The past week has been a tense time for all Western Canadians. The evacuation of the people from Yellowknife and surrounding communities and the tension in Kelowna over the threatening fires have kept us on edge.
This is a time to hold before our God all the firefighters, the pilots and the unsung service people such as medics, people who prepared food and transportation for these fire fighters and the government officials who kept a close watch on the encroaching fires. We also include the four persons who were killed while fighting the fires.
Our prayer must include all the people who have lost their homes and/or their farms from the flam es. Some unfortunately did not have insurance to cover the loss of their houses.
There were so many volunteers who maned the centers that sought to direct the evacuees to hotels, lodging and community shelters. Who can measure the goodness of our fellow citizens who reached out t help those who were displaced? There is great strength in the generous willingness of people to help one another. It is at such moments of this that the strength of our country is manifested.
We must include all the parts of nature that suffer because of these fires. How many animals, birds and insects were destroyed or displaced by these fires.? We know how well the forest will regenerate but we must include all the animals in nature’s process of regeneration.
Now, we want to teach everyone that we pray out of the stuff of everyday life. Our prayer can never be a safe, sterile activity that we do only between ourselves and God. Prayer must be just the opposite. We feel that struggles of our lives (this week, the fires) and we ask what does God want to bring to us through these disasters? How is God present to us in the smoke, the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway and the volunteers who reach out to help their fellow citizens? Where is God in all this?
What are the spiritual movements within our own souls that move us toward preserving and caring for the earth? How is the Holy Spirit leading us to see all of creation as kin, as our sister and brother? How are being moved to see that we humans are only one part of the earth family. Where are we being moved to work and live more and more in harmony with the atmosphere, the soil, and all the living things of the earth?
Today, pray in the smoke from all the wild-fires; pray beside the burn out ashes of peoples homes and farms; pray beside the exhaustion of our fire fighters. Then pray beside your future great-grandchildren and picture the world that we can hand on to them; a world where humanity cares deeply for the earth and not only preserves its future but works towards making it our home for thousands of years to come.
How is God coming to us in the smoke of this past week?
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