Earth Hour Was God’s Hour

I need to tell you what I learned a few Saturday's ago.

We got up early that Saturday morning to go to Indianapolis for an all day conference for Bread for the World, a Christian grass-roots organization that lobbies against hunger. The trip to Indianapolis was good. We had time to visit with friends while we traveled. We walked into the conference and the first person we saw and talked to was Art Simon, the founder of Bread for the World and keynote speaker for the day. Ron and I had the privilege of meeting him in Kampala in the 1990's when he was there visiting Christian Children's Fund projects. Both meetings were a privilege; we admire his life, his ministry and his lifelong activism on behalf of those who hunger. The day was full of opportunities for worship, for visiting with others concerned about hunger, and time for workshops to encourage involvement on behalf of those who hunger in our world. It was a great day.

We saw several videos at the conference of work being done in Africa with people suffering from AIDS and hunger. The videos were hard to watch. It was like watching 9 years of our life in Africa. Every face reminded me of people we knew, friends we've lost to AIDS, children we saw who suffered from malnutrition and starvation. More than once I felt that tug to return to Africa, to do something important to change the reality of our world and those who suffer in it.

At the end of the long day, we returned home to eat a quick supper and prepare for Earth Hour. We've been encouraging friends to join the movement across the nation and world to observe Earth Hour by turning off as many lights as possible between 8-9PM the last Saturday in March. If every American household participated, it could have saved a huge volume of coal, oil or natural gas and prevent thousands of tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the air we breathe. Even though we didn't get everyone in America to participate and even though a good friend from Minnesota sent an email with the snarky comment that “observing Earth Day must have been too much that we had to settle for an hour”……I'm still glad we stopped to turn out the lights. The hour without electricity reminded me of life in Kampala when every other night from 6 to 9 PM we had the power cut to our neighborhood. Being in the dark and reading by the light of a candle during earth hour reminded me of the luxury of nonstop electricity and the fact that we can live without it once in awhile. The hour without made me stop and be quiet, it made me listen to silence and it makes me listen to God.

That Saturday ended up being a sacred day for me.

This past month has been a difficult month. A month ago my grandfather died. I feel a bit guilty admitting the month was difficult. The reality is my grandfather was ready to be with his Savior. And I've been surrounded by a faith community and family that carried me through the time with supportive words, cards, and acts of kindness. How can that be difficult and how can I complain? When I found out my grandfather was dying, I did not want to go to Idaho to bury him. I did not want to deal with the chaos of traveling and being with people. I longed to be quiet, to stop all creaturely activity and just sit in God's presence to deal with this loss and to find healing. I wanted to take a few days off and not do anything. But it wasn't to be. The month ended up being nonstop with travel to Idaho, time with family and friends, and then right back here to a back log of responsibilities, meetings and the distractions of my life.

75 years ago last month, in March of 1933, my Grandparents became Christians in a revival service. It was such an important day and event that my Grandfather remembered everything about the day, from the men (Ed Harmon and Fred Baker) who met him at the altar and prayed for him, to the feeling he had when he got up to go home. Several years later, probably when that feeling began to fade, my grandfather told me the story of coming home from work one day feeling like things in his life weren't right; weren't as good as he thought they should be. He walked outside to the clothesline to be alone and he started to pray. He remembered every moment of that day also. He told me he hung his arms over the clothesline and poured out his heart to God. Even in his last months of life, when I reminded him of that day, he would show me how he stood there talking to God. In those moments he told God that he would take everything and anything that God could give him. He wasn't exactly sure what happened, but he said from that day on, his life changed. He did more than just meet Christ; he had an encounter with the Living God who changed his heart and motivation for life.

For me, I look at the life my grandfather lived and realize the sum of his life was measured by that encounter with God, because he lived out of that experience from that moment on. He lived a busy life, full of love and laughter, mistakes, pain and heartache. But the sum of his life is not what he did, but how he made God visible to our world, to our family and especially to me.

My Saturday became sacred as I sat in the dark and silence of Earth Hour. God spoke in those moments and taught me that God's spirit is found in the busy-ness of life. I keep waiting for the day when life slows down, when I can catch up or when I can be quiet to hear Christ's voice. But the reality is I've already heard God's voice. I need to live out of that encounter with God and make God visible through the busy-ness of my life just like the testimony of my grandfather.

I wish I had a whole lifetime to work on environmental issues, I wish I had a whole lifetime to live in Africa and work to right the wrongs of a world full of AIDS and hunger. I wish I had a whole lifetime with my Grandfather. I wish I had a whole lifetime to sit and listen for God's voice, to experience God's presence and healing. The fact is these would be like the luxury of non-stop electricity. They would become so commonplace that I would take them for granted.

God is teaching me that every light bulb I turn off is a part of the whole of living a life environmentally concerned. That I don't need a whole lifetime in Africa to make a difference, I need to live out of the experience I've already had in Africa and make what I do and how I live today matter to my African friends. I need to teach 6th graders to be aware of AIDS, I need to make food sacred, and I need to write letters to my congressmen to encourage them to make our nation's policies just. I don't need days of doing nothing to mourn the loss of my grandfather: every card, every letter, every word, every friendship, every relationship and every memory is a part of the whole healing process. I don't need to live the life of a saint to be what God wants me to be. I need to live out of the experience that I've already had with Christ and make His salvation, His presence, and His life visible in my world every day and every hour.

Earth Hour ended up being a real gift in my life. I'm already looking forward to Earth Day!