July 5th dawns in America. The rocket's red glare - from thousands of backyard celebrations last night, stirringly visible across the waters of Puget Sound for hours on end from our Seattle hotel balcony, and sounding like the raging battle that inspired that hymn to America's fight against tyranny so many years ago - no longer flares.
It is time, again, after the celebrations of all that is good about America, for the deeper things that promise to make her, and all nations, truly great.
Joan Chittister words?
A spiritual path that does not lead to a living commitment to . . . the Kingdom of God within and around us everywhere for everyone, is no path at all. . . . It is a dead end on the way to God. . . .
And the image that encapsulates these deeper things of God is this one...
The image speaks of things, not of "men", or even of "America", but of God, and God's Kingdom, which all people everywhere are invited to embrace.
Today, on this July 5th morning, it is time, again, for that "living commitment to...the Kingdom of God within and around us everywhere for everyone," and, we might add, "for every thing" in this exquisitely connected world we live in.
Tomorrow Carla and I witness the return of the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula to it's wild state (after the removal of two dams whose power generation is no longer needed), the restoration of a life-giving ecosystem with wild salmon runs whose connections run far and wide throughout the Puget Sound bio-region. (The number of fish returning each year plummeted from 400 000 in the early 1900's to just 3,000 after the dmas' construction blocked much of the river and its tributaries).**
It is time! Time to walk on holy ground again and to witness the God of abundance and generosity at play. Time to experience the "invisible hand" of the Creator's Provision visibly gifting enough for all People through a living Planet.*
It is time to see the Master Gardener "of soil and soul" at work again, time to see love win.
* The Triple P's of People, Planet and Profit (or Social, Natural and Economic Capital) helpfully anchor a Pattern Map that provides a framework for navigating toward "an ecologically restorative, socially just, and reliably prosperous society" approximating Kingdom values. See the the Pattern Map here.
** Return of the salmon on the Elwha River
