We gather here from different parts of the world to listen to one another and to create a growing solidarity driven by both the uniqueness and the productivity. We live in a common home and we seek to produce healthy food for all of us.
I welcome particularly all of the speakers and the communities that are joining us. May we begin with a prayer, expressing our deepest gratitude to God, our Creator, for the chance to seek strength from one another in these most trying times.
We ask you Lord God, Creator. You blessed us with this land and you tell us the history of our people. You continue to sustain our life, from the mountains and the hills, along the rivers and valleys to the shoreline and seas. We find bountiful life and ways of living.
As we gather today, Lord and Creator, we ask to share in the fullness of the life you created. That as we toil, we may produce good harvests and caring for those around us, always respecting the needed balances, not only in our patch of land, but in the biomes and the climate that sustain us, aware too of the social balances and need to celebrate a culture of peace and of sufficiency with all.
As we envision this future, O Lord, we pray once again for the community and the global community that should care for all, that protects the integrity of the environment and upholds the dignity of all people. Amen.
This is the opening prayer by Pedro Walpole SJ, Ecojesuit Global Coordinator, during the first session of the online webinar Agroecology for Food System Change: A dialogue series on land, life, and livelihood.
