Photo: Irma Dillard, rscj

Discussion Starters for Lent, Week 1

*The section "We Speak" addresses concrete concerns faced in Australia. We invite you to ask the questions that are relevant to your own context.

Creation: Water

The Bible speaks
"At the time when Yahweh made earth and heaven there was as yet no wild bush on the earth nor had any wild plant yet sprung up, for Yahweh God had not sent rain on the earth, nor was there any man (sic) to till the soil. However, a flood was rising from the earth and watering all the surface of the soil. Yahweh God fashioned man from dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being.
Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. Yahweh God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. A river flowed from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided to make four streams." (Gen.2: 5-10)

The Poet Speaks
Let’s just wander here and there …
like leaves floating in the autumn air
and look at common little things …
stones on the beach …
flowers turning into berries …
… from the words we’ll catch a bit
of that wondrous feeling that comes …
… not from seeing …
but from being part of nature …

G. Frostic,The Earth Speaks (ed. S. Van Matre, Michigan,1983)

We Speak
Many parts of our country suffer from the problem of growing salinity: a cause of much suffering for the land. For example, in Western Australia in the late 1980s dry land lucerne areas were subjected to an outbreak of lucerne flea. This decimated the lucerne plants, and left paddocks without perennial cover. With the lucerne gone and two very wet years, ground water rose and huge areas of salinity became painfully obvious. The land became unproductive and the farmers recognised they were in trouble. Flat country was becoming waterlogged and pastures and productive land were being lost as they turned salty.

From Renewing Creation (South Australian Heads of Churches, 2003).


We Pray
Discerning Spirit, help us to find the pulse of creation.
Patient Spirit, help us to see the signs of renewal, and to hear the voices of nature waiting.

Discerning Spirit, teach us to sing a new song to the Lord.
Patient Spirit, help us to minister to the land, help us lift the causes of salinity and similar problems.

As we suffer with creation help us discern revivification within creation. We thank you, Creator God, for water. Amen

Prepared by Mary Lou Moorhead, for the ANZ Province: PJIC Committee, with acknowledgments to the Jerusalem Bible 2nd Ed. 1966; S. Van Matre & E. Weiler (Eds.) The Earth Speaks (Greenville ,USA; Institute for Earth Education, 1983) and Renewing Creation (Adelaide, South Australian Council of Churches, 2004)