God of the Wilderness

Instruction note: Please have water, oil, ashes, incense or whatever you feel comfortable anointing and blessing yourself with.

As you are able, I invite you to stand. If you prefer, you may stay in your seats or lay down and follow my directions.

Bring your big toes together so they are touching but separate your heels so the outside of your feet are parallel to the walls

Breathe, grounding yourself

Separate your knees as you rotate them inwardly towards your inner thighs

Breathe

Touch yourself, wherever the Spirit leads you (hips, thighs, heart, head, hands, etc.) Pay attention to where you are in need of divine touch

Breathe

Center your belly button as you stack your heels, knees, and hips. Pull it towards your spine. Shift it back and forth making sure it’s right in the middle of your hips, directly underneath your nose.

Breathe

Rotate your shoulders up making sure your arms lay by your sides and your hands are open to welcoming the Spirit

Breathe, Unclenching your fists

And rotate your shoulder up and back once more opening up your heart

Breathe, Letting the crown of your head reach to the heavens as the royalty you are

Align your nose, chin, and navel

Breathe

Push your toes down towards the earth, from whence you came, grounding and rooting yourselves in your ancestry

Breathe

Fill your lungs with Divine Presence, Let the Spirit stir and move within you

Count 10 breaths

What is the Spirit telling you now?
Where is it leading you?
Who is on the journey with you?

Breathe

As you listen, I invite you to set an intention for the remainder of this season of our lives together

Breathe

And when you are ready, I invite you to join me in prayer.

Invite you now to touch your candles, hover your hands over your incense, dip your fingers into your oil or water.

Meditation

Creator God,
We humble ourselves and confess our failures in caring, helping, and loving farmed animals.
We confess the pain and destruction we have caused them and the injustices in the industry of which we are apart. And in our confession, we ask for your liberation and protection.

Grant us the courage to follow you into the wilderness and repent from factory farming, industrial fishing practices, and their death dealing ways including over 500 years of food apartheid, the forced enslavement of african peoples to displace natives in order to grow food for the wealthy few, global pandemics and untold death, beginning with the first pandemic of a colonial diet and the model of consumerism and capitalist demand, the subsidizing of multi-billion dollar agribusinesses while systematically denying access to land for BIPOC and small ethical farmers, contributing to their depression and suicide.

Grant that by joining Jesus in the wilderness of the unknown, we will let the wilderness herself guide us and we commit to listening to and learning from First Peoples, whose relationship with the earth and non-humans has been instrumental in preserving their integrity and diversity.

Grant us the willingness and openness to learn from other-than-human animals. Help us to commit and remember that humans are not the pinnacle of creation and that our interconnectedness is the key to our very existence, survival, and flourishing upon the earth.

Help us to be careful consumers of the earth’s abundance by getting to know our food growers and handlers; by choosing to eat plants instead of animals as often as we can; by remembering that every created being is beloved by You, our Creator, and by treating those beings accordingly; by advocating for policies and practices that foster flourishing, equity, and liberation for all.

May it be so.

Bring your anointed hands over to the crown of your heads or to your foreheads as you say this blessing,

In this season of Lent, remember that Creator restores and liberates their people. Our day of reckoning has come. Blessed and anointed are you for the journey. Amen, Hallelujah.

Song: We’re Blessed by Fred Hammond

Reflection Questions:

1. Have you ever learned anything from other-than-human animals?

2. What does your cultural and ethnic heritage teach about the value of non-human animals?

Call to Practice:

Two options - 1) research to find out the grower of a food that you eat today. Write a note of appreciation and send it to that grower. 2) take some time today to spend out in nature. Allow yourself to experience stillness. One way to do this is to do a visual scan by moving your head and eyes slowly from left to right taking notice of details in nature around you. Give thanks to the Creator and the ancestors for the gift of what you discover in either of these practices!

About the Author

Aline (Ah-lee-nee) Silva (she/her/hers) serves as the co-Director of CreatureKind. Prior to coming to CreatureKind, Aline served for over a decade as a local parish pastor of rural and farming populations in Kansas, Missouri, and Colorado. Aline shares herself as a queer, Black & Indigenous immigrant of Brasil to the US. Aline chooses not to eat non-human animals, her fellow-worshippers of God. Aline is a pastor, an excellent preacher, and a life coach.

Stay connected to Aline:

Twitter, FB, IG: @BeCreatureKind

Website: https://www.becreaturekind.org/

These Black Lent devotionals were originally curated by IG: goodneighbormovement.

Scripture: Psalm 53; Leviticus 23:26-41; Revelation 19:1-8 (CEB)

FORESIGHT by Naima Penniman