4/13/2020, Page 4, The Party Line

STAY FAITHFUL, STAY CONNECTED, STAY COMMUNITY!

April 13, 2020, Page 4

THE PARTY LINE

FRIENDS:  this is YOUR column.  Send in announcements, joys, concerns, whatevers to the church.  Email:  ardisg@cchonolulu.org   Phone number: (808) 595-7541.  Mail: 2345 Nuuanu Ave, Honolulu, HI 96817. We want to hear from you so we can share day-to-day living with each other.

Earth Day Sunday 2020:
​The Fierce Urgency of NOW

From the Editor:  Friends, next Sunday is EARTH SABBATH SUNDAY. I’d like to share a message shared this Easter Sunday from Creation Justice Ministries (church partners include our United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church USA, American Baptist, Episcopal). I hope this will speak to you as deeply as it spoke to me.

Dear Creation Justice Friend,

To simply wish you “Happy Easter” this year feels insufficient. We are experiencing a deeply difficult time. As a Creation Justice community, we are particularly concerned about how the virus is disproportionately preying on communities that have already endured generations of environmental racism and poverty.

While we know that this time of physical distancing is necessary, on days when we are meant to gather as a community and cannot, we feel that absence particularly strongly.

And yet, as a Creation Justice community, we journey into the Easter season remembering the deep truth of Christ’s resurrection: Death is not the final word.

In the midst of tragedy and loss, God finds a way to make all things new.

Our 2020 Earth Day Sunday theme, The Fierce Urgency of Now, includes a reflection on how we are in a kairos moment for God’s creation: a time-set-apart for an in-breaking of the Divine.

With COVID-19, business-as-usual has been profoundly disrupted. As a Creation Justice community, let us use this kairos moment to discern what new ways God is calling us to join in the sacred mission to renew the Earth.

We invite you to join us in the hope and promise of the abundance of life this Easter. We know that creation is resilient, and as part of all that God created, we can return to our communities stronger and more united than before. We see this every day in our ocean and wild places: When nature is allowed to heal uninterrupted, it returns to us tenfold. Our communities can do the same. For now, we celebrate Easter with you all remotely, knowing that death is not the final word.

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