Scarsdale Congregational Church

Members of the third and fourth grade church school class, taught by Kay Miles, presented this Litany of Connection on April 9, 2000. This was to have been the day persons in the fellowship stayed after church to help clean our grounds. However, snow and wind delayed these connections with our earth until later in the week.

One: Every part of the earth is sacred.
Two: Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore,
One: every mist in the dark wood,
Two: every clearing, and every humming insect is holy.
One: The rocky crest, the rippling meadow,
Two: the beasts and all the people belong to one family.
One: Teach your children that the earth is our mother.
Two: Whatever befalls our mother befalls her children.
One: We are part of the earth and the earth is part of us.
Two: The air is precious, for all share the same breath.
One: The wind that gave our grandparents breath is also the wind that gives our children the spirit of life.
Two: This we know: the earth does not belong to us,
One: but we belong to the earth.
Two: This we know: all things are connected,
One: like the bonds that unite one family.
Two: Our God is the same God, whose compassion is equal for all.
One: For we did not weave the web of life;
Two: we are merely a strand in it.
One: Whatever we do to the web,
Two: we do to ourselves.
One: Let us give thanks for the web that connects us.
Two: Thanks be to God -the God of all.

Based on a letter from Chief Seattle to the President of the United States at the time when Seattle's people were forcibly removed to a reservation.