‍In the name of all we hold as holy,
We confess –

Climate change is not a crisis,
It is the symptom of one.

The crisis has lived in many places, it has taken many shapes,
But it can always be traced back,
To the curving chambers of the human heart -

The place where greed can get ahold of us,
The place where money can be mistaken as the true measure of human worth –
The place where a corrupted calculus of progress can cut through all common sense.

In the name of all we hold as holy,
We confess –

Money does not make us who we are, but the earth does.

The earth,
Radiant, resilient, resistant -
Ready to tell us at every turn that we are made for so much more
Than this poisoned version of progress -  

Made to pull ourselves back from the brink,
Made to behold the precious and irreplaceable dignity of our dependence
Upon this sacred ground, this dust touched by divinity –
This fragile, limited, and endlessly creative creation that cares for us.

In the name of all we hold as holy,
We confess –

It is easy to despair when so much is at stake,
When uncounted generations will be defined by the choices we make –

When the memory of snow disappears from winter,
When rain is scarce and rivers disappear,
When wildfires burn from December to July,
When destruction becomes the norm, not the exception,
When the powers that be tell us that what we see and feel and know and need,
Doesn’t matter before the might of money.

In the name of all we hold as holy.
We confess -

We will not let courage die,

Because it is not just the earth that burns,
But our hearts also,
Raw and re-awakened in each defeat,
Ready to declare again and again again –
The inescapable truth of our shared destiny,

From the fractured ground of the Permian in the South,
To the clouds gathering over red-curved canyons in the West.
From the shimmering, windswept grasslands of the East
To the river-kissed valleys of the North.

Earth and us, non-negotiably woven together,
With each corner and crevice of this place we call home.

In the name of all we hold as holy.
We confess -

Climate change is not a crisis,
It is the symptom of one.

The crisis begins and ends,
In the curving chambers of the human heart,
The place where love can speak louder than greed,
And the simple miracle of our shared lives can silence the sweet seduction of power.  

And so, in the name of all we hold as holy,
We pray –

That our hearts break open.
That the eyes of our leaders are cleansed by the floodwaters of a future,
Asking only for the chance to drink of clean water,
The chance to breathe deeply without fear,
To watch the dusk grow to night on a clear horizon,
And to feel themselves blessed to belong to this particular and precious place, New Mexico.

In the name of all we hold as holy,
We pray –

For the wisdom to walk toward that world, step by step, day by day
And for courage to join our hands, our hearts, and our hope in this communion of struggle,
For this sacred ground.

Bless it be, and may it be so.