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Good Friday

February 26, 2013

By Laura Marie Piotrowicz

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This morning we journeyed to see a place where my heart broke. There is a tailings dam that regularly releases it’s contents into the river. This mining pollution, mainly cyanide and mercury, courses past rice and vegetable fields, pasture lands, and homes before it conjoins with the spring-fed source water from the mountains and continues (polluted) for over 100km to spew into the South China Sea. It’s a horrifying reality.
As someone who sees the presence of God in all of creation, today was not just a Friday, but a Good Friday experience. The drilling and blasting and removal of ore is a type of flogging and scourging. The rapid intention to expand these operations is an ongoing mockery. Corporate greenwashing campaigns are like a crown of thorns. The unconscionable poisoning of the waterways is a journey that can only lead to death. Tunneling and open pits are laying the earth bare, with profits to the highest bidder act as a lottery for the clothing and dignity of the environment. The devastation of the lands and peoples, the destruction of the ecosystem is the painful crying out of ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
Today was a Good Friday as I watched the crucifixion of the earth. And even the rain could not hide my tears.

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