23 Sep, 2011
A cool, northwest breeze blows at my back as I make my way through the heart of the nation. My wheels roll evenly over the dips and climbs handed out over comparably undulating beauties and eyesores. In one glance, there is a wealth of waving grass extending to oceanic breadth that sets my heart and thoughts to its long, metronomic gusts. In another blink, the poverty of ingrained hatred and cultural despair vomit cacophonous rhythms that jar understanding. Down and up, left and right—my wheels spin through and on and over the land that feeds us all.
Like the shifting countryside, our nation’s most beautiful aspects come in juxtaposition to ugly cultural growths that we cover with a vale of quotidian tasks. We honor the immigrant’s industry while passively participating in his being ostracized. We celebrate the melting pot’s soup, but we turn away while her waters boil. Ours is a nation of beauty, but all beauty bears triumph and pain.
This raccoon has had too much to drink.
I went to throw away some trash in Batesland, SD, and this cat came jumping out of the trash. It proceeded to try every trick in the book to rub up against me. Friendly kitties should not dwell in trash cans, I suggested.
This week, I got to experience some of that pain. While cycling in and around the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, I heard the voices of people struggling with racial tension and cultural disdain. It was not pretty, but the rough edges made for deep cuts in a few sensitive souls.
To tell this tale, I have divided this week’s blog into 4 parts. In addition to these segments, I have also a post called Back to School in which I introduce some of the fine work going on around the country at various seminaries to raise awareness around Christian environmental concerns and responses to climate change. While this is by no means a report on the action around the country, I hope it will serve as an appetizer for those interested in theological education and help us all better understand Christian responses to climate change in this country.
These blogs are long. They are divided for a reason, and they are together for another. In my limited understanding, the issues and events presented here have important implications for our work of loving our neighbors and God in the face of climate change. If not, maybe they’re just good tales.
I cannot tell the tale of those who live where I travel. That story is their own, and it is best told by them. But I can tell you what they tell me, what I see, and start from there. That is what this week’s four part blog is: a start. 
When I stopped to take a picture at the Nebraska border south of Martin, SD, two separate folks stopped to talk to me. Mind you, only 3 cars had passed me for the past 2 hours on this empty road. Nice folks, though. One from Virginia, one from a dirt road a mile away.
Every town in Nebraska seems to have a grain storage silo. This is the most honest one I've seen.