June 25, 2010
By Pat McCaughan

Oil company employees and environmental activists alike gathered in vigil on June 24 at St. Stephen's Church in Houston, Texas, offering prayers for those affected by the Gulf Coast oil spill and pledging to help renew the environment.

"I knew we needed to be together to pray about it when I mentioned the oil spill at a worship committee meeting and two people started crying," said the Rev. Lisa Hunt, St. Stephen's rector, during a June 25 telephone interview from her office in Houston's Montrose neighborhood.

About 50 people attended the 7 p.m. service, where representatives from the oil industry, the Sierra Club and others addressed the crisis.

One of the speakers was a middle school student "who as part of our summer program went down to Galveston Bay to plant marsh grass and talked about how important it is to participate in renewing the world," Hunt said.

"She described seeing those photos of the Gulf after the oil spill and realizing there was something tangible that she could do. That was important for her."

The oil well ruptured on April 20 when an explosion blew up an offshore rig above it, killing 11 workers. Now in its 67th day, the well has spewed millions of gallons of oil into the ocean, soiling large stretches of the U.S. Gulf coastline and threatening multi-billion-dollar tourism and fishing industries.

For Hunt and other Gulf Coast area pastors, the situation is anything but simple. Employees of the oil companies and ancillary support industries, as well as environmental activists, are among their parishioners. Everyone is affected, Hunt said.

"The issue isn't black and white. We're really having to engage the ambiguity of this and as the impact rolls out, in terms of the economy, stewardship and relationships the strains will be deeply spiritual, and will be very personal too or have the potential to be."

Hunt, who said that people are experiencing "a deep sense of doom," said the crisis is "calling us to conversion in a deep, deep way, personally and corporately. This is a huge evangelism opportunity."

Evelyn Merz and other members of both Houston's Sierra Club and the group's Lone Star state chapter hold regular meetings at St. Stephen's. Merz, who is conservation chair for both groups, said the church is uniquely positioned to address the crisis because of "its perspective on responsibility to creation.

"We're at a crossroads … almost like the Industrial Revolution," she told Thursday evening's gathering. She explained that while the Industrial Revolution dramatically changed life for the average person and the world, there were no consequences attached to its relentless pursuit of oil.

"But now, consequences are attached," she said. "The question is, what are we going to do?"

St. Stephen's parishioner Fran Flanagan described growing up near Galveston and Louisiana's coast, and her love of local wildlife, including pelicans, porpoises and seagulls, and what the coast meant.

"My whole life is centered around the gulf and the coast" wildlife, Flanagan, 81, told the gathering. "I have so many memories of going to the beach and playing in the sand and body surfing and salty water. If we cut ourselves, the water was healing. We went to the marshes with alligators and we learned to adapt to earthquakes and all sorts of disasters.

"But this one is frightening to all of us. We don't know how we're going to come back from it."

Although devastated by the effects of the oil spill, she added, "It's everybody's problem and we're all to blame – not just the oil company, but all of us because we all we demand our oil products. This is affecting everyone. It's going to cost everyone. We're going to have to make some sacrifices."

Petroleum employee Neil Jones, a St. Stephen's parishioner who also spoke at the vigil, said the industry as a whole is embarrassed and humbled by the disaster.

"We feel very sorry for those impacted by the spill, whether personal or family loss and the loss that will occur as a result of the pollution that is occurring," he said during a June 25 telephone interview from his Houston office.

"I tried to make the connection that if anything good can come out of an incident like the gulf spill, it should be the learnings that help to make the industry safer for the future," he added.

"We know that things like this shouldn't happen and we feel as though we've got to restore – hopefully – the confidence we had previously in our communities that we can do this kind of work and provide the necessary energy that the country and world needs in a safe and environmentally sound manner."

He said he hopes that the excavation of relief wells currently underway will impact the oil flowing into the gulf, potentially by August.

Like other speakers at the vigil, he called upon attendees to become more environmentally responsible, adding, "If we want to really avoid these kinds of things (we need) to modify our own lifestyle and energy use."

Hunt said the vigil was an effort to reach out to neighbors "who are mourning and to provide a service … to raise consciousness that people are praying about this. Not that God is going to magically heal it or that this is an act of God.

"We were praying about technology and its limits and our responsibility to share it with God."

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Pat McCaughan is a national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service. She is based in Los Angeles.