Everybody does it: Evangelical Episcopalians, Southern Baptists, Catholics, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims. The prayer in response to oil spill has become a form of promotion for creation. If you have not been invited to a prayer vigil in the last 100 days, you may not visit their website Facebook, or if they are not believers and friends.

This national call for that God can seem like a ¨ I cry naa help in an overwhelming situation. But the wave of prayer became a spiritual collective response to a national environmental crisis.
The hundreds of thousands of hands clasped in prayer – literally, from sea to shining sea – reflect a growing environmental movement and religious solidarity. If people of faith and environmentalists can take advantage of this dynamic, in a moment of all households in the country is testament to the slick, its power of transformation that could be.

In my childhood home in Fairhope, Alabama, family friend Kelley Wolff Lyon held a candlelight vigil called Interfaith Blessing of the Bay, which attracted 150 people at sunset on the shores of Mobile Bay. When I arrived the fourth of July, also prayed for this sacred space, where the coast lined yellow Legos rise as water.

religious groups, including the Convention Southern Baptist Convention, the National Council of Churches and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have issued statements against the slick and appeals to protect the building of God for future generations. The prayer in response to the disaster brought together religious traditions often seems more divided than the United toxic issues.
A study by the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life showed a strong consensus across Religions for environmental protection, against controversial issues as abortion and gay marriage. This value provides land shared 85% of Americans who identify with a religious affiliation.

After of the Convention Southern Baptist Convention, Evangelical leader Russell D. Moore described the oil spill in Roe v. Wade time, a time for evangelicals to recognize their responsibility as Christians to care for creation. After visiting the Louisiana coast with Christians, Muslims, and Jewish leaders, the Reverend Sally Bingham called the spill "an insult to God and a sin against creation." As a first response disaster, people of different religious traditions are cleaning up the oil, provide financial assistance to families, and prayer.

For the three last month, I said a prayer in response to a oil slick that was recorded in my fridge. Now I'm ready to fall on their knees with one new prayer, advocacy and reflection that could transform our relationship to land. This prayer for the future stems from my deep sorrow for the rape of a place – the Alabama Gulf Coast – where I feel closest to God.

As an environmentalist, I pray that the environmental organizations, religious communities as partners for serious action. These alliances have been formed in my hometown in North Carolina today North Interfaith Power and Light has partnered with a training program for green jobs, Asheville GO congregations to participate in the Climate of 300 low-income households income. Across the country, people of faith are quick to carbon for Lent, and installing solar panels on the churches founded on a moral imperative for justice and creativity.

As a mother, I ask that this partnership in public policy lobbying powerful that supports healthy communities for the future of my children. These legislative success is evident in the work of the Department of Environment Land and priorities of the Coalition, a network of 25 environmental groups in Washington that advocates for environmental legislation. As the only religious organization in the network, Earth Ministry provides awareness courses for people of faith to push issues such as clean water, green jobs and renewable energy.

As a Christian, I pray that reflection and prayer are the strategies for a new movement ecologist who inspires hope in the midst of uncertainty. Religious leaders like Martin Luther King to prayer to influence radical social change in our country. Please provide the space of discernment, we must stay calm long enough to open up to the unlikely. We need this space to address the devastating effects not only the spill, but also the long-term reality of climate change.

Theologian Karl Barth said, "to clasp hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder in the world. "The kingdom of heaven is now, not pie in the sky, waiting for us at the door of San Pedro. Now we pray.

This article was published as an opinion article in The Charlotte Observer, August 5, 2010.

Mallory McDuff, Ph.D. is the author of Natural Saints: How People of Faith are Working to Save God’s Earth. She teaches environmental education at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC. http://www.warren-wilson.edu

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