9/8/2022

9/8/2022

Dear Friends in Christ,

I hope you are all staying cool and well during this heatwave. Personally, I find it hard to want to do anything except sit in front of a fan when it’s this hot. This morning it was already too hot to sit outside with my morning coffee at 7:38 AM! As a friend and colleague recently commented on Facebook, this heat makes it feel like we are on house arrest. The only thing that makes it bearable is that fact that it will eventually end. And hopefully soon! Like next Tuesday when the temps finally dip down into the 80’s, although what does it say that temps in the 80’s sounds cool?

I’ve found myself reflecting a lot this last week on climate change and its relationship to hotter temperatures and so I did a bit of digging. According to weather-us.com, the warmest month in Brentwood, California, is July, with an average high-temperature of 88.5°F (31.4°C) and an average low-temperature of 56.5°F (13.6°C). Interestingly enough, this years average temperature for July was slightly below that. However, the average high temperature in August is typically a tropical 87.4°F, and this year the average was 6°F higher than average. It will be interesting to see if we beat September’s average high of 85.3°F

The rainiest month in Brentwood is apparently February when the rain falls for 7.8 days and typically aggregates up to 2.09" of precipitation. Throughout the year, there are 62 rainfall days, and 10.16" of precipitation is accumulated. Last winter I tracked a Contra Costa County rain gauge less than ½ mile from my house. It accumulated only slightly over 8” of rain and most of that fell in one week during the big storm in December/January. There hasn’t been any measurable rainfall since mid-January.

All of which goes to say that yes, climate change is real, and is affecting our weather, and it will only get worse, and we need to be addressing it before it is too late. AND, according to the facts and figures it hasn’t changed as much as I expected, or as it feels. It feels horrible and uncomfortable especially when trying to function normally. If we could all just lie on the couch in the A/C with a fan blowing on us it, might not be so bad, but most of us don’t have the luxury of doing that. And I wonder if that is the case about all change. It feels horrible and uncomfortable, and unfamiliar and unsafe, and we just want to lie on ur metaphorical couches and think about the way things used to be.

Last week the Vital+Thriving steering team met to collect and collate the results of the congregational timeline event. One of the questions we are asked to consider was, where did God show up in your church. What was clear was how much change has occurred over the years in our church, and how hard that was for people at the time. About how easy it would have been for people to just cling to the way things used to be. But things of hope and inspiration have come from that change and people keep getting off their couch and braving the heat to live into their faith and bring the Good News to our community. Because as Michelle said, at Saint Anna’s God is winning.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Jane+