Earth day is coming up next week on Thursday, April 22nd. I’m subscribed to a few organizations that send out emails and newsletter related to care for creation and climate change so this week I’ve been getting invites to webinars being hosted on Eartb Day. They are all virtual events, talks, panel discussions and more… Continue reading
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Flower’s Bloom
In Madison, we are starting to see flowers bloom and trees bud. Lynne and I are enjoying seeing them on our neighborhood walks and today I got to thinking about the question: how do flowers bloom exactly? We don’t really get to see the flower’s bloom in motion, only snapshots of its progress. But it’s… Continue reading
Cry of the Earth
Pope Francis uses the phrase the “cry of the earth” a few times in Laudato Si’. For example, take paragraph 53: These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our world, to cry out, pleading that we take another course. I have always thought of this phrase to mean that the… Continue reading
All Creatures
As we continue our celebration of Easter, I wanted to share the hymn All Creatures of Our God and King which invites us, and all of creation, to lift up our praise: All creatures of our God and KingLift up your voice and with us sing,Alleluia! Alleluia!Thou burning sun with golden beam,Thou silver moon with… Continue reading
Carbon Mental Math
Last August, the NY Times published this mini quiz comparing the carbon impact of various actions: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/30/climate/climate-footprint-quiz.html I encourage you to give it a try and see how you do guessing equivalent amounts of carbon emissions. It requires your best attempt at what I’ll call “carbon mental math.” I was in the ballpark for a… Continue reading
Carbon Fee and Dividend Legislation
The new infrastructure bill from the Biden administration is getting most of the attention in the media at the moment. It focuses on climate change and jobs so will be a good topic to discuss in another post. However, today I wanted to talk about another new bill proposal – the Energy Innovation and Carbon… Continue reading
Perelandra
On Easter Sunday I finished the book Perelandra by CS Lewis. It is the second of Lewis’ space trilogy and recounts the adventures of Ransom on a new planet. The book ends with a beautiful scene that describes the “Great Dance” and also attempts to help us understand the glory of the resurrection. I wanted… Continue reading
Ave Crux Spes Unica
Ave Crux Spes Unica – Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope. This is the motto of the Congregation of Holy Cross (the order that runs the University of Notre Dame) and the words come from the ancient hymn Vexilla regis prodeunt, traditionally sung on Good Friday. Today on Good Friday, we reflect on the Passion of Jesus… Continue reading
Maps and Our World
When thinking of a map of the world, most of us typically think of the classic Mercator projection map. This map projection was developed by Gerardus Mercator in 1569 and the direction north points up and south points down. In addition, because it is a cylindrical map projection it inflates the size of objects further… Continue reading
April Sustainability Challenge
As I mentioned last month, our Care of Creation team at Blessed Sacrament parish has started up a monthly sustainability challenge. I’d like to extend the challenge to you all – this month we challenge you to buy at least one additional type of food/drink from a local source. This could be eggs, meat, milk,… Continue reading