A Thanksgiving Prayer for our Coasts and Oceans

by Rev. Deborah Streeter

I believe we each have a sacred calling to be stewards, a vocation to care for land, coast and ocean.

May our human gifts of wisdom, science, compassion and devotion inspire us to work to preserve and protect all of nature.

I give thanks for environmental prophets and saints like Aldo Leopold, who advocated a land ethic, saying "land is not a commodity we own, but a community to which we belong.

May we on the Central coast be leaders of a new ocean ethic, where we honor our membership in this coast and ocean community, seeking not to own and control, but to belong and respect.

I give thanks for all who have gone before me to protect and promote the sanctity and sustainability of our environment. I give thanks for saints and prophets like John Muir, Margaret Owings, Robinson Jeffers, Leon Panetta and the Allan family of Point Lobos. We stand on their shoulders, these pioneers and pilgrims.

May I be inspired to do what I can to protect and promote the sanctity of our coast and ocean for generations to come. May my children's children know its abundance and blessing and be inspired to pass it on to their descendant's descendants. May we be guided by the principle of sustainability, that we protect and repair our environment today, so it will be there in the future.

I have faith in the idea that oceans are part of a public trust. I believe no one owns these waters, and that all must share in their wise use. I believe we must empower our governments to be wise stewards of the oceans, and that we must hold accountable all governments and individuals for their ocean policies.

May we be active members of our communities, caring for beaches and water, electing wise stewards, designating taxes for good ocean polity, passing on this gift to future generations.

I believe that the oceans are, in the words of the Roman Catholic bishops of the Northwest, a sacramental commons: sacramental, in that they are an outward symbol of an inward grace/gift, and commons, in that they are a common gift for all, not owned or controlled by one nation or corporation.

May we relate to this sacred common gift as we do to all gifts, with honor and thanks.

I believe that to designate an area as a 'Marine Sanctuary" means that we intend to treat all living things in the sanctuary as safe, sacred and special.

May we honor marine sanctuaries and reserves as we do religious sanctuaries, with wonder and respect.

As a person of faith, I try to honor the Ten Commandments, including the fourth commandment, to honor the Sabbath day of rest and renewal. The Bible says God makes this commandment not just to people, but to animals and the fields and vineyards. So I believe that a network of marine reserves, notake zones, will provide a "Sabbath for the seas" that will be a blessing for animals and plants now and for generations to come.

May we all find and share the blessing gift of Sabbath rest and renewal.

I give thanks for religions around the world that are working for land and ocean stewardship. I thank Pope John Paul II for calling together world religious leaders in Assisi in 1986 to support environmental stewardship. I thank the Evangelical Environmental Network for supporting the extension of the Endangered Species Act. I thank the Redwood Rabbis of Northern California for working to preserve old growth tress and to stop logging. I thank Moslems worldwide for highlighting the Koran teachings that humans are guardians of all creation.

May all religions unite and inspire all people, religious or not, to respect and care for all of creation.

I give thanks that all world religions promote the Golden Rule. In my own tradition I honor the inclusive idea of neighbor, that we are to love all creation as our neighbor and treat it as we would be treated.

May we all be Good Samaritans when we see a neighbor on the road suffering or in pain. May we enlarge our idea of neighbor and the Golden Rule to include all life in the interdependency of creation.

I give thanks for the many blessings of living on the Central California coast, and for the many people who are working hard to protect and preserve our coast and ocean.

May we continue to bless and be a blessing for the gifts of our lives in this time and place.

Yonder is the Sea, Great and Wide

Given by Rev. Deborah Streeter at the Community Church of the Monterey Peninsula Sept. 15, 2002

The ocean calls, it beckons. I can almost hear it. If the waves were crashing with a high tide I probably could. Now I hear it. It’s calling. The ocean is always calling. Night and day, it calls. Like the moon pulling the tides through space, I feel the ocean pulling me, calling me to its side. Come. I’ve never lived far from the ocean and its spirit flows through me. High tide and low, it calls. Deep calls to deep says the psalm poet of the Bible. The ocean has a voice, a presence, a power. I must go down to the sea again, to the call, the call of the evening tide. The ocean calls.

The ocean moves. Even on a still slow day there is a silent surge, and the waves lap at the shore. And in a storm, or current, or whirlpool, it’s nothing but motion, splash and crash. This week I went to a small rocky beach down the coast that I had not visited in over a year. The waves had moved so much sand that ten foot rocks I knew well from previous years had almost disappeared , their tops now just peeking out of the beach. Ocean in motion, ocean is motion. Through all the world’s seas there is a deep undersea current moving in a constant flow from ocean to ocean. The movement of winds at the surface can push away the top of the waters, and from down in the depths upwells that cold deep sea current water, bringing food and nutrients to life on the surface. It happens here in the spring, the upwelling, moving water from thousands of feet down, thousands of miles away, moved here, feeding fish and kelp and whales and us. The powerful force of wind and wave and current.. Moving ocean motion.

The ocean hides. What a surprise to see in these images all the life that hides below the surface. Down there it is dark, dark, dark. Never are these creatures seen. Only the photographer’s light reveals anemone and sea star and jelly. Last year the Monterey Bay Research Institute sent a remotely operated submarine down 8000 feet off this coast, looking to see if in these benthic depths there are any jelly fish, since jellies are so common near the surface. If you saw the TV special, The Shape of Life, you saw their discovery of a jelly never before seen. A jelly of a deep red, the best color to be in the deep if you want to hide, deep red, and this jelly, three feet across. The scientists call it Big Red. They can’t catch it and bring it up; it’s too big to fit in their remotely operated specimen containers. They’ve seen it again on the monitors from the submarine’s camera, but it continues to hide in the depths. I’m rooting for Big Red. Keep hiding. The ocean hides. Two mile deep canyons. Rocky crevices, dense kelp forests, mysteries of shallows and depths. The ocean hides.

The ocean births. All life on earth came first from the ocean. Our salty blood is the memory of our birth from the seas still living in our veins, the exact same saltiness as sea water. Life in the seas is abundant and ever new, full of change. Eggs by the millions. Undersea volcanos birth new islands. A seachange, Shakespeare called it, into something rich and strange. The ocean births. Mysterious deep sea thermal vents, hot gasses spewing into the cold dark ocean depths actually create new life chemically, without photosynthesis. And at the surface, tiny plant plankton, drifting thousands of miles away, creates most of the oxygen we breathe here, many times more oxygen than do the land trees and plants produce. Oceans birth, gave us life, give us life, abundance, a sea change, new life.

God calls, like the ocean. God moves, like the ocean. God hides sometimes, and hides surprising deep abundance, like the oceans. God births, like the ocean.

Thinking about this sermon I woke up yesterday with a song in my sleepy head, a gift from the my dreams. The words to the hymn Ode to Joy. The third verse. Describing God, this oceanlike caller, mover, hider, birther. Thou are giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blest. Wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest.

The ocean is a blessing to us, source of life, beauty, bounty, air, food, wonder, awe, fun, surprise, mystery. The ocean blesses us. When we reciprocate, and bless the ocean, as I will next Saturday in an interfaith blessing of the marine sanctuary as part of its tenth anniversary celebration, when we bless the ocean, we are saying thank you to God for this gift, for the life and beauty and bounty and air and food and wonder and awe and surprise and fun and mystery. When we bless something, like a child, we are saying thank you to God for this gift. We dedicate it, to God and for godly purposes. To bless the fleet or communion bread or as one church recently did to bless their new solar panels, is to dedicate them to God and for godly purposes. Purposes like preserving creation, sharing the habitat with other living beings, honoring the gift. I invite you to join me in the blessing of the marine sanctuary next Saturday.

It’s is called a Marine Sanctuary, this 300 miles of coastline and the ocean up to 30 miles out, from Cambria to San Francisco, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, called thus because it is a special place. Like this special place, which we also call a sanctuary. I love it that the Dept. of Commerce, when they first decided to set aside certain areas of the ocean for special protection and preservation, in 1972, they could have called them marine protected areas or marine preserves. Instead, they chose the word Sanctuary. Why?

It’s a word that says a lot and inspires a lot. Sanctuaries are by nature sacred, sources of wonder and awe. I feel different when I come into this room, this sanctuary. I slow down, I bow down, I feel awe and honor. I feel that God is calling me here. This sanctuary is like the ocean sanctuary. It calls, it’s deep, it moves me and gives me new life.

A sanctuary is also a space set apart, special rules apply. We behave differently in a sanctuary. We set this space apart from every day life. The special rules themselves vary from sanctuary to sanctuary. If you’ve been to Italy you know there are a lot of rules to follow when you enter a sanctuary and you can’t go in unless you follow those rules. We’re not so strict, but, for example, we don’t talk on our phones in here. We don’t bring out bikes in here. Whatever the ways we set it apart, they differ from sanctuary to sanctuary, but the space is still set apart.

And they are safe. We are safe in here, to name hard things in prayer, to consider matters of life and death, to share our hopes and fears of all our years. We set aside various safe spaces around here; a butterfly sanctuary, a horse sanctuary, a marine sanctuary. This marine sanctuary is safe from oil and gas exploration and drilling. Parts of it are safe from kelp harvesting and trawling. Point Lobos is a reserve, a very safe park, not just above ground, but below, 750 acres of underwater park, with only limited access. Ocean sanctuaries provide more safe places to hide, safer places to give birth.

Sacred, set apart and safe, is this sanctuary, and is the Marine Sanctuary. A blessing to us, and something we can bless, daily, and on special occasions like this upcoming anniversary. God calls, God’s ocean calls us. God moves, God’s ocean moves and moves us. Hiding, our God hides, God’s ocean depths full of mystery and life. Birthing, our God births new life, just like God’s ocean. Ever blessing, every blest, wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest.