Tripp Hudgins, a good friend and Board Member of the Raven Foundation, sent me an email yesterday concerning the oil spill in the gulf.  He expressed concern that all of the resentment and anger directed at BP is not the solution to the problem and that BP is being scapegoated.  In the email, he sent a link to an online petition called The BP Oil Spill: A Christian Call for Lament and Reconciliation.  Here's a quote from the petition:

 ^{(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)}

We mourn the human and animal lives lost, the economies and ecosystems destroyed, and the gifts of God, created from and for his love, squandered and poisoned. Most of all we mourn our complicity and active participation in an economy based on toxic energy that has made such death inevitable.

I love this quote.  It avoids scapegoating BP and makes the point that we are all in this together.  We are complicit and active participants in this oil spill.  The problem is much bigger than BP.  Our dependence on oil has made death inevitable.  The problem is our cultural desire for convenience and efficiency over and against other humans and the environment.

Our culture likes to avoid the word "sin".  It's an ugly word.  Unfortunately, this oil spill forces us to acknowledge the ways in which so many of our individual and cultural practices lead to death and destruction.  Ugly words are the best words to describe ugly situations that we have created.  As the petition points out, the proper response to such a crisis resulting from our sins is lament, confession, and actively seeking reconciliation with God's good creation.  

I encourage you to sign the petition.  You can find it here:  http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/lamentbpoilspill/.