Friday, January 2, 2015

Kiribati: A Vanishing Nation


Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image…And let them have dominion…”

So, it’s an ad sponsored by Microsoft, appearing before the movie trailers, skyping journalists recording the slow but inexorable drowning of a nation.  Kiribati is in the Pacific, the lowest land levels in the world, victims to rising sea levels.  I guess I kind of knew about it, heard about it somewhere along the way. 

We are responsible for what has happened.  We have decided what our priorities are in the dominion of the earth and we have made decisions which are now drowning a nation.  Our development has released warming chemicals into the atmosphere, we are melting the Arctic and Antarctic ice packs, and Kiribati is our first victim.

Is there a voice that will cry out in the urban landscape that we must change the world?  Well, who cares?  It’s not like Miami is going to drown…oh…

Kiribati…can anyone even find it on a map?  Well, draw a line from Sydney, Australia to the southern tip of the Big Island in Hawaii and, a little more than halfway up along the line, you run into their territorial water-space.  And…I have to admit, I am not exactly sure which island is first to drown.

But that doesn’t matter.  Their land is being taken from them.  We are one in God’s image.  We must change things.

Where shall change come?  When enough voices are lifted to the Lord, then humans have no choice but to bring about the change. 

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