A Video Series by the EcoFaith Network, NE MN Synod
Listen with us to the haunting Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Rises,
Look with us throughout this Jubilee year of Earth Day
for the green blades rising in and for a wounded creation
Listen with us to the haunting Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Rises,
Look with us throughout this Jubilee year of Earth Day
for the green blades rising in and for a wounded creation
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Come, O Gracious Healer, source of health and life,
May we, too, be healers, we who have caused strife.
Strengthen our hands to bind the wounds of Earth,
Sharing with the world your promise of rebirth.
Responsibility
Stanza 7, Now the Green Blade Rises
The video series, Moments of Arising, has arisen from a year unlike any other. The Jubilee Year of Earth Day coincides with a pandemic, economic dislocation, a reckoning with racism, a democracy at a crossroads, and an accelerating climate crisis. We have suffered and see suffering. We are searching our souls. We are learning. We sense in these convergences a moment of arising.
In a year unlike any other, this January has been a month unlike any other. Two weeks after an unprecedented attack on the United States Capitol we celebrated the Inauguration of the 46th President. So now, what is our responsibility? How do we exercise it?
Responsibility, this new Moments of Arising video, based on environmentally focused stanza 7 of Now the Green Blade Rises, does not pretend to answer the question for us. Yet, with music and visual imagery, with the prayer poem of Kendrick Hall and Tammy Walhof's clarion call to put neighbor and nature at the center of public policy, it places the question of our responsibility right where it belongs --- into our open hands and beating hearts.
May we, too, be healers, we who have caused strife.
Strengthen our hands to bind the wounds of Earth,
Sharing with the world your promise of rebirth.
Responsibility
Stanza 7, Now the Green Blade Rises
The video series, Moments of Arising, has arisen from a year unlike any other. The Jubilee Year of Earth Day coincides with a pandemic, economic dislocation, a reckoning with racism, a democracy at a crossroads, and an accelerating climate crisis. We have suffered and see suffering. We are searching our souls. We are learning. We sense in these convergences a moment of arising.
In a year unlike any other, this January has been a month unlike any other. Two weeks after an unprecedented attack on the United States Capitol we celebrated the Inauguration of the 46th President. So now, what is our responsibility? How do we exercise it?
Responsibility, this new Moments of Arising video, based on environmentally focused stanza 7 of Now the Green Blade Rises, does not pretend to answer the question for us. Yet, with music and visual imagery, with the prayer poem of Kendrick Hall and Tammy Walhof's clarion call to put neighbor and nature at the center of public policy, it places the question of our responsibility right where it belongs --- into our open hands and beating hearts.
Now the Green Blade Rises
Come, O great Creator, as in Bethlehem,
To your world, incarnate, bringing hope again.
All creatures sing, “You only can redeem!”
Love shall come again like wheat arising green.
In these final days of Advent, the EcoFaith Network NE MN Synod is excited to release Incarnation, our newest Moment of Arising video. With Claire Rephsholdt as litanist, the Rev. John Hanson as speaker, Else Madsen as scripture reader, and the Rev. David Carlson as host, we look to Christ’s incarnation in Bethlehem as a doorway into Incarnation in the whole of creation. In the stanza’s musical arrangement by Paul Jacobson, Christmas (Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella) dances with Easter (Now the Green Blade Rises)*. Along with the photographic imagery created by filmmaker Linda Kalweit, we are drawn into God’s saving love for the whole creation.
The video ends with this question, How will we adore, nurture, and protect God’s gift?
Moments of Arising is a video series produced by the EcoFaith Network NE MN Synod in this Jubilee Year of Earth Day to nurture the green blades of a grassroots movement to repair our torn relationship with neighbors and nature. The videos flow from the Easter hymn Now the Green Blade Rises, four original stanzas and four newly composed, environmentally focused stanzas.
*Music is performed by Kristina Rodel, soprano; Paul Jacobson, flute; Elianna Thorne, cello; and Molly Raben, organ.
Come, O great Creator, as in Bethlehem,
To your world, incarnate, bringing hope again.
All creatures sing, “You only can redeem!”
Love shall come again like wheat arising green.
In these final days of Advent, the EcoFaith Network NE MN Synod is excited to release Incarnation, our newest Moment of Arising video. With Claire Rephsholdt as litanist, the Rev. John Hanson as speaker, Else Madsen as scripture reader, and the Rev. David Carlson as host, we look to Christ’s incarnation in Bethlehem as a doorway into Incarnation in the whole of creation. In the stanza’s musical arrangement by Paul Jacobson, Christmas (Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella) dances with Easter (Now the Green Blade Rises)*. Along with the photographic imagery created by filmmaker Linda Kalweit, we are drawn into God’s saving love for the whole creation.
The video ends with this question, How will we adore, nurture, and protect God’s gift?
Moments of Arising is a video series produced by the EcoFaith Network NE MN Synod in this Jubilee Year of Earth Day to nurture the green blades of a grassroots movement to repair our torn relationship with neighbors and nature. The videos flow from the Easter hymn Now the Green Blade Rises, four original stanzas and four newly composed, environmentally focused stanzas.
*Music is performed by Kristina Rodel, soprano; Paul Jacobson, flute; Elianna Thorne, cello; and Molly Raben, organ.
V - Death
When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain,
Your warm touch can call us back to life again.
Fields of our hearts, that dead and bare have been,
Long for love to come like wheat arising green.
Now the Green Blade Rises
When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain,
Your warm touch can call us back to life again.
Fields of our hearts, that dead and bare have been,
Long for love to come like wheat arising green.
Now the Green Blade Rises
The eighth video in the series, Death is the fifth of the short videos wrapped around the eight stanzas of Now the Green Blade Rises, four original stanzas of the Easter hymn and four environmentally focused stanzas, composed by Paul Jacobson.
Death features a reflection by the Rev. Dr. Anna Madsen, director of OMG Center for Theological Reflection, and the Spent Dandelion Retreat Center, and a litany by seminarian Mac Mullins. Woven throughout the video is a compelling performance of the stanza with Paul Jacobson’s exquisite arrangement, and the stunning photographic imagery of filmmaker and video designer Linda Kalweit.
The video leaves us with questions posed by video host Pastor Kristin Foster and Dr. Anna Madson:
Death features a reflection by the Rev. Dr. Anna Madsen, director of OMG Center for Theological Reflection, and the Spent Dandelion Retreat Center, and a litany by seminarian Mac Mullins. Woven throughout the video is a compelling performance of the stanza with Paul Jacobson’s exquisite arrangement, and the stunning photographic imagery of filmmaker and video designer Linda Kalweit.
The video leaves us with questions posed by video host Pastor Kristin Foster and Dr. Anna Madson:
- Where are our heart grieving, for species extinguished, for bird songs silenced, for oceans dying, for forests felled for profit, for people and animals and trees killed by fire and flood and pandemic?
- How are we called to be ambassadors not of death but of God’s presence in the world, of God’s warm touch, calling us back to life again?
Moments of Arising; Lament
Now the Green Blade Rises - stanza 4
Now the Green Blade Rises - stanza 4
Slumber
‘Love by hatred slain’
Now the Green Blade Rises
Stanza 3 (stanza 2 of original hymn)
In the grave they laid Him, love by hatred slain,
Thinking that He never would awake again.
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen,
Love will come again like wheat arising green.
Love by hatred slain is happening all around us now. Are we waking up?
This prophetically stirring video continues the video series, Moments of Arising, and flows from stanza 3 of the Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Rises (stanza 2 of the original version). Opening with a prayer by Jordan Stone, Luther Seminary Jubilee Scholar from Sioux Falls South Dakota, the film features a probing reflection offered by Jordan Lutz, the Sustainability Project Manager for Bemidji State University and Lutheran Campus Ministry board member. With Paul Jacobson’s startling arrangement of the stanza and filmmaker Linda Kalweit’s haunting visual imagery, it takes us into the heartbeat of questions that can only be answered by how the Spirit activates us: Will Love ever rise from the many graves where hatred has laid it, from the vicious legacy of racism to the destruction of God’s earth for profit? Or together, shall we arise, Love germinating in a powerful Jubilee of restoration and regeneration for neighbors and nature?
Moments of Arising is a video conversation series celebrating the Jubilee Year of Earth Day as a Sabbath year of coming home, of restoration and regeneration for the land itself and for the neighbor. Produced by the EcoFaith Network of the NE MN Synod, the series is dedicated to nurturing a grassroots faith movement for repairing our relationship with the torn web of creation. Each video can be used at home or shared with congregational groups.
Slumber, Stanza 3, is the sixth video in the Moments of Arising series and the third of eight videos wrapped around the eight stanzas of Now the Green Blade Rises, four original stanzas and four newly composed, environmentally focused stanzas.
‘Love by hatred slain’
Now the Green Blade Rises
Stanza 3 (stanza 2 of original hymn)
In the grave they laid Him, love by hatred slain,
Thinking that He never would awake again.
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen,
Love will come again like wheat arising green.
Love by hatred slain is happening all around us now. Are we waking up?
This prophetically stirring video continues the video series, Moments of Arising, and flows from stanza 3 of the Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Rises (stanza 2 of the original version). Opening with a prayer by Jordan Stone, Luther Seminary Jubilee Scholar from Sioux Falls South Dakota, the film features a probing reflection offered by Jordan Lutz, the Sustainability Project Manager for Bemidji State University and Lutheran Campus Ministry board member. With Paul Jacobson’s startling arrangement of the stanza and filmmaker Linda Kalweit’s haunting visual imagery, it takes us into the heartbeat of questions that can only be answered by how the Spirit activates us: Will Love ever rise from the many graves where hatred has laid it, from the vicious legacy of racism to the destruction of God’s earth for profit? Or together, shall we arise, Love germinating in a powerful Jubilee of restoration and regeneration for neighbors and nature?
Moments of Arising is a video conversation series celebrating the Jubilee Year of Earth Day as a Sabbath year of coming home, of restoration and regeneration for the land itself and for the neighbor. Produced by the EcoFaith Network of the NE MN Synod, the series is dedicated to nurturing a grassroots faith movement for repairing our relationship with the torn web of creation. Each video can be used at home or shared with congregational groups.
Slumber, Stanza 3, is the sixth video in the Moments of Arising series and the third of eight videos wrapped around the eight stanzas of Now the Green Blade Rises, four original stanzas and four newly composed, environmentally focused stanzas.
Exploitation
When we use the world as if it were our own,
Planting seed with poison, causing earth to moan,
Earth turns to sand, and ice melts into sea,
Rivers turn to mud, and putrid ponds turn green.
Text by Paul Jacobson, tune Noel Novellet
(Now the Green Blade Rises)
This prophetically stirring and artistically stunning the video continues the EcoFaith Network’s video conversation series, Moments of Arising, flowing from the haunting Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Rises. Exploitation features the performance of Paul Jacobson’s arrangement of stanza 2 and a reflection by Deacon Candidate Colleen Bernu, member of the Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe and chair of the synod’s Together Here Task Force, who draws from Native American perspective to tell the story of creation’s cry for healing and balance.
Moments of Arising is a video conversation series produced by the EcoFaith Network, NE MN Synod, celebrating the Jubilee Year of Earth Day as a Sabbath year of coming home, of restoration and regeneration for the land itself as well as for the neighbor. It is dedicated to nurturing a grassroots faith movement to repair our relationship with the torn web of creation.
Exploitation is the second of eight short videos, each wrapped around one of the hymn’s eight stanzas, four original stanzas and four newly composed, environmentally focused stanzas. Each includes a litany, scripture, the music of the stanza, and a relevant message from a different speaker, and ends with a question to stimulate conversation and action.
A captioned version of this video is available at:
https://vimeo.com/438545433/5a7ed8afd6
When we use the world as if it were our own,
Planting seed with poison, causing earth to moan,
Earth turns to sand, and ice melts into sea,
Rivers turn to mud, and putrid ponds turn green.
Text by Paul Jacobson, tune Noel Novellet
(Now the Green Blade Rises)
This prophetically stirring and artistically stunning the video continues the EcoFaith Network’s video conversation series, Moments of Arising, flowing from the haunting Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Rises. Exploitation features the performance of Paul Jacobson’s arrangement of stanza 2 and a reflection by Deacon Candidate Colleen Bernu, member of the Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe and chair of the synod’s Together Here Task Force, who draws from Native American perspective to tell the story of creation’s cry for healing and balance.
Moments of Arising is a video conversation series produced by the EcoFaith Network, NE MN Synod, celebrating the Jubilee Year of Earth Day as a Sabbath year of coming home, of restoration and regeneration for the land itself as well as for the neighbor. It is dedicated to nurturing a grassroots faith movement to repair our relationship with the torn web of creation.
Exploitation is the second of eight short videos, each wrapped around one of the hymn’s eight stanzas, four original stanzas and four newly composed, environmentally focused stanzas. Each includes a litany, scripture, the music of the stanza, and a relevant message from a different speaker, and ends with a question to stimulate conversation and action.
A captioned version of this video is available at:
https://vimeo.com/438545433/5a7ed8afd6
Promise
Starting with visually stunning images of Lake Superior that accompany a northern Thanksgiving for Baptism, followed by scripture readings and a flute and soprano performance of the first stanza of Now the Green Blade Rises, we hear Nate Anderson from Oak Lake Lutheran Church in rural Kerrick reflect on practicing the resurrection promise in the earthy terms of seasons and seeds. The fourth in the video conversation series,Moments of Arising, Promise is the first of eight 10-minute videos flowing from one of eight stanzas of the Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Rises (ELW#379), four original stanzas and four newly composed environmentally focused stanzas. Each of the eight will include a litany, scripture, the music of the stanza, and a relevant message from a different speaker, ending with a question to stimulate conversation and action.
Starting with visually stunning images of Lake Superior that accompany a northern Thanksgiving for Baptism, followed by scripture readings and a flute and soprano performance of the first stanza of Now the Green Blade Rises, we hear Nate Anderson from Oak Lake Lutheran Church in rural Kerrick reflect on practicing the resurrection promise in the earthy terms of seasons and seeds. The fourth in the video conversation series,Moments of Arising, Promise is the first of eight 10-minute videos flowing from one of eight stanzas of the Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Rises (ELW#379), four original stanzas and four newly composed environmentally focused stanzas. Each of the eight will include a litany, scripture, the music of the stanza, and a relevant message from a different speaker, ending with a question to stimulate conversation and action.
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Watch the introductory video
Moments of Arising ~ an invitation This 15 minute video introduces Moments of Arising, a year long video series being produced by the EcoFaith Network of the NE MN Synod, ELCA. With reflections by Kristin Foster, Mark Ditmanson, and David Carlson, flute performed by Paul Jacobson, and scripture read by Johanna Bernu, this introductory video invites you, even during the coronavirus pandemic, to look and listen for green blades rising throughout the Jubilee Year of Earth Day. Created by videographer Linda Kalweit and the EcoFaith Leadership Team, with photography by Will Stenburg. Earth Day/ Earth Week Click the titles to view the video! Earth Day’s Jubilee Year Professor Diane Levy Jacobson explores the ancient tradition of jubilee proclaimed in Leviticus and Isaiah and continuing in Luke, and how it is connected to Earth Day 2020, now in its 50th year. With breath-taking nature photography by J. David Levy, the video contemplates jubilee ideas of rest for the land, release from servitude, relation to the foreigner and immigrant, and other concepts that are strikingly connected to our experience in this time of climate crisis, cultural tension, and pandemic strife. Earth Day, Our Moment to Arise Around the world, youth and young adults are urging us to heed the climate emergency -- for the sake of their future, for those who are marginalized, and for all life on Earth. In this video, Earth Day, Our Moment to Arise, four high school and young adult climate advocates from the upper Midwest – Izzy Laderman, Johanna Bernu, Kayli Skinner, and Jordan Stone, with EcoFaith co-chairperson Pastor Kristin Foster -- probe the intersections between the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis, and challenge us to make critical decisions about a profound and shared change in direction. These Earth Day videos are part of the new series, Moments of Arising produced by the EcoFaith Network of the NE Minnesota Synod of the ELCA. Beginning around Pentecost, throughout this Jubilee year, we will share a series of 10 minute videos. Each one will flow from one of the eight stanzas of Now the Green Blade Rises, four of which are newly composed, environmentally focused. Each will include prayer and a relevant message by a different speaker. Listen with us to the haunting Easter hymn, Now the Green Blade Rises. Look with us throughout this Jubilee year of Earth Day for the green blades rising in and for a wounded creation. Young earth advocates raise their voices calling us with them into this moment to arise |
Stay Connected!
ecofaith@nemnsynod.org …or contact EcoFaith Network Leadership Team Co-Chairs Pastor David Carlson pastor@gloriadeiduluth.org Pastor Kristin Foster revkristinfoster@gmail.com Resources
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