Sharon Abercrombie's blog

Stephen Cleghorn's roots are Catholic, but he led a powerfully personalized and wonderfully unorthodox ritual and public gathering honoring his late wife, Lucinda Hart-Gonzalez, on May 10. The energy of it combined his fierce undying love for her with an equally passionate element of rebellion against gas companies that are eyeing a part of his 50-acre Pennsylvania organic farm for hydraulic fracturing and against the politicians who support it.

Two years after the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the news remains grim on numerous fronts, reports Mother Jones in an April 2012 series of environmental impact articles. Besides eyeless shrimp, toxic beaches and dead dolphins, Gulf oysters are now in trouble, and people who swim in the Gulf are picking up carcinogenic PAH compounds on their skin.

A team of scientists, led by Dr. Peter Roopnarine of the California Academy of Sciences, has learned that oysters now have higher concentrations of the heavy metals found in crude oil than they did before the spill. Roopnarine also discovered signs of metaplasia, a condition that occurs when tissues are transformed in response to stress, in the mollusks. The scientists don't yet know what these effects could have on high-level consumers in the food chain, which includes people who love Louisiana's famous Po' Boy sandwiches, but previous studies show heavy metal pollution combined with warmer temperatures are especially deadly in oysters.

Can you guess who crafted these poetic images about creation? "The pure in heart see all things full of God. They see Him in the firmament of heaven, in the moon. They see him making the clouds his chariots and walking upon the wings of the wind. They see him preparing rain for the earth, giving grass for the cattle and green herb for the use of man ... They see the Creator in all, wisely governing all." Meister Eckhart or Hildegard, perhaps? Nope.

John Wesley, 18th century English Methodist preacher and evangelist, is the author. Wesley's words appear in "Heaven and Earth Are Full of Your Glory: A United Methodist and Roman Catholic Statement on the Eucharist and Ecology." The new bilateral document, released April 22 in celebration of Earth Day, "calls upon both Methodists and Catholics to remember that the grain for bread and grapes for wine become part of salvation and that salvation itself is an act of God at work in all of creation," reports The Catholic Coalition on Climate Change.

"When we celebrate Eucharist, we offer thanks to the Father for the goodness of all the things that he has made, visible and invisible," the document states.

For women in Guatemala, a good Earth Day can mean simply holding onto a parcel of land that is legally theirs. Historically, however, women have little power in this Central American country. For example, a 2005 newspaper survey reported that men regard the ideal woman as "meek, docile, sweet and submissive," -- traits that do not bode well for women in property disputes. During negotiations, a woman's concerns around access to drinking water and inheritance rights are usually ignored, reports Dan Sadowsky of Mercy Corps.

But changes are happening for the better.

Mercy Corps is now training women in techniques of conflict resolution. Since their first class last fall, the eight Mercy-hired and Mercy-trained female mediators have already resolved three land conflicts, with seven more in process, Sadowsky writes.

"Even more impressive are the number of people the mediators have reached through trainings in topics such as self-esteem, alternative dispute resolution, local governing structure and land issues: 158 women who were selected by their communities to become leaders in mediation and another 1,800 women who have been trained by those leaders," he writes.

This is literally a rags-to-riches story -- a group of poor women living on the fringes of one of the largest dumpsites in the Philippines now support their families by weaving high-fashion purses, rugs and wine bottle holders from garment factory leftovers, organic materials and indigenous fabrics. Writer Simone Orendain provides details in an April 11 story appearing on the Catholic News Service website.

Were you among the more than 1 million viewers who went to YouTube last week to see the story of Fiona, a blind, stray mixed-breed poodle whose owner abandoned her at a garbage heap in south Los Angeles? If so, you probably wept and rejoiced, just as I did.

Eldad and Audrey Hagar, directors of Paws for Hope, a local 8-year-old humane group, learned of the pup's plight last June through a friend's phone alert. A video made that day shows them rescuing the pitiful, trembling animal. She is starving, scraggily, flea-infested and covered in filth. The couple bathes and feeds her. They seek veterinary help. Can her vision be restored? Dr. Michael Chang, an ophthalmic veterinarian, assures them he can fix one of her eyes so she can have partial sight.

The Hagars post a plea for help from their supporters. Within four days, good-hearted people contributed $4,000 for the surgery. A follow-up video shows a transformed Fiona. She has turned into a happy puppy, cuddling with her new adoptive family -- the family she can actually see.

Spring made her abrupt, untimely appearance here in Columbus, Ohio, recently. For a few days, we exchanged 40-degree weather and winter clothing for temperatures in the 80s. Think shorts, short-sleeved shirts, sandals, air conditioning and an explosion of purple, pink and white blossoms.

Some of our neighbors rejoiced. They rushed out to buy flowers for their yards. Others fretted. It was all just too much, too soon. We still had leftovers from St. Patrick's Day in the refrigerator. The beauty around us, while certainly welcome at one level after the chilly grayness, held an aura of bizarre eeriness. We asked ourselves with dread, "Is this another sign of climate change?"

As we worried about our yo-yo weather, a timely column by Ohio State University biology professor Steven Rissing appeared in the March 25 Insight/Science Section of The Columbus Dispatch newspaper.

"Are we there yet?" he asked. "If we haven't entered a period of human-caused climate change yet, what will it take for us to agree that we have?"

He supplies us with a list of events pointing to global warming. Here are a few of them.

When environmental writer and entrepreneur Paul Hawken wrote Blessed Unrest in 2007, he estimated that there were close to 2 million activist organizations, secular and religious, working worldwide to heal the wounds of the earth.

Five years later, given social media and growing consciousness, it is probably safe to guess the 2 million is expanding outward to include even more willing, generous hearts. We need them badly.

Last week, former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum suggested that President Barack Obama is espousing a "radical environmental theology" not found in Christian or biblical teachings. But Patrick Carolan, executive director of the Franciscan Action Network, wonders what Santorum's own environmental theology is all about and why no one has asked him to explain it.

Carolan's essay has been posted on the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good's website. He writes, "The radical environmental theology that Senator Santorum is accusing the president of practicing is the creation theology that recent Popes have supported in their preaching and writing ... the theology that the Catholic Conference of Catholic Bishops supports. It is also the theology that St. Francis of Assisi taught."

"Keystone Fight is Uniting Tea Partiers with Environmentalists." No, it's not a mirage. This good news headline actually appeared Monday on the Talking Points Memo website.

According to TPM journalist Brian Beutler, TransCanada, the company that wants to connect the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico, is preparing to build in spite of the Obama administration's delay in approving the Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada is circumventing the roadblock by moving ahead with the southern section of the pipeline that would link Nebraska to Texas. Its tactic? Going to court.

"TransCanada has threatened to use disputed eminent domain powers to condemn privately held land over the owners' objections," Beutler's article reads. "By taking this route, TransCanada avoids a review by U.S. authorities and the requirement for a presidential permit required to build the entire length."

The dedication to environmental causes of the Sisters of St. Francis' in Sylvania, Ohio, gives their saintly founder every reason to be proud.

In 2009, Srs. Jeremias Stinson and Grace Ellen Urban built a polyhouse, a plastic greenhouse-type garden that produces vegetables year-round, and give their harvests to a Toledo soup kitchen.

Some of the tastiest whole grain bread I've ever eaten comes from the Worthington (Ohio) Winter Farmers Market. Every Saturday morning from November through April, the main hall at Griswold Senior Citizen Center turns into a bustling bazaar crammed with nutritious breads, cookies, pies, free-range chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, apples, asparagus, potatoes, spinach, handmade soaps, herbs, maple syrup, honey and freshly ground almond butter. Shopping there has become a weekly ritual.

It feels so blessedly satisfying to support hardworking local farmers and to return home with healthy, unprocessed, whole food.

Just out of curiosity, I went online to find out how many winter farmers markets there are in the United States. A December 2011 press release from the USDA reports that they've increased 38 percent since 2010, going from 886 to 1,225. Winter farmers markets represent almost 17 percent of the nation's 7,222 operating farmers markets.

They flourish in New York, California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Maryland, Florida Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Vermont, Wisconsin and Illinois.

Here's something worth considering for Lenten reading.

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and his two daughters, Stella and Mary, have started the Meat Free Monday campaign, which addresses pollution, better health, the ethical treatment of animals and global hunger.

They have also contributed to a new cookbook, The Meat Free Monday Cookbook. It features more than 300 seasonal vegetarian recipes. One of them appears in the March 2012 issue of The Vegetarian Times.

Sr. Grace Ellen Urban and Sr. Jeremias Stinson in their polyhouse. (Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania)It's winter coat weather in northwest Ohio, but Sr. Jeremias Stinson's tomatoes are doing just fine. So are her broccoli, dill, beets, cabbage, lettuce, spinach and carrots.

Stinson's veggies are thriving because they live inside a warm snug plastic greenhouse -- a polyhouse. The polyhouse makes it possible for Stinson and her food-growing colleague, Sr. Grace Ellen Urban, to maintain a year-round garden.

For the last three years, their all-seasons bounty has gone to the Helping Hands of St. Louis Parish soup kitchen to provide nutritious soups, stews and salads for hungry people living on Toledo's northeast side. Since 1992, Stinson and Urban, Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania, have maintained a 4,500-square-foot garden and an apple orchard to help support St. Louis' daily meal ministry.

The dream of adding on a year-round operation began germinating in their hearts a little more than four years ago.

The Pacific Institute, a progressive think tank in Seattle, has given the Republican presidential candidates bad marks for their views on climate change. In fact, the institute is awarding them "The Climate B.S. (Bad Science) of the Year Award," reports Anne Roan Thomas, a doctoral candidate at the Catholic University of America.

Thomas' article appeared on the Catholic Alliance for the Common Good's website Wednesday. She contrasts Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney's "disheartening" difference of opinion with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' strong statements that global climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures.

"It is about the future of God's creation and the one human family ... and our responsibility to those who come after us," reads a USCCB statement from 2001.

Greenpeace International and the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change are reporting good news on the environmental front.

Greenpeace's ongoing campaign to stop rainforest destruction in Indonesia has prompted Kroger, the giant grocery store chain, to stop carrying Paseo paper products, manufactured by Asia Pulp and Paper, on its shelves. These throwaway tissue products are made from wood fiber from pulpwood plantations that encroach on rainforests in Indonesia and destroy the habitat of the remaining 400 Sumatran tigers. Kroger discontinued carrying the Paseo line after 50,000 activists contacted the company asking them to stop being a part of rainforest destruction.

Next on Greenpeace's list is Kmart. For further information on how to help convince Kmart to follow in Kroger's footsteps, go to the Greenpeace website.

When Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr joined the order in 1961, he learned that no one in the community was allowed to cut down a tree unless the provincial gave his permission to do so.

This tradition was a "little bit of Francis that lasted 800 years," Rohr said, writing in his daily meditation website last week. Rohr is founding director of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, N.M.

As the seesaw "we win-you lose" conflict between corporations and environmentalists continues and our poor planet grows sicker by the day, the priest's recent columns are especially timely. They present us with a concise overview tracing how we divorced ourselves from the natural world, and with it, part of our souls.

The Catholic Green Initiative, a project launched in January 2009 by San Jose (Calif.) Diocesan Bishop Patrick J. McGrath, has been opening parishioners’ eyes to the seriousness of ecological issues in California as well as across the world.

For a progress report from its water committee, go to The Valley Catholic newspaper website’s Dec. 13, 2011 edition.

West Virginia's mountains are the sacred geography and heart of Jeannie Kirkhope's prayer life.

"I see God's face the clearest in these hills," she said.

They combine the vastness of big water and big sky of the Midwest, where she grew up, with the precious sense "of being held, tucked and secure."

Three years ago, John and Marilyn Saveson decided to turn 33 acres of their New Albany, Ohio, farm into a federally protected wetland to provide a permanent refuge for wildlife. The couple lives in a fast-developing area around the outskirts of Columbus and didn't want to see more suburbs and concrete smothering the land. But now, because of their ecological sensitivity, the elderly couple is facing a possible property tax bill totaling $56,119.

Spencer Hunt, a Columbus Dispatch writer, reported Dec. 26 that the Franklin County auditor's office says the land no longer qualifies for a farmland property-tax break as it once did. Since 1995, the state tax department has allowed land enrolled in the wetlands program to remain agricultural for tax purposes. In 2010, though, it began questioning whether farmland converted to wetlands should be taxed as agricultural because crops no longer are grown there, said an agency spokesman.

This week, my son and I will indulge in a gift ritual that began when I was living in California. It evolved in 1993 with these questions: "What to get Mom when she comes home to Ohio for Christmas?" "What to get for Alan when I visit Ohio for Christmas?"

"Books and more books" was our mutual choice that year. It worked so well, we've continued the custom. First we have lunch at our favorite restaurant, then off we go to the big book store. "Meet you back at the checkout counter in 45 minutes," we agree. Right down to the minute, we return, each carrying three or four treasures we have picked out for ourselves. Gift-wise, what could be better than this?

Now that I'm living back in Columbus, our holiday custom continues.

Needless to say, I love giving books to friends, too -- both old and new titles. Here are some at the top of my gift list which might spark your interest, as well.

For the environmentalist

What if more of us were to go out of our way to do a compassionate deed, something out of the ordinary? Think how much better off our planet and all beings would be.

Case in point: On Sunday morning, I was driving down North High Street in Columbus, Ohio, on an errand. Abruptly, traffic came to a halt. Four blocks ahead, blue and red flashing lights from police cruisers blinked. What was wrong? A fender-bender?

Crowds of people rushed toward the commotion. Fuming, I turned down a side street, hoping to get around the traffic delay.

After winding through a series of little neighborhoods that ended up going nowhere, I turned toward High Street once again, hoping the way was clear. But no, there were those police cruisers again. Now I could see why. They were serving as escorts for marchers carrying an assorted group of flags representing Mexico and other countries as well as large banners depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe. One kid had made his own version, decorating the border around the lady with an oval frame of intricate curly-cues, cut from a humble brown box.

A group of youth and indigenous activists from Canada presented delegates attending the U.N. climate talks in Durbin, South Africa, with souvenir gift bags containing samples of fake tar sand, reports Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

Kandi Mossett, native energy and climate campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network told Democracy Now! on Dec. 6 that the tar sands extraction process is energy and water intensive and destroys the landscape. The production site is the size of Florida.

"It is the largest catastrophic project that I am aware of on earth right because of the amount of emissions that it kicks up into the atmosphere," Mossett said.

It began as a hand-drawn Christmas calendar for her brother in the 1970s. The following year, his friends asked if she'd make one for them, too. They loved the meditations from saints, poets and writers that went with each of the original 12 pieces piece of artwork. They loved the suggested daily actions to do each day to better the world.

The cover of the 2012 wall calendar. (ministryofthearts.org/)A few years later, the calendar's creator, St. Joseph Sr. Mary Southard, a busy professional artist and retreat facilitator, found herself overwhelmed by all of the requests.

That's how Ministry of the Arts was born. Sr. Southard's religious community in La Grange Park, Ill., opened a little store on the motherhouse grounds and began offering their gifted colleague's calendars via mass printing to the general public. Today, those calendars, at $11.95 each, sell "in the thousands" each year.

My group, Simply Catholic, a Columbus, Ohio, house church of 25 members that meets twice a month, will definitely not be using the new translation. Until now, we have relied on the USCCB readings as well as "Breath of the Spirit" commentaries from Dignity USA. Since the USCCB will now be supplying Catholics with the Roman Missal revisions, we will instead be accessing our own Bibles and retaining "Breath of the Spirit."

Marie Sweeney, SC's founder, is a former pastoral staff member at St. Thomas More Newman Center operated by the Paulists at Ohio State University. She launched Simply Catholic six years ago to provide women and married priests with opportunities to serve as presiders.

Since Sweeney frequently refers to the Holy One as Ama Imma (Mother God) and the Holy Spirit as Sophia, "Consubstantial with the Father," is not one of those terms we will be using.

Here are her comments concerning the Roman Missal, which she shared in a letter to the Columbus Dispatch this past October:

Over Thanksgiving weekend, concern about the revised Roman Missal was causing major angst among a number of Catholics as they experienced the language changes for the first time in the Advent liturgy.

Advance comments this week from friends posed the question: "How can we possibly pray using these clumsy words, these endless phrases?"

Here is an idea: First, take a deep breath. Next, search through your bookshelves for anecdotes of beauty. The poetry and depth of other prayer styles are waiting to feed your hungry souls.

One of my favorite collections is "Earth Prayers from Around the World," edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon. "Earth Prayers" has been available since 1991, but its contents are timeless. Contributors include Pablo Neruda, Black Elk, Thich Nhat Hanh, T. S. Eliot, Brother Antoninus, St. Francis, Rainer Maria Rilke and Albert Schweitzer.

The authors' introduction to the section "Praise and Thanksgiving" is particularly timely:

Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat from Hillsborough, Calif., went hungry on purpose the first week of November. She described her sparse diet as "humbling and difficult."

Speier joined other Democrats in a "food stamp challenge" campaign. They lived on $4.50 a day to call attention to possible cuts in the federal food stamp supplemental program. About 44 million poor people depend on this assistance, but if supercommittee member Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama has his way, the program will be chopped significantly.

Read more about Speier's grocery shopping efforts from Catholic San Francisco.

The Obama administration has delayed making a decision on the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the United States.

On Thursday, Nov. 10, the State Department explained that it wants to study an alternative route through Nebraska. According to a Friday New York Times story, the postponement will push any action well past the 2012 election and into 2013.

For additional information go to the websites of Tar Sands Action, The League of Conservation Voters, Audubon, CREDO Action and The Houston Chronicle.

More on the Keystone XL pipeline:

• Keystone XL debate's plotline thickens

The following is a press release announcing that Fr. Louie Vitale has received the U.S. Secular Franciscan Order's Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Award.

Fr. Louie Vitale, OFM, a Franciscan friar known for protests against war and torture and advocacy for the poor, is the recipient of the U.S. Secular Franciscan Order's Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Award.

The award was presented at the order's recent national chapter at St. Francis Retreat Center in San Juan Bautista, CA.

Formerly known as the Peace Award, it was "renamed this year to capture the significant efforts in the areas of justice, peace and the integrity of creation," noted Award Chairman Kent Ferris, SFO, who also chairs the order's Justice, Peace & Integrity of Creation (JPIC) Commission. "Our Franciscan Rule reminds us of our responsibility to 'individually and collectively be in the forefront of promoting justice by the testimony of our lives.' The JPIC Award allows us to recognize those who have modeled such courageous efforts."

The pro-environmental plotline thickens. And it's good news all around.

On Nov. 6, an estimated 12,000 protesters encircled the White House, urging President Obama to reject the proposed Keystone XL, a 1,700-mile oil pipeline that would stretch from Canada to Texas.

Among the numerous ecological objections to Keystone XL: If it were to leak, the pipeline could poison the 174,000-square-mile Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies drinking water to roughly two million people in the American heartland, reports the Huffington Post.

Meanwhile, as environmentalists rallied in D.C., several news sources and an independent labor study revealed that TransCanada, Keystone's owner, has exaggerated the number of jobs the project would create.

Earlier reports were touting 20,000. Turns out that's not exactly the case.