International Day of Peace

On Saturday, September 21^st we celebrate The International Day of Peace which was established in 1981 by the United Nations General Assembly. Two decades later, in 2001, the General Assembly unanimously voted to designate the Day as a period of non-violence and cease-fire.

2024 Theme: Cultivating a Culture of Peace

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Declaration and Program of Action on a Culture of Peace.

In that declaration, the United Nations’ most inclusive body recognized that peace “not only is the absence of conflict, but also requires a positive, dynamic participatory process where dialogue is encouraged and conflicts are solved in a spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation.”

In a world with rising geopolitical tensions and protracted conflicts, there has never been a better time to remember how the UN General Assembly came together in 1999 to lay out the values needed for a culture of peace. These include: respect for life, human rights and fundamental freedoms; the promotion of non-violence through education, dialogue and cooperation; commitment to peaceful settlement of conflicts; and adherence to freedom, justice, democracy, tolerance, solidarity, cooperation, pluralism, cultural diversity, dialogue and understanding at all levels of society and among nations.

In follow-up resolutions, the General Assembly recognized further the importance of choosing negotiations over confrontation and of working together and not against each other.

The Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) starts with the notion that “wars begin in the minds of men so it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed”. It is this notion that framed the theme and logo of this year’s observance of the International Day of Peace. The ideas of peace, the culture of peace, need to be cultivated in the minds of children and communities through formal and informal education, across countries and generations.

The International Day of Peace has always been a time to lay down weapons and observe ceasefires. But it now must also be a time for people to see each other’s humanity. Our survival as a global community depends on that. (un.org)

Remembering 9/11

On Wednesday, September 11th we will commemorate the 23rd anniversry of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentegon, and the plane that crashed into the field in Shanksville Pennsylvania. Let us pray for all who perisehed that day andthose who have died as a result.  May we strive to be people of peace and work for justice.

Let us pray:  O God, our hope and refuge, in distress we come quickly to you. Shock and horror of that tragic day have subsided, replaced now with an emptiness, a longing for innocence lost.

We come remembering those who lost their lives in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. 

We are mindful of the sacrifice of public servants who demonstrated the greatest love all by laying down their lives for friends. We commit their souls to your eternal care and celebrate gifts a fallen humanity. 

We come remembering and we in hope, not ourselves, but you. 

As foundations we once thought secure have been shaken, we are reminded of the illusion security. In commemorating this tragedy, give you thanks for your presence in our time need and we seek to worship you in Spirit truth, our guide and guardian. Amen. 

Season of Creation

 

Today begins the Season of Creation. The Season of Creation is a time to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation through celebration, conversation, and commitment together. During the Season of Creation, we join our sisters and brothers in hte ecumenical family in prayer and action for our common home. The Season of Creation is held each year from September 1st to October 4th. Let us hold our precious earth in prayer and respect during these weeks.

Season of Creation 2024 Prayer

 Triune God, Creator of all,

We praise you for your goodness, visible in all the diversity that you have created, making us a cosmic family living in a common home. Through the Earth you created, we experience love and nourishment, home and protection.

We confess that we do not relate to the Earth as a Mothering gift from you, our Creator. Our selfishness, greed, neglect, and abuse have caused the climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, human suffering as well as the suffering of all our fellow creatures. We confess that we have failed to listen to the groans of the Earth, the groans of all creatures, and the groans of the Spirit of hope and justice that lives within us.

May your Creator Spirit help us in our weakness, so that we may know the redeeming power of Christ and the hope found in him. May the groans of the Spirit birth in us a willingness to serve you faithfully, so that we may hear and heal Creation, to hope and act together with her, so that the first fruits of hope may blossom.

Loving and Creator God, we pray that you will make us sensitive to these groans and enable us to have the same compassion as that of Jesus, the redeeming Lord. Grant us a fresh vision of our relationship with Earth, and with one another, as creatures that are made in your image.

In the name of the one who came to proclaim the good news to all Creation, Jesus Christ. Amen.