Jim Musselman, creation care liaison from First Mennonite Church of San Francisco Mennonite Church snapped the photos at left between 9:50 and 10:50 a.m. Wednesday, September 9, 2020.
Please pause for a moment to grieve the devastation and suffering from the forest fires in California, Oregon and Washington right now. For those of us with some understanding of climate change, it is a double grief. See what Jim has to say below. Lament and beg for God’s mercy, respond with advocacy and action as you can; leave the rest in God’s hands.
The Day the Sun Did Not Come Up
For those of us in Northern California, September 9, 2020, was “The Day The Sun Didn’t Come Up.” As I write this at 2:20 p.m., the sun still had not risen here in San Francisco. My friends and family in Dublin California, 60 miles to the southeast; Aptos California, 70 miles south; and Salinas California 105 miles south, have all reported today that the sun did not come up there either.
Yesterday the NY Times reported that wildfires in California have now burned more acreage than in any prior year in recorded history, plus we still have four months left in our fire season. Amy Goodman, on the Democracy Now news show, reported not only that the acreage burned this year exceeded all prior recorded years, but also that these record breaking wildfires are caused by global warming. Thank you, Amy Goodman, and thank you to all the news agencies that have had the integrity to link these record-breaking fires to climate change instead of regarding global warming as a radical leftist hoax.
I cannot help but take this phenomenon as a warning that we must alter how we live and begin to de-grow our human enterprise across the planet. We seem to have completely lost touch with the natural world and forgotten that we are an integral part of it.
Jim Musselman
First Mennonite Church of San Francisco
Co-liaison to MCCN