As I pray daily about the oil spill and what we have done to God’s creation, I am reminded of the petition in the Litany for Ash Wednesday from the Book of Common Prayer:

“For our waste and pollution of your creation,

and our lack of concern for those who come after us,”

“Accept our repentance, Lord.”

This is a time we need to reread Genesis and contemplate our place in God’s creation and our responsibility to God and one another and those who come after us.

We live in a culture in which many things are disposable. Do you remember when basketball games were routinely interrupted because a player had lost a contact lens? Not any more! Now most players wear disposable lenses and if one is lost, they go to the bench and get another. Nowadays we don’t have to worry about cameras. Just take the 24 pictures, remove the film and throw the camera away. It’s disposable.

Just consider all the disposable things in our culture: diapers, paper plates, soft drink cans, plastic syringes, razors, etc. I am told that there are now disposable wedding gowns! Now, we know some of the problems that come with this disposability mania. We are trashing our oceans and landscapes. Unless we learn to recycle more, we will choke on our own discarded junk. (Many of those items mentioned are petroleum products.)

It seems obvious to me that we need to become better stewards of creation. It also seems obvious that we need to change our lifestyles and go back to a simpler way of life. The still unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico points to our interconnectedness. Our need for gasoline or other petroleum products has caused the fishers of the Gulf Coast to lose their jobs, has killed marine life, has affected the whole food chain and ecosystems, as well as the economy. Yes, we are part of a system dependent upon each piece of the system to survive. We can individually and corporately do something to promote our survival - that is to show our concern not only with our lips but with our lives as well. Cut back, use less, think green, live green …          

I quote the Bishop of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, the Rt. Rev. Philip M. Duncan, II:

                        “ All of us need to be concerned with the environmental stewardship we are called to exhibit and how we can impact what happens, as we work in the beach restoration projects. In the story of creation, we are reminded that it was God’s word that brought creation into being. It is not incidental that our words can make a difference as we speak out, not only to assist in the immediacy of this catastrophe, but also to affect systemic change that seeks to protect the precious gifts which God has given us to enjoy and use, within the limits of our ability to not misuse them.”

As a systems theorist, I see our interconnectedness and kinship with one another and God. Evidence of our kinship with God is our capacity for fellowship with God. There is a God-shaped hole in our psyche that nothing but God can fill. Who created that God-shaped hole? God did when He made us in His image. If all this be true, if we are made in the image of God, what does it all mean? What are the implications for our living? Let me give you three and you can write these down.

            • FIRST -Each of us is an incredibly precious original design of Almighty God.

•THE SECOND TRUTH - Though God’s image in us is blurred, it can be restored through Jesus Christ.

• FINALLY - There is a third truth that follows from our being made in the image of God: we must train ourselves to see God’s image in every other person and in His creation.

The end is not in sight and there will be lasting results not only on the environment but on our psyches as well. There is not a question that anxiety and depression are on the rise, suicides directly related to the oil spill have already taken place. Some will no doubt be affected by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and/or anxiety. Look for signs such as:

                        - depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day

- recurrent and intrusive recollections of the event, including images, thoughts or   perceptions

                        - recurrent distressing dreams of the event

                        - acting or feeling as if the event were recurring (flashbacks)

                        - intense psychological distress at exposure to cues that symbolize or resemble the event

                        - efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings or conversations associated with the event

                        - efforts to avoid activities, places or people that arouse recollection of the event

                        - markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities

                        - feeling of detachment from others

                        - restricted range of affect (unable to have loving feelings)

                        - sense of foreshortened future (feelings of hopelessness)

                        - difficulty falling or staying asleep or excessive sleep

                        - irritability or outbursts of anger

                        - difficulty concentrating

                        - hyper-vigilance

                        - unexplained and significant weight loss

                        - fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day                                                       

                        - feelings of worthlessness or excessive and inappropriate guilt

                        - recurrent thoughts of death

                        - restlessness or feeling keyed up or on the edge

                        - exaggerated startle response

                                                (From the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

If these symptoms affect you or someone you know, seek professional help.

The oil spill affects us both psychologically and spiritually because we are mind, body and spirit. There is a direct line between you and Almighty God, from His great heart to yours. Because we are made in His image, we hear, and by God’s grace, we sometimes respond. It is time we treated God’s creation as sacred and each other as sacred as well. As Genesis 1:31 states, “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” Please let us treat all of God’s creation, the earth and all that is therein as good and as God’s. Our response needs to be two-fold, one toward the environment and the other toward one another.  

The Rev. Dr. Walter L. Elam, III

Licensed Professional Counselor

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128130198

A slow moving hurricane is how the oil spill is described by the leader of a Green Evangelical movement.
On National Public Radio this Sunday morning he said this may be “a defining moment” for Christains to demand that the business of business not damage the creation of God…. and make this cause mainstream. He sites that the abortion debate was once a mainstay of the Catholic faith only and slowly went to become a cause of mainstream faiths of all kinds. He hopes that the worst environmental crisis in recent American memory will rally all faiths to join the issues of protecting our environment as a sacred gift from God, as practiced by the first Americans, the American Indian, for example. Alabama Governor Bob Riley has called for today to be a Day of Prayer. The lead editorial of the Sunday Press Register is perhaps for the first time in the history of Alabama’s oldest newspaper, a prayer.

If you know the worlds greatest fishing ground of Venice Louisiana or the Bahama clear waters of Destin Florida and oyster rich Apalachiacola or the areas inbetween from Horn Island Mississippi to coastal Alabama, you know these rich resources are GROUND ZERO FPR THE OIL FOR JULY AND AUGUST. Even a hurricane wont save us.

PRESS REGISTER TOOK THIS PHOTO OF THE CHARTER BOAT. WWW.AL.COM