Altered Landscapes
From Karen Cornelius's saint ben's artist residency
On Saturday, November 9, 2019, a circle of people from our community gathered to take part in a "performative liturgy" designed and led by Karen Cornelius, in the context of her short-term artist residency.
Deeply concerned about climate change, in her personal art practice Karen has created a series of pieces using violent weather as a point of connection. For this event, she selected one of those pieces and had us literally mark it with our fingermarks, signalling our commitment to response and action, both as individuals and as community.
This video of the liturgy was produced by Bramwell Ryan as a way of sharing the event more widely, and to invite our viewers to seriously consider contacting your own political leaders to voice your concerns.
Samantha's Klassen's song, "Will the Oceans Rise", accompanied the finger-marking of the art piece, creating an important layer of context for the expression of our prayerful concern.
Will the Oceans Rise
Words and music by Samantha Klassen
Will the oceans rise to meet our frailty?
Will the ice fields flood in tears of misery?
Will the fires continue to consume all that is green?
Will our own home seem like an enemy?
How does one dark seed, almost too small to see
Descend to the dead and rise in victory?
The more we turn this earth to hell the more I disbelieve
Anyone who says we can be like that seed
But look to the children
They’re still dreaming of
The wilderness and all its promises;
Despair can’t really teach us to love
And anger alone is not enough
To teach us how to dream
To teach us how to see
Still how can we say we trust the Little Way
With precious species disappearing every day?
Who’s to blame? Give us a name - The faceless tyranny
That feeds on our fear and greed is bringing us to our knees
But look to the children
They’re still dreaming of
The wilderness and all its promises;
Despair can’t really teach us to love
And anger alone is not enough
To teach us how to dream
To teach us how to see
That every leaf on every tree
Is our sister, is our brother
And though the scars of earth
May never mend, there is another
Whose scars have become
A healing song
Let us learn to pray just like the thirsty tree
Thrusting blindly into darkened mystery
Seeking hidden wells, sinking into hallowed streams
Drinking their voices, drenched in their holy speech
And look to the children
They’re still dreaming of
The wilderness and all its promises;
‘Cause despair really can’t teach us to love
And anger alone’s just not enough
To become like the children
They’re still dreaming of
The wilderness and all its promises;
With the children we can learn to love
And start to trust that there is enough
And as we learn to dream
Maybe we’ll believe