During the season of Lent, Christians all over the world seek to reflect on their relationships with each other and God in preparation for Easter – the annual celebration of the greatest mystery of the Christian tradition - the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Lent is about repentance and renewal – focusing on how we can be better and do better as God calls us. 

In this period of self-examination, it is also customary to seek out spiritual practices that provide guidance in our discernment of how we are meant to live into our call as people of faith. Some practices might be about fasting – removing something from our life in order to more closely hear God’s call – or about adding something that might help us feel closer to God. Either way, these spiritual practices are meant to support faith journeys and help us hear how our Creator is calling out to us.

As we honor our moral responsibility to our Mother Earth, we reflect on the themes of Lent in our journeys to be good caretakers of what has been entrusted to us.

In this process, we hear God’s spirit calling out to us through nature. We are being led to seek out the sacred bonds that connect us – that draw us together, and compel us to take care of our Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. What kind of action are we being called to do? Education about environmental issues? Forming a Green Team at our congregation? Signing up for a Learning Lab webinar? Signing the  Partner Congregation Pledge?

Our discernment at IPC has led us to provide programming for you: tools to help you in your care of Creation. We pray that you will join us as we start a movement to empower faith congregations to restore and protect waterways in their own communities. 

In our prayerful Lenten process of self-examination and discernment, let us pray: 

God’s Spirit reaches out to us in nature. The Spirit beckons us to remember our moral bond to Creation – turning us toward restoring and healing the environment around us. Loving and redeeming God, we are here to listen to your call of protecting our precious watershed. Putting our faith into action, we promise to heed this in our daily lives.

Listening to nature’s call for healing and honoring our sacred bond with our Creator, we pray that our actions will compound together and make the ultimate difference – to preserve our waterways for generations to come. 

We will answer our Creator’s call in nature.

Amen.

With Peace,

Susannah Southern

For more Lenten inspiration, check out our Lenten Calendar made in partnership with Interfaith Power and Light.