Spiritual connections: Eden Prairie faces locally global issues

Who’s got the whole world in hand? 

The morning’s breaking world news is also local news, at every locale on the planet.

I’m not referring to news of the closing ceremonies at the Summer Olympics. It is new, but the hot news that demands the attention and action of every individual on earth is something else. 

A landmark United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 3500-page report compiling results of its comprehensive and exhaustive study of climate science concerns every region and population on the planet. 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the report as ‘a code red for humanity’. 

This is not just important news for the United States.  It is long expected ‘must read/must heed’ news.

It is news for all countries and all peoples who, in unison, call this fragile planet and its atmosphere home. 

Global climate, local weather

I’ve long since learned not to equate ‘weather’ with ‘climate’.

Have you noticed that increasingly weather forecasters and scientists conclude their reports of droughts and floods, wildfires and heat waves, ice caps melting and water levels rising with the words ‘resulting from global warming’?

It’s the predominant crisis. It calls for the attention and action of all of us and each of us! 

Global Covid-19

Climate change isn’t the only global, and local issue. There’s that other 5-letter ‘COVID’ word that is also beyond borders. It also dominates daily world and local news headlines.

From the initial discovery and outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic we’ve said and heard, we’re all in this together’.

And yet, some leaders and communities have had a very difficult time understanding the ‘both/and’ distinctions as well as connections between personal health and public health.

We’ll get through this together when we selfishly and selflessly care for our own personal health and care for the public health of everyone around us in the whole world. Again, this predominant crisis calls for the attention and action of all of us together and each of us individually. 

So, who does have the whole world in hand?

Certainly, there’s a song for answering that question: ‘He’s got the Whole World in His Hands’.

And again, there’s scripture to support the lyrics (or expand on them):

“For God so loved the world (everyone, globally) that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever (individually, personally) believes in Him has everlasting life (beyond borders or climate change or pandemics).” 

God has the whole world in Hand! 

Or, is the whole world in our hands? From the beginning, as the Genesis creation story frames it, humans are called to steward and care for the whole world. It is gifted still to us. I/we also have the whole world in hand. 

It is amazing to consider that St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.) was inspired by God to write the following

“Pray as though everything depended on God! 

Work as though everything depended on you!” 

In our time, filled with the ‘both/and’ dichotomies, dilemmas, and crises of climate change and COVID-19 that are begging for the attention and action of each of us, and all of us. 

Editor’s note: The author, Pr. Rod Anderson (retired) served as a Pastor at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie for over 34-years. Anderson also serves as a volunteer on the EPLN Working Group board.

The Eden Prairie Local News (EPLN) serves the people of Eden Prairie and broadly supports and invites the free expression of religious traditions and spiritual perspectives of the community.