Giving thanks for God’s Creation and so much more - Reflection by Dean Sue

As I walked down to the water front early on Monday morning the sun was just coming up and the whole scene was majestic. It made me think about God’s beautiful world and the interconnection of nature and the amazing biodiversity in our world.

Much of my thoughts were fuelled by the Micah Lecture of last week and David Attenborough’s television programme ‘Extinction: the facts’ which I saw the night before. What I took from the programme was the sobering message from a United Nations Nature Report that one million species are at risk of extinction and the fact that we human beings are responsible.

The hope we were given is that nature can bounce back if we give it a chance. An example of nature bouncing back are the mountain gorillas in Rwanda, who in the 1970s were on the verge of extinction and through careful management now number over 1,000. We also saw a bounce back during lockdown as carbon emissions reduced dramatically.

We live in a beautiful diverse world and as we approach Harvest Festival on Sunday we have so much to thank God for in God’s creation. We also have a lot to lament as evidenced by David Attenborough and his colleagues. Harvest gives us the opportunity to stop to look at our beautiful world to give thanks and to pray for all work to protect the security of God’s wonderful and diverse creation.

This harvest as we think about our world and our responsibility to preserve our beautiful planet I wonder what we can do to help; Can we reduce our plastic consumption, can we reduce our travel, so reducing the effects of Global warming.
 
What can we do?
As a Cathedral we have decided to reduce our paper consumption and COVID 19 has helped us to do this. As you may be aware from tomorrow you will be able to access all information about the life of the Cathedral on our web-site: www.liverpoolcathedral.org.uk. Click on blogs and news, on the home page and you will see the Cathedral E-news.

So as we give thanks for God’s creation and the Harvest we pray:
Creator God, 
you made the goodness of the land, 
the riches of the sea 
and the rhythms of the seasons: 
as we thank you for the harvest, 
may we cherish and respect this planet and its peoples, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
​
Dean Sue

​While you're here:
Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html.