Pictures and Prayers
Earth has five wondrous oceans and 113 seas covering 72% of the globe’s surface, providing life, beauty, and an endless source of poetry. The human race has always shown a profound relationship with its seas. After all, saltwater is a great measure of who we are. Given our dependence on the oceans for balance and sustenance, why, you might ask, do we act hellbent on mistreating this source and savior?
Our poor oceans and the life that dwells within them are severely wounded, defending against plastic pollution, overfishing, and the everyday use of manmade products that collapse colorful coral reefs.
Pouring feelings into the deep is an ancient practice. With these images, we at Common Ground invite you to honor our waters and pour much needed love and prayer.
“We are tied to the ocean.
And when we go back to
the sea, whether it is to
sail or to watch—we are
going back from whence
we came.”
—John F. Kennedy
“Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with
the memories and the dreams of Time.”
—H. P. Lovecraft
“To me the sea is a continual miracle; the fishes that swim, the rocks,
the motion of the waves. . . . What stranger miracles are there?”
—Walt Whitman
“It is a curious situation that
the sea, from which life
first arose, should now be
threatened by the activities
of one form of that life. But
the sea, though changed in
a sinister way, will continue
to exist: the threat is rather
to life itself.”
—Rachel Carson
“We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the
environment. The alternative? A world without whales.
It’s too terrible to imagine.”
—Pierce Brosnan
“The sea is the universal sewer. . . . I said that the oceans were
sick, but they’re not going to die. There is no death possible
in the oceans—there will always be life—but they’re getting
sicker every year.”
—Jacques Yves Cousteau
“True wisdom consists in not departing from nature and
in molding our conduct according to her laws and model.”
—Seneca
“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”
—Eckhart Tolle
”Earth provides enough to
satisfy every man’s need,
but not every man’s greed.”
—Mahatma Gandhi
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth
when it is clearly Ocean.”
—Arthur C. Clarke