Blessing of the Pollinator Garden
“A warm thank you to those who joined our 9th Annual Blessing of the Children’s Pollinator Garden, in celebration of Earth Day. Also a special welcome and message of gratitude to the members of the Center for Conscious Living, who are graciously committing their time and talents to nurture and ensure the well-being of our pollinator garden as an enduring haven for the wildlife it supports.”
GREEN TEAM MESSAGE
Brian Lestini
The following reflection was shared at the Blessing of the Pollinator Garden this spring, and is adapted from California Interfaith Power and Light. CIPL is a national interfaith network that for over 25 years has inspired and mobilized individuals and communities of faith and conscience to take bold and just action on climate change. This reflection is rooted in the text of Genesis, and carried forward through the ELCA and teachings of the Lutheran Church in our calling and our responsibilities as stewards of creation:
“We are not landlords of Earth. We are Earth reflecting back on herself. What we call humanity is not separate from the living world but an expression of it, consciousness rising from clay. Scripture begins in soil. In Genesis, the human is formed from adamah, the fertile ground of Earth. The word human itself is tied to humus, the rich organic matter that makes life possible. We are dirt animated by breath, dust given awareness, matter entrusted with memory and responsibility. If we accept that we are formed from dust, then we understand that to poison the soil is to poison ourselves. When the air is choked, our lungs tighten. When waters are fouled, our bodies bear the burden. There is no clean separation between human health and planetary health because that boundary was always an illusion.
To renew our relationship with Earth is not to invent something new but to remember something ancient. It requires a shift from extraction to regeneration, from ownership to kinship, from dominion as control to stewardship as care. The future depends on whether we can relearn what the soil has been telling us all along: we belong to the Earth, and the Earth is, quite literally, within us. Interdependence is not weakness. It is strength. Forests endure storms not because each tree stands alone, but because their roots are intertwined beneath the soil, sharing nutrients, stabilizing one another against the wind. Resilience emerges from relationships. The question before us is not whether we are interconnected. Science and our faith have already settled that. The question is whether we will live as if it were true.”