What has this Advent felt like to you? We hope you have been able to practice stopping, taking a deep breath, being attentive to the present moment, collecting your bearings, and living in gratitude for all of the gifts of this life — even just for a moment. As we finish out this 4th week of Advent in the midst of a very long year, we are dwelling on and in God’s great love — for all of Creation (including us!).

We believe love is an action, not just an intention or warm and fuzzy feeling. It is embodied by seeing, listening, and knowing, by sharing in belonging and mutual care. God’s love radically embodied and made known by Jesus actively demonstrates and models for us what are the possibilities of love and that this abundant, overflowing love is for all of Creation — human and non-human. It is a Cosmic love that does not shy away from the hard yet truthful realities around the injustices of oppression, greed, and death that pervade the earth but rather, because of love, works tirelessly and creatively toward furthering life. In our time, Jesus’ love calls us to recognize, pray for, and act on much of the climate chaos we find ourselves in, as directly related to capitalism, consumerism, environmental racism (in the extraction of natural resources and BIPOC labor, ideas, lives), and in our accounting of Christianity’s entanglement in all of this. And yet, we can look to Jesus, the Word, who sustains and furthers all of the Cosmos as our hope and continued reason to act (Hebrews 1:1-2:8).

So. What might waiting on, looking for, and acting in God’s great love look like for us in this somewhat dismal state of our climate crisis? For one, it might look like joining in with what the Spirit is doing to bring wholeness, healing, abundance, vibrance, creativity, truth, interdependency, and ultimately more life. We would point to the other blog posts we’ve done on Eco-faith because acting for climate healing is a lot of things…but really does come from God’s invitation to participate in love-in-action.

For some ideas to further your reflection on God’s love and climate healing, we encourage you to check out these organizations, resources, and practices:

For the Love (Canada): this interfaith organization in Canada that “invites Canadian faith communities and faith-based organizations to come together under a unified banner to mobilize education, reflection, action and advocacy for climate” (homepage).
Interfaith Power & Light: this group is similar to the organization above, but located in the United States. It builds movements amongst faith communities, especially in the policy realms.
Earth Ministry: on a very local Seattle level, this group helps churches green their congregations, partners with IP&L above, and provides resources for advocacy in the ways of sustainable futures.
Read this reflection about Wendell Berry’s view of love, health, and wholeness.
Show your love for the earth and our communities by going on a nature gratitude walk, tending to your plot of earth, or supporting local food growers.

“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world,” he writes. “I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.”
—Wendell Berry, “The Body and the Earth”