World Day of Prayer

The World Day of Prayer takes place every year on the first Friday in March. Women in the United States and Canada first formed this event after the devastation of World War I, when they were convinced that world peace was tied to world mission. 

I love the motto of the World Day of Prayer: "Informed Prayer and Prayerful Action."

Each year, Christian women from all over the world join together to plan and organize events, and suggest a theme and focus. This year the theme was set by the women of Suriname, on the northeastern coast of South America, who tell us “All God's Creation is Very Good!"  

Women from Suriname lift up their voices to remind us that we are caretakers of God’s creation. They are bringing to our attention the urgent need for caring at a time when more than 180 countries have signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. A commitment to keep the earth cooler depends on public policies implemented by governments, but also on our personal lifestyle.

Agenda today: 
1. Read Genesis 1
2. Study up on global warming issues:
3. Prayer for Creation

1. Read Genesis 1:

In the beginning...

During the opening celebration of the service, the writer, Silvia Regina de Lima Silva, invites us to revisit that place, the place of the beginning:

"The beginning, which in the text appears as “the beginning of creation”, but which in the text itself, and in our lives, can be the search for meaning - the search for purpose. At any given time in our history, we stop to ask ourselves about the beginning, the meaning of life...

Sometimes, reflecting, placing our hearts beyond that beginning helps us understand or seek new ways to understand what we are experiencing at this particular moment in time. And every time we revisit the beginning, we find a different meaning, because our questions about life, about reality, are also different according to the different stages of our existence, and the various personal and social contexts in which we approach the text."

For more of her thoughts, go here.

2. Study up on global warming issues: 

The Women of Suriname call us to take action to protect and care for the environment. If you don’t know where to start, check out the WDP Action Guide here.

I looked at the Quaker Earth Care web site, and downloaded their Contemplative Action in the Time of Climate Change.

"In losing the ancient, shamanistic ability to discern what the natural world—plants, animals, stones, water, air, soil—says to us, we risk losing touch with our own inward spirit and acting merely for the sake of action. We have eyes that see not, ears that hear not. We come to our senses and save our souls through what Wordsworth calls “wise passiveness.” In attentive stillness one being comes to know another as an active presence. When we cease to manage, persuade, consume, or overcome the “other,” we discover both the unity and the difference between us and otherness. We realize this instance of an infinite, endlessly creative diversity in unity, which is both Nature and Self. Then we approach harmony with ourselves and the other. In contemplative stillness we begin spirit-led action “in the world.”

3. Prayer for Creation:
Divine Creator, Spirit in All Things,
Your kingdom is Here, and Now.
Your creativity is manifest everywhere I look on this heavenly Earth.
Nourish us Body and Soul in this earthly Paradise.

Forgive us for not noticing, for overlooking, the tiny, the subtle,
The seemingly insignificant beauty in your Creation.
And teach us how to forgive those who would harm your Great Works.

Make our Loving attention constant.
Deliver us from Ingratitude.
For You are our perfect Guide through the Delights of our sacred Home.

BeFriending Creation Volume 30, Number 2
The bi-monthly journal of Quaker Earthcare Witness.