{"id":193206,"date":"2022-04-19T14:55:27","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T14:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/?p=193206"},"modified":"2022-04-20T13:31:19","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T13:31:19","slug":"composition-of-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/composition-of-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Composition of Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Terri MacKenzie, SHCJ<\/h3>\n

April 18, 2022<\/p>\n

\"\"
Terri MacKenzie, SHCJ, founder of ecospiritualityresources.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each day, before we pray, be mindful <\/span><\/p>\n

of our place in space and time,<\/span><\/p>\n

truths our forebears couldn\u2019t know.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They thought they stood on flat ground \u2014<\/p>\n

flat like my family\u2019s tan linoleum map.<\/span><\/p>\n

I walked on hogs and bridges and <\/span><\/p>\n

radio wires symbolizing cities, all flat. <\/span><\/p>\n

They pictured sea to sea, flat, <\/span><\/p>\n

fall off the edge, flat.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve flown past horizons and over rainbows. <\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen our sacred sphere from outside it,<\/span><\/p>\n

spinning freely in space. Held firm in Love (and gravity),<\/span><\/p>\n

each morning we, too, hurl into sunlight<\/span><\/p>\n

and away as evening approaches.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They thought stars marked the floors of heaven. <\/span><\/p>\n

We know some stars are galaxies. <\/span><\/p>\n

Light from one took 13.5 billon light years <\/span><\/p>\n

to reach Earth. Because the Cosmos <\/span><\/p>\n

is expanding, it\u2019s already <\/span><\/p>\n

over 33 billion light years away!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They counted time in Bible years.<\/p>\n

We stretch our brains to grasp<\/span><\/p>\n

our start in stardust \u2014 billions of years<\/span><\/p>\n

of stars exploding, forming elements that<\/span><\/p>\n

metamorphosed into Earth. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In their turns came microbes and anemones, <\/span><\/p>\n

dinosaurs, mammals and humans,<\/span><\/p>\n

communication, organization, art, <\/span><\/p>\n

beliefs, destructions and renewals. <\/span><\/p>\n

Earth became a garden in our galaxy, <\/span><\/p>\n

a riot of color and design,<\/span><\/p>\n

on whom our lives depend.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today we mourn the loss of trees <\/span><\/p>\n

and land, glaciers and breathable air.<\/span><\/p>\n

We mourn extinctions of red frogs<\/span><\/p>\n

and red-plumed woodpeckers,<\/span><\/p>\n

plants and trees, fish and birds with <\/span><\/p>\n

tongue-twister Latin names.<\/span><\/p>\n

We mourn lives lost in fires and floods, <\/span><\/p>\n

polluted air and rising seas. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No ancestor knew such threats.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t respond right now,<\/span><\/p>\n

together and in force,<\/span><\/p>\n

someday new creatures<\/span><\/p>\n

will discover our parched fossils<\/span><\/p>\n

and wonder why we chose to die.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":385,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/385"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}