Seminary Journal 2008 (August) - Virginia Theological Seminary

changing of direction. I went back
home to Los Angeles. I met with my
mentor, Dr. John Seely. He’s 95 years
of age now. He always advised me,
“Peter, take every issue to the next
highest good.” What is the highest
good for me, a priest of the Church?
And it was very clear after a while—
preserving God’s creation for my children
and grandchildren.
So I took out the books and I lifted
up the book of Nature and I looked at
it and I saw that the Ruach Elohim, the
breath of God, was polluted for millions
of the world’s people. I looked
at the population, and it was doubling
since 1950. I looked at the cypress of
Israel, the oaks of Bashan, which is
now Jordan, and the great cedars of
Lebanon, all gone. Because when you
clear-cut, all that is left is a desert.
I looked at the rainforests. The lungs
of the planet disappearing one acre
at a time—in the snap of a fi nger. I
looked at the waters. One and a half
billion of the world’s people do not
have access to clean water. Two and
a half billion do not have access to
clean sanitation. In the apocalyptic
city of Lagos, Nigeria, where there are
13 million people—four-tenths of one
percent of their toilets are hooked up
to sewers.
That’s 52,000 people out of 13 million.
I looked at the country of Ghana.
There are 40,000 people in a refugee
camp, and to give you a perspective of
the size, the campus of VTS is 88 acres.
The campus of Episcopal High School
next door is 163 acres. Forty thousand
people living in one refugee camp—
140 acres with no sanitation.
I looked at the rivers of the world. Five
hundred of the world’s major rivers—
many of them are running dry before
they hit the sea, including our majestic
Colorado at several times during the
year. The rivers are the veins of the
planet. The mighty Mississippi doesn’t
run dry, but it produces a dead zone
the size of the state of New Jersey in
the Gulf of Mexico. So the rivers are
running—some dry, some creating
dead zones.
And then I took up the book of Scripture
again. What is the most famous
passage in all of Scripture? Even the
guy with the rainbow colored hair at
all the football games would hold up
the sign saying what? “John 3:16—for
God so loved the WORLD…” It
doesn’t say for God so loved Peter.
It doesn’t say for God so loved us.
It doesn’t say for God so loved us
and the fi ve great mammals of Africa.
No. God so loved the world. The
At the celebration of the Holy Eucharist during the Mollegen Forum: Dean Martha
Horne, Bishop Frank Griswold, Canon Peter Kreitler, and Professor Tony Lewis.
54 VIRGINIA SEMINARY JOURNAL AUGUST 2007