a drink of water with a Samaritan woman, who was startled that a Jew would come to the same well at all. As God’s forgiven people, let us use that blessing to bless and honor others, whether those “others” are people, the plants and animals that surround us, or the water that we all survive and thrive on.

             

And I mentioned water in some form 96 times, in case anyone was keeping count. Amen.

workplace hazards

I've talked a little bit about my grass plantings with NRCS and the local Soil and Water Conservation District. I love them. This is one of my favorite things I get to do. The ground is very soft so it's incredibly easy to plant grasses and rushes, basically just punching them into the mud with my bare hands. And it involves being in the water all day. I love being in the water.

Plus, it's really, really effective over a short period of time, which is very encouraging in the face of some very challenging, discouraging work dealing with Louisiana's coastal issues.

People ask, probably jokingly, if I ever see alligators when I'm out in the water planting. Yep. I do. They are pretty harmless though. One of my first grass plantings in the fall, a gator just kind of floated along the shore with us, never coming closer than about 40 feet. Everyone down here tells me they're actually pretty calm animals unless people go out of their way to agitate them, like on TV. Swamp People kind of has the same reputation here as Jersey Shore does at home (we don't like it).

Last week's planting also featured a little gator, just pacing back and forth across the canal at the end of the day while we waited for the boat to come back and pick us up.

But this week's planting was more hazardous than either of those. We planted bull rush in the Intracoastal Canal, launching from Larose, planting along the canal on the other side of the slim barrier to Lake Salvador. This map shows directions from Larose to Jean Lafitte, which is super indirect, but if you draw a straight line between those two towns, it gives you an idea of where we were--


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The big hazard du jour was not alligators or bull sharks (which is apparently also a possibility no one told me about until this week), it was barges and freight ships passing by, creating a very strong current. We were planting on a narrow, shallow shelf, right along the area that is dredged for these enormous ships. The planting will help protect the canal as well as the lake, helping reduce and prevent erosion that could lead to those bodies of water connecting and becoming quite difficult to maintain as a shipping route. I'm a pretty strong swimmer, but wandering too close to the edge of the shelf could have spelled the end.


Instead of being an alligator on the horizon, this week it was just big cargo ships and barges.

Thankfully, a non-issue. We stayed safe all day and didn't lose anyone. It was definitely interesting planting alongside big barges though. It reminded me how small I am, and how small what I'm doing is. However, I still believe that the small stuff matters. Bullrush grows in very densely, protecting the shoreline and withstanding strong currents and even a little bit of salt water. I'll probably be able to go back in July and check the progress. Every little bit of conservation is exciting to me!

I love Lafayette.

Last weekend, I was scheduled to preach at First Presbyterian in Lafayette. My good friend and general partner in crime and adventures around South Louisiana, Lindsey, noticed weeks ago that the date coincided with Lafayette's Festival International de Louisiane. I can talk more about my sermon another time, but oh man. I cannot recommend Festival International enough to all of you. I would come back to visit Louisiana just for this free music fest. Wow. So good.

We were very fortunate to receive some incredible hospitality from First Pres for the weekend. We were hosted by a very sweet couple whose children are grown and moved away, so Lindsey and I had very, very comfortable beds and a key and encouragement to come and go as we pleased. We were gifted with pins, which help support the festival, and drink tickets, as well as free parking at the church. So we wandered around the festival Friday evening, all day Saturday, and even ended up sticking around Sunday afternoon for more.

The music was amazing! The whole historic downtown of Lafayette, French street names and all, was closed to traffic and full of people who were excited to hear musicians, including Cajuns from the Gulf Coast, Acadians from eastern Canada, as well as bands from Haiti and French West Africa. Announcements were made in French as well as English. The downtown is full of neat little galleries and coffee shops in old buildings. It would have been nice to walk around even if not for the great music! Speaking of which--



Bernard Adamus, from Quebec


Sweet Crude, from New Orleans


Les Hay Babies, from New Brunswick

There were so many others we enjoyed too, and for the most part, we just sat and listened to whatever was in front of us. I cannot stop listening to songs that I don't understand. I wish more than ever that I spoke French!

One of the the things I really enjoyed over the weekend was thinking about my time in South Louisiana as well as my time in Eastern Canada. I find both incredibly charming. One of my favorite provinces in Canada is New Brunswick, after the experience of getting washed out from camping and spending a night in a little fishing town on the Bay of Fundy instead. (It's probably a seven way tie for first place, but whatever.) New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada, noticeable in signage and conversation. There are many sleepy little fishing towns down the bayou that remind me a lot of Alma and other places we ventured in that region. I like the shared history. Acadians in Canada and Cajuns in Louisiana kind of continued on the same trajectory, sticking to fishing and speaking French. I suspect the Cajuns use a little more spice in their food (thanks to heavy influences that create the cultural gumbo that is South Louisiana), and Louisiana focuses more on crawfish and shrimp while eastern Canada focuses on lobster. But still. Both places are full of charming, historied culture. I really like it.