The Amazing Story of Oxygen

I noticed I had not talked about the story of oxygen. I have mentioned it in several articles over the years but not explicitly. In a nutshell, oxygen was a toxic gas in primordial earth's early history until it was not. How and why did this happen? It begins with the story of methane gas. Further, it seems to explain quite sufficiently the explosion of life in the Cambrian Period which everyone seems to make a fuss over (Why All the Fuss over Earth's Remarkable Cambrian Explosion?). So to help develop this line of thought I wish to briefly begin this discussion with no further commentary. I leave it to the reader to develop its language. I also wish to tag it to my most recent article written earlier today (Choosing Life And The Responsibilities of Good Earth Caretake Which Go With It).

R.E. Slater

August 15, 2018

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What Earth's Early Atmosphere was like

Photo of earth filled with thick, methane-rich haze

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4310772/Earth-s-atmosphere-toxic-fog-methane.html

A period more than 2.4 billion years ago, when

Earth’s atmosphere was filled with a thick, methane-rich haze

much like Saturn’s moon Titan.

Methane-filled Atmosphere of Early Earth

Helped ‘Clear the Air’ for Oxygen

March 13, 2017

Contacts: Matthew Wright, 301-405-9267

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- More than 2.4 billion years ago, Earth’s atmosphere was inhospitable, filled with toxic gases that drove wildly fluctuating surface temperatures. New research from the University of Maryland, the University of St. Andrews, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Leeds and the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science suggests that a million-year-long methane haze helped clear the way for today’s world of mild climates and breathable air.

The team’s new research indicates that this methane-rich haze drove a large amount of hydrogen out of the atmosphere, making room for massive amounts of oxygen. Their work, published March 13, 2017 in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, thus proposes a new contributing cause for the “Great Oxidation Event,” which occurred 2.4 billion years ago. During this event, oxygen concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere increased more than 10,000 times, resulting in an atmosphere much like the one that sustains life on Earth today. 

“The transformation of Earth’s air from a toxic mix to a more welcoming, oxygen-rich atmosphere happened in a geological instant,” said James Farquhar, a professor of geology at UMD and a co-author of the study. Farquhar also has an appointment at UMD’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center. “With this study, we finally have the first complete picture of how methane haze made this happen.”

The researchers used detailed chemical records and sophisticated atmospheric models to reconstruct atmospheric chemistry during the time period immediately before the Great Oxidation Event. Their results suggest that ancient bacteria—the only life on Earth at the time—produced massive amounts of methane that reacted to fill the air with a thick haze, resembling the modern-day atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan. 

Previous studies by many of the same researchers had identified several such haze events early in Earth’s history. But the current study is the first to show how rapidly these events began and how long they lasted.

“High methane levels meant that more hydrogen, the main gas preventing the build up of oxygen, could escape into outer space, paving the way for global oxygenation,” said Aubrey Zerkle, a biogeochemist at the University of St. Andrews and a co-author of the study. “Our new dataset constitutes the highest resolution record of Archean atmospheric chemistry ever produced, and paints a dramatic picture of Earth surface conditions before the oxygenation of our planet.”

The methane haze persisted for about a million years. After enough hydrogen left the atmosphere, the right chemical conditions took over and the oxygen boom got underway, enabling the evolution of all multicellular life. 

The key to the researchers’ analysis was the discovery of anomalous patterns of sulfur isotopes in the geochemical records from this time. Sulfur isotopes are often used as a proxy to reconstruct ancient atmospheric conditions, but previous investigations into the time period in question had not revealed anything too unusual.

“Reconstructing the evolution of atmospheric chemistry has long been the focus of geochemical research,” said Gareth Izon, lead author of the study, who contributed to the research while a postdoctoral researcher at St. Andrews and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Our new data show that the chemical composition of the atmosphere was dynamic and, at least in the prelude to the Great Oxidation Event, hypersensitive to biological regulation.” 

This release is based on text provided by the University of St. Andrews.

The research paper, “Biological regulation of atmospheric chemistry en route to planetary oxygenation,” Gareth Izon, Aubrey Zerkle, Kenneth Williford, James Farquar, Simon Poulton, and Mark Claire, was published March 13, 2017 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (Award Nos. NE/H016805 and NE/J023485), the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society, The Geological Society of London’s Alan and Charlotte Welch Fund, NASA (Award No. NNX12AD91G), The Royal Society, and the European Research Council (Award No. 678812). The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.

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Evolution Of The Atmosphere:

Composition, Structure And Energy

https://globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/Perry_Samson_lectures/evolution_atm/

I inhale great draughts of space,

The east and west are mine, and the north and the south are mine

I am larger, better than I thought,

I did not know I held so much goodness - all seems beautiful to me.

- Song of the Open Road, Walt Whitman

Introduction To Global Change I

Lecture Notes

Early Atmosphere, Oceans, and Continents

Composition of the Atmosphere

Evolution of the Atmosphere Summary

Driving Questions:

• How did the atmosphere evolve into what it is today?
• What gases in the atmosphere are important to life and how are they maintained?
• What natural variations occur in atmospheric constituents and what are the important time scales for change?

1. The Earliest Atmosphere, Oceans, and Continents

After loss of the hydrogen, helium and other hydrogen-containing gases from early Earth due to the Sun's radiation, primitive Earth was devoid of an atmosphere. The first atmosphere was formed by outgassing of gases trapped in the interior of the early Earth, which still goes on today in volcanoes. 

For the Early Earth, extreme volcanism occurred during differentiation, when massive heating and fluid-like motion in the mantle occurred. It is likely that the bulk of the atmosphere was derived from degassing early in the Earth's history. The gases emitted by volcanoes today are in Table 1 and in Figure.

 

Composition of volcanic gases for three volcanoes

Volcanic outgassing

Oxygen in the Atmosphere

    Stromatolite and Banded-iron Formation (BIF)

Life started to have a major impact on the environment once photosynthetic organisms evolved. These organisms, blue-green algae (picture of stromatolite, which is the rock formed by these algae), fed off atmospheric carbon dioxide and converted much of it into marine sediments consisting of the shells of sea creatures.

While photosynthetic life reduced the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, it also started to produce oxygen. For a long time, the oxygen produced did not build up in the atmosphere, since it was taken up by rocks, as recorded in Banded Iron Formations (BIFs; picture) and continental red beds. To this day, the majority of oxygen produced over time is locked up in the ancient "banded rock" and "red bed" formations. It was not until probably only 1 billion years ago that the reservoirs of oxidizable rock became saturated and the free oxygen stayed in the air.

The oxidation of the the mantle rocks may have played an important role in the rise of oxygen. It has been hypothesized the the change from predominantly submarine to subaerial volcanoes may have also led to a reduction in volcanic emission of reduced gases.

Once oxygen had been produced, ultraviolet light split the molecules, producing the ozone UV shield as a by-product. Only at this point did life move out of the oceans and respiration evolved. We will discuss these issues in greater detail later on in this course. 

Early Oceans

The Early atmosphere was probably dominated at first by water vapor, which, as the temperature dropped, would rain out and form the oceans. This would have been a deluge of truly global proportions an resulted in further reduction of CO2. Then the atmosphere was dominated by nitrogen, but there was certainly no oxygen in the early atmosphere. The dominance of Banded-Iron Formations (BIFs; see picture) before 2.5Ga indicates that Fe occurred in its reduced state (Fe2+). Whereas reduced Fe is much more soluble than oxidized Fe (Fe3+), it rapidly oxidizes during transport. However, the dissolved O in early oceans reacted with Fe to form Fe-oxide in BIFs. As soon as sufficient O entered the atmosphere, Fe takes the oxidized state and is no longer soluble. The first occurrence of redbeds, a sediments that contains oxidized iron, marks this major transition in Earth's atmosphere.

Cumulative history of O2 by photosynthesis over

geologic time. The start of free O is likely earlier

than shown.

Early Continents

Lava flowing from the partially molten interior spread over the surface and solidified to form a thin crust. This crust would have melted and solidified repeatedly, with the lighter compounds moving to the surface. This is called differentiation. Weathering by rainfall broke up and altered the rocks. The end result of these processes was a continental land mass, which would have grown over time. The most popular theory limits the growth of continents to the first two billion years of the Earth. 

2. Evolution of the Present Atmosphere

The evolution of the atmosphere could be divided into four separate stages:

• Origin
• Chemical/ pre-biological era
• Microbial era, and
• Biological era.

and the first three steps were discussed in detail. The composition of the present atmosphere however required the formation of oxygen to sufficient levels to sustain life, and required life to create the sufficient levels of oxygen. This era of evolution of the atmosphere is called the "Biological Era."

The Biological Era - The Formation of Atmospheric Oxygen

The biological era was marked by the simultaneous decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and the increase in oxygen (O2) due to life processes. We need to understand how photosynthesis could have led to maintenance of the ~20% present-day level of O2. The build up of oxygen had three major consequences that we should note here.

Firstly, Eukaryotic metabolism could only have begun once the level of oxygen had built up to about 0.2%, or ~1% of its present abundance. This must have occurred by ~2 billion years ago, according to the fossil record. Thus, the eukaryotes came about as a consequence of the long, steady, but less efficient earlier photosynthesis carried out by Prokaryotes.

Figure 1. Photolysis of water vapor and carbon dioxide produce hydroxyl and atomic oxygen, respectively, that, in turn, produce oxygen in small concentrations. This process produced oxygen for the early atmosphere before photosynthesis became dominant.

Oxygen increased in stages, first through photolysis (Figure 1) of water vapor and carbon dioxide by ultraviolet energy and, possibly, lightning:

H2O -> H + OH

produces a hydroxyl radiacal (OH) and

CO2 -> CO+ O

produces an atomic oxygen (O). The OH is very reactive and combines with the O

O + OH -> O2 + H

The hydrogen atoms formed in these reactions are light and some small fraction excape to space allowing the O2 to build to a very low concentration, probably yielded only about 1% of the oxygen available today.

Secondly, once sufficient oxygen had accumulated in the stratosphere, it was acted on by sunlight to form ozone, which allowed colonization of the land. The first evidence for vascular plant colonization of the land dates back to ~400 million years ago.

Thirdly, the availability of oxygen enabled a diversification of metabolic pathways, leading to a great increase in efficiency. The bulk of the oxygen formed once life began on the planet, principally through the process of photosynthesis:

6CO2 + 6H2O <--> C6H12O6 + 6O2

where carbon dioxide and water vapor, in the presence of light, produce organics and oxygen. The reaction can go either way as in the case of respiration or decay the organic matter takes up oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water vapor.

Life started to have a major impact on the environment once photosynthetic organisms evolved. These organisms fed off atmospheric carbon dioxide and converted much of it into marine sediments consisting of the innumerable shells and decomposed remnants of sea creatures.

Cumulative history of O2 by photosynthesis

through geologic time.

While photosynthetic life reduced the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, it also started to produce oxygen. The oxygen did not build up in the atmosphere for a long time, since it was absorbed by rocks that could be easily oxidized (rusted). To this day, most of the oxygen produced over time is locked up in the ancient "banded rock" and "red bed" rock formations found in ancient sedimentary rock. It was not until ~1 billion years ago that the reservoirs of oxidizable rock became saturated and the free oxygen stayed in the air. The figure illustrates a possible scenario.

We have briefly mentioned the difference between reducing (electron-rich) and oxidizing (electron hungry) substances. Oxygen is the most important example of the latter type of substance that led to the term oxidation for the process of transferring electrons from reducing to oxidizing materials. This consideration is important for our discussion of atmospheric evolution, since the oxygen produced by early photosynthesis must have readily combined with any available reducing substance. It did not have far to look!

We have been able to outline the steps in the long drawn out process of producing present-day levels of oxygen in the atmosphere. We refer here to the geological evidence.

Banded Iron Formations

When the oceans first formed, the waters must have dissolved enormous quantities of reducing iron ions, such as Fe2+. These ferrous ions were the consequences of millions of years of rock weathering in an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment. The first oxygen produced in the oceans by the early prokaryotic cells would have quickly been taken up in oxidizing reactions with dissolved iron. This oceanic oxidization reaction produces Ferric oxide Fe2O3 that would have deposited in ocean floor sediments. The earliest evidence of this process dates back to the Banded Iron Formations, which reach a peak occurrence in metamorphosed sedimentary rock at least 3.5 billion years old. Most of the major economic deposits of iron ore are from Banded Iron formations. These formations, were created as sediments in ancient oceans and are found in rocks in the range 2 - 3.5 billion years old. Very few banded iron formations have been found with more recent dates, suggesting that the continued production of oxygen had finally exhausted the capability of the dissolved iron ions reservoir. At this point another process started to take up the available oxygen.

Red Beds

Once the ocean reservoir had been exhausted, the newly created oxygen found another large reservoir - reduced minerals available on the barren land. Oxidization of reduced minerals, such as pyrite FeS2, exposed on land would transfer oxidized substances to rivers and out to the oceans via river flow. Deposits of Fe2O3 that are found in alternating layers with other sediments of land origin are known as Red Beds, and are found to date from 2.0 billion years ago. The earliest occurrence of red beds is roughly simultaneous with the disappearance of the banded iron formation, further evidence that the oceans were cleared of reduced metals before O2 began to diffuse into the atmosphere.

Finally after another 1.5 billion years or so, the red bed reservoir became exhausted too (although it is continually being regenerated through weathering) and oxygen finally started to accumulate in the atmosphere itself. This signal event initiated eukaryotic cell development, land colonization, and species diversification. Perhaps this period rivals differentiation as the most important event in Earth history.

The oxygen built up to today's value only after the colonization of land by green plants, leading to efficient and ubiquitous photosynthesis. The current level of 20% seems stable.

The Oxygen Concentration Problem.

Why does present-day oxygen sit at 20%? This is not a trivial question since significantly lower or higher levels would be damaging to life. If we had < 15% oxygen, fires would not burn, yet at > 25% oxygen, even wet organic matter would burn freely.

The Early Ultraviolet Problem

The genetic materials of cells (DNA) is highly susceptible to damage by ultraviolet light at wavelengths near 0.25 µm. It is estimated that typical contemporary microorganisms would be killed in a matter of seconds if exposed to the full intensity of solar radiation at these wavelength. Today, of course, such organisms are protected by the atmospheric ozone layer that effectively absorbs light at these short wavelengths, but what happened in the early Earth prior to the significant production of atmospheric oxygen? There is no problem for the original non-photosynthetic microorganisms that could quite happily have lived in the deep ocean and in muds, well hidden from sunlight. But for the early photosynthetic prokaryotes, it must have been a matter of life and death.

It is a classical "chicken and egg" problem. In order to become photosynthetic, early microorganisms must have had access to sunlight, yet they must have also had protection against the UV radiation. The oceans only provide limited protection. Since water does not absorb very strongly in the ultraviolet a depth of several tens of meters is needed for full UV protection. Perhaps the organisms used a protective layer of the dead bodies of their brethren. Perhaps this is the origin of the stromatolites - algal mats that would have provided adequate protection for those organisms buried a few millimeters in. Perhaps the early organisms had a protective UV-absorbing case made up of disposable DNA - there is some intriguing evidence of unused modern elaborate repair mechanisms that allow certain cells to repair moderate UV damage to their DNA. However it was accomplished, we know that natural selection worked in favor of the photosynthetic microorganisms, leading to further diversification.

Fluctuations in Oxygen

The history of macroscopic life on Earth is divided into three great eras: the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Each era is then divided into periods. The latter half of the Paleozoic era, includes the Devonian period, which ended about 360 million years ago, the Carboniferous period, which ended about 280 million years ago, and the Permian period, which ended about 250 million years ago.

According to recently developed geochemical models, oxygen levels are believed to have climbed to a maximum of 35 percent and then dropped to a low of 15 percent during a 120-million-year period that ended in a mass extinction at the end of the Permian. Such a jump in oxygen would have had dramatic biological consequences by enhancing diffusion-dependent processes such as respiration, allowing insects such as dragonflies, centipedes, scorpions and spiders to grow to very large sizes. Fossil records indicate, for example, that one species of dragonfly had a wing span of 2 1/2 feet.

Geochemical models indicate that near the close of the Paleozoic era, during the Permian period, global atmospheric oxygen levels dropped to about 15 percent, lower that the current atmospheric level of 21 percent. The Permian period is marked by one of the greatest extinctions of both land and aquatic animals, including the giant dragonflies. But it is not believed that the drop in oxygen played a significant role in causing the extinction. Some creatures that became specially adapted to living in an oxygen-rich environment, such as the large flying insects and other giant arthropods, however, may have been unable to survive when the oxygen atmosphere underwent dramatic change. 

3. Composition of the Present Atmosphere

Comparison to Other Planets

The overall composition of the earth's atmosphere is summarized below along with a comparison to the atmospheres on Venus and Mars - our closest neighbors.

The variations in concentration from the Earth to Mars and Venus result from the different processes that influenced the development of each atmosphere. While Venus is too warm and Mars is too cold for liquid water the Earth is at just such a distance from the Sun that water was able to form in all three phases, gaseous, liquid and solid. Through condensation the water vapor in our atmosphere was removed over time to form the oceans. Additionally, because carbon dioxide is slightly soluble in water it too was removed slowly from the atmosphere leaving the relatively scarce but unreactive nitrogen to build up to the 78% is holds today.

Current Composition

The concentrations of gases in the earth atmosphere is now known to be (ignoring water vapor, which varies between near zero to a few percent):

The unit of percentage listed here are for comparison sake. For most atmospheric studies the concentration is expressed as parts per million (by volume). That is, in a million units of air how may units would be that species. Carbon dioxide has a concentration of about 350 ppm in the atmosphere (i.e. 0.000350 of the atmosphere or 0.0350 percent).

Greenhouse Gases

Radiative Properties

Objects that absorb all radiation incident upon them are called "blackbody" absorbers. The earth is close to being a black body absorber. Gases, on the other hand, are selective in their absorption characteristics. While many gases do not absorb radiation at all some selectively absorb only at certain wavelengths. Those gases that are "selective absorbers" of solar energy are the gases we know as "Greenhouse Gases."

The interactive activity to the right allows you to visualize how each greenhouse gas selectively absorbs radiation. Wien's Law states that the wavelength of maximum emission of radiation is inversely proportional to the object's temperature. Using that law we know that the wavelength of maximum emission for the Sun is about 0.5 µm (1 µm = 10-6 m) and the wavelength for maximum emission by the Earth is about 10 µm. In the activity to the right see where the greenhouse gases absorb relative to those two important wavelengths.

Sources and Sinks

Greenhouse Gases (apart from water vapor) include:

• Carbon Dioxide
• Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
• Methane
• Nitrous Oxide
• Ozone

and each have different sources (emission mechanisms) and sinks (removal mechanisms) as outlined below.

Carbon Dioxide

• Sources Released by the combustion of fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas), flaring of natural gas, changes in land use (deforestation, burning and clearing land for agricultural purposes), and manufacturing of cement

• Sinks Photosynthesis and deposition to the ocean.

• Importance Accounts for about half of all warming potential caused by human activity.

Methane

• Sources Landfills, wetlands and bogs, domestic livestock, coal mining, wet rice growing, natural gas pipeline leaks, biomass burning, and termites.

• Sinks Chemical reactions in the atmosphere.

• Importance Molecule for molecule, methane traps heat 20-30 times more efficiently than CO2. Within 50 years it could become the most significant greenhouse gas.

Nitrous Oxide

• Sources Burning of coal and wood, as well as soil microbes' digestion.

• Sinks Chemical reactions in the atmosphere.

• Importance Long-lasting gas that eventually reaches the stratosphere where it participates in ozone destruction.

Ozone

• Sources Not emitted directly, ozone is formed in the atmosphere through photochemical reactions involving nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons in the presence of sunlight.

• Sinks Deposition to the surface, chemical reactions in the atmosphere.

• Importance In the troposphere ozone is a pollutant. In the stratosphere it absorbs hazardous ultraviolet radiation.

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

• Sources Used for many years in refrigerators, automobile air conditioners, solvents, aerosol propellants and insulation.

• Sinks Degradation occurs in the upper atmosphere at the expenses of the ozone layer. One CFC molecule can initiate the destruction of as many as 100,000 ozone molecules.

• Importance The most powerful of greenhouse gases — in the atmosphere one molecule of CFC has about 20,000 times the heat trapping power on a molecule of CO2.

4. Summary

We developed a few useful tools for the study of biogeochemical cycles. These include the concepts of the reservoir, fluxes, and equilibria.

Atmospheric evolution progressed in four stages, leading to the current situation. The atmosphere has not always been as it is today - and it will change again in the future. It is closely controlled by life and, in turn, controls life processes. Complex feedback mechanisms are at play that we do not yet understand. 

Oxygen became a key atmospheric constituent due entirely to life processes. It built up slowly over time, first oxidizing materials in the oceans and then on land. The current level (20%) is maintained by processes not yet understood. 

Sometime just before the Cambrian, atmospheric oxygen reached levels close enough to today's to allow for the rapid evolution of the higher life forms. For the rest of geologic time, the oxygen in the atmosphere has been maintained by the photosynthesis of the green plants of the world, much of it by green algae in the surface waters of the ocean.

Selective absorbers in our atmosphere keep the surface of the earth warmer than they would be without an atmosphere.

Evolution of the Atmosphere Self Test

Copyright © Regents of the University of Michigan

Choosing Life And The Responsibilities of Good Earth Caretake Which Go With It.

My apologies ahead of this article I wrote today. Cold reality seems to have gripped my spirit this morning on a subject I consider quite important. So here goes...

Alaskans lighting the snow on fire... what gives?? We should remember that in addition to glacial melting, on the bottom of the ocean floor resides another vast quantity of methane gas slowly cycling upwards through the hydraulic salinity "cyclone streams" pouring out of the North Atlantic's sea beds. As it enters into the surfaces of the ocean it than transpires into the atmosphere to add to the CO2 load held in the air which, of course, then heats everything up.

Humanity has already reached the tipping point as the earth is heats up evidenced by major weather events across the globe. These events would include all the fire conflagrations which have followed the seasons this past year as they have moved from South America's fires into North America's devastated west lands. Without checking (I'll let the reader do this) I assume this is also occurring across the seas from India into Russia. Then there are major weather events caused by global warming like coastal flooding, wind storms, the dying off of animal and insect populations, the movement of warm latitude flora northwards into once colder areas, the rapid changing of the coastlines where most populations live, etc and etc.

The point being, we tend to be optimistic against the streams of negative reality, so we hope our current and future technologies might be able to capture these new sources of raw energy to utilize it in a way that is nurturing to the earth. How that occurs I have no idea because even though you can break gas down its residual gases still must be "recycled" in a way that isn't harmful to the environment.

My last observation: The earth has always gone through periods of warming - as we are witnessing now. Sometimes it is a prolonged period before it goes back into a "winter sleep" or ice age of some kind. What makes this warming event unusual is that the warming period mankind is experiencing is based upon anthropocene events (e.g., "Man Made events"). As such, a "warming earth" in response to mankind's industrial efforts to provide food, clothing, housing, and transportation makes it all-more-unusual-and-worrisome in its after effects. Usually biologic life dies off in the extreme cases, while at other times it morphs evolutionally into something else. Whatever the case is we won't know because we won't live long enough to see this environmental vs. biologic evolutionary life cycle. Those events take millions, tens of millions, and even hundreds of millions of years to produce.

Which is why religion becomes important to many, as we understand ourselves to be temporary life-events which come-and-go with whatever evolutionary opportunity presents itself. But for the spiritual person, we understand we are part of a much larger cycle of life occurring all around us. For now, the age of Homo Sapiens has been occurring well over the past several hundred thousand years (250,000 BC? earlier? 600,000 BC?). Eventually something else transpires and our race will change again. We know this as the "cycle of life" and relate to it through a faith that usually says, "Whatever the event, our God is present with us, even unto death itself."

But the unkindness of this thought is that the world's industrial revolution has been so successful that we have succeeded in displacing our biologic record sooner than later. Again, perhaps with a global embrace of "solving earth-warming events", mankind might outlast itself. But from what we've seen and read in the most mechanized civilization on the planet, America, this hope is a fiction and does not seem to reinforce that the effort required to solve massive global warming domestically, let alone internationally. Interestingly, lesser mechanized civilizations like China and India are attempting to make greater strides in environmental legislation - but out of necessity because of the high atmospheric smogs covering their large cities whose populations are choking down and ingesting atmospheric wastes. The health effects on both citizen and nature has been immense. America too, has these events going on in it - it just isn't being talked about in the press which has become victimized by a growing society of "fake news" or, "post-truth", adherents.

The point is, we've gone past the point of no-return in global population growth. Eight billion people is a lot. Within 30-50 years the earth will hold 12 billion and rising unless global events remove this growth pattern. What we know is that population grown is becoming unsustainable as it cannibalizes its resources leaving none for future generations ahead of itself. But no worries, what the earth doesn't kill off in weather events, plagues and pan virus epidemics well. It won't require massive wars to kill each other off for dwindling resources like drinking water and green spaces to grow food. Nope, we'll be helped along in our destruction by the events we have unknowingly set in place - and have kept in place - through ignorance or dismissal.

As such, I rest in the knowledge that the Lord is there to guide us into life-filled, physically and spiritually healthy directions. However, it is to our destruction when we ignore this divine guidance by marching to the beat of our own music. The bible does illustrate this life lesson in repeated cycles described as "sin" throughout its Old and New Testament journeys. As much, to those faithful to the God of Creation, we seek to listen and obey to His instruction to remember our caretake of this fragile earth from which so much blessing has been reaped and from which so much hope is derived.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

August 15, 2018

Related Topics - The Amazing Story of Oxygen

Of the Failure of Church Leadership in the Age of Man: Willow Creek Pastors and Elder Board Step Down

Sad, but true. And to think I had just used Bill Hybels in a constructive illustration to a senior fellowship group not more than two weeks ago. That illustration is no less true today than it was then but the reality of the life events of a very respected personage I've been reading about this week saddens me beyond measure.

Here was a pastoral life filled with unexpressed agony hidden behind the ministerial cowl of leadership needing help while adding to the grief of others in unloving, unChristlike ways. But rather than casting stones we pray for healing for all who are suffering and for the church, Willow Creek, which has blessed so many, while reminding ourselves once again to beware looking down upon the broken lives of others when our own live's may be just as broken.

From all appearances, Mr. Hybels needed a trustworthy inner-circle of counselors, but this was the one thing he could not have as he doubted if his honest self-revelations might be compromised by untruthful, gossiping, or immature counselors. And so, with skeptical (or self-protective) reasoning, he held back losing any opportunity for personal healing and growth from a tortured life while adding in the grief and harm of many over his long years of ministry.

I think we must always remember, the church is a flawed thing. We all know this. Or should know this. And we shouldn't be surprised when the church spectacularly fails, as it has been doing recently across America's borders in supporting unrighteous government, corrupt officials, and abusive federal policies cloaked under the cloth of patriotic nationalism.

If anything, it is a wonderment that God's chosen instrument, the church, which is to share the Gospel of His Love and Salvation through Christ Jesus, has managed to continue through the centuries against its continuing legacies of failure, sin, lies, and betrayals.

Because of this legacy, many a congregant has turned away from the (institutionalized or secularized) church grieved by the harm they have experienced in the fellowship of God's people preaching one thing but doing-and-being another.

Or, become those who are dismayed to the point of leaving even their own faith, such as it was. Which is a very sad thing indeed. And to those precious few filled with the hope and promise which Christ's salvation has brought into their lives - the church can shatter even these precious souls to the point of silence... an awful silence so deafening that God's people's failure is insurmountable to the shattered lives requiring healing.

In the Gospels these illustrations are borne up by the teaching of Jesus regarding the kind of "soil" a faith may, or may not, thrive in. And as any farmer knows, to bear a good crop requires constant tending against the rains, the birds of the air, rocky soils, and weeds (tares).

Even so must the church of God hold true to Jesus - not to a religion nor to a dogma. But to Jesus who is our ever present help and personal Savior. That in Jesus is where the Spirit of God resides - and so must the children of God who are advised to be as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves (Matthew 10.16).

We come to church not only to receive but also to give. And when we give we must understand how a thriving faith may be derailed even within the fellowship of God - by a stray tongue, an unloving gesture, or a failed leadership.

When this happens we do not leave our Lord but remind ourselves to minister-in-place until the Lord calls us out and there is no longer any ministry therein to witness or give to. And when this happens, to remember, the church lives on in the hearts and souls of God's faithful ones - not in an institution, or an organization, or a class of beliefs. But by the Spirit of God Himself within the beating breast of every man, woman, and child.

R.E. Slater

August 9, 2018

Names of the Twelve

1And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. 2Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; 3Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphæus, and Lebbæus, whose surname was Thaddæus; 4Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

Their Work Outlined

5These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. 8Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. 9Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, 10nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat. 11And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence. 12And when ye come into an house, salute it. 13And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. 15Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

16Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. 17But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; 18and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. 19But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. 20For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. 21And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. 22And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. 23But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. 24The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. 25It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?

26Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. 27What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. 28And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 29Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. 30But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. 32Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

34Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. 37He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 39He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

40He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. 41He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. 42And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.

* * * * * * * *

Willow Creek Community Church Elder Missy Rasmussen

announces the resignation of the elders leadership on Aug. 8, 2018,

in South Barrington following allegations against founding

Pastor Bill Hybels. (Willow Creek Community Church).

Willow Creek pastor, elders step down,

admit mishandling allegations against Bill Hybels

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/100031181-132.html

Manya Brachear Pashman

Chicago Tribune

Answering critics' calls to let new leaders shepherd northwest suburban Willow Creek Community Church, lead pastor Heather Larson and other church elders resigned Wednesday and apologized for mishandling allegations that church founder Bill Hybels engaged in improper behavior with women.

Larson and the elders announced their resignations Wednesday evening during a packed congregational meeting at the church’s South Barrington campus. Audience members applauded the elders’ decision. But some people audibly groaned over Larson’s announcement, and one even approached the stage in protest.

“It has become clear to me that this church needs a fresh start,” Larson said.

“This is really important,” she said. “Trust has been broken by leadership, and it doesn’t return quickly. There is urgency to move us in a better direction.”

Hbels stepped down from the helm of the megachurch in April following a Tribune investigation that revealed allegations of misconduct with women — including church employees — that spanned decades. Women have continued to come forward with allegations, among them Hybels’ former executive assistant, who told The New York Times that she was sexually harassed and fondled by the pastor for over two years in the 1980s. Hybels denied those allegations.

The alleged behavior detailed by the Tribune included suggestive comments, extended hugs, an unwanted kiss and invitations to hotel rooms. It also included an allegation of a prolonged consensual affair with a married woman who reversed herself and said her claim about the affair was not true when confronted by an elder in 2014. Hybels has denied the allegations against him but apologized to the congregation for taking a defensive stance “instead of one that invited conversation and learning.”

On Wednesday, church elder Missy Rasmussen told the congregation that elders believe Hybels’ sins go “beyond what he previously admitted on stage.

• “We were not aware of many of the choices he made in private and therefore did not hold him accountable in meaningful ways,” said Rasmussen, who has served on the elder board for seven years.

Hybels was the subject of a series of inquiries overseen by Willow Creek’s elders, including one conducted by an outside law firm. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in those inquires. With the elders’ knowledge, he continued to counsel the woman who alleged, then retracted, her story of having a 14-year affair with Hybels. When members of the Willow Creek Association board questioned that conflict of interest, elders said he was fulfilling his pastoral duty because the woman was suicidal and had kept them informed every time the woman reached out to him.

On Wednesday, elders conceded that letting Hybels counsel the woman was wrong. They expressed regret for conducting their inquiries with the goal of finding definitive evidence of an affair, not with a goal of ensuring the pastor’s behavior was “above reproach.”

“We also weren’t as objective as we should have been,” Rasmussen said. “We viewed the allegations through a lens of trust we had in Bill that clouded our judgment and caused us to not act quickly enough.”

Hybels had named Larson and teaching pastor Steve Carter as his successors last October, before the allegations became public, but planned to stay another year to ready them for their roles. Since stepping down in April, he has had no role with the church that he founded in a rented movie theater nearly 43 years ago and built into one of the nation’s most iconic and influential megachurches.

Larson had served as executive pastor of Willow Creek for five years, overseeing the church’s $77 million budget and 350 employees. Her role as lead pastor, or essentially CEO, included oversight of the church’s main campus in South Barrington and the seven satellite campuses in the city and suburbs.

Carter stepped into the pulpit long dominated by Hybels but did not appear on stage Sunday. He announced his resignation later that day, citing “a fundamental difference in judgment between what I believe is necessary for Willow Creek to move in a positive direction, and what they think is best.”

Scot McKnight, a Christian author and professor at Northern Seminary in Lombard who has preached at Willow Creek in past years, called for the resignation of Willow’s leadership Monday and the creation of an independent council to guide Willow Creek out of the controversy.

“The leaders are complicit,” he wrote. “The leaders — Heather Larson, elders — supported that narrative and maligned the women. They, both (church elders) and (the Willow Creek Association), refused an independent investigation. They chose not to be transparent. Their time is up.”

Wednesday’s announcement seemed to heed that call.

Steve Gillen, pastor of Willow Creek’s North Shore regional campus, will serve as Willow Creek’s interim leader.

Rasmussen said all the elders would leave in waves, starting next Wednesday until the end of the year. She said there will be an external review of the church’s governance to help future leaders.

Vonda Dyer, a former director of the church’s vocal ministry, was one of Hybels’ accusers. She told the Tribune that Hybels called her to his hotel suite on a trip to Sweden in 1998, unexpectedly kissed her and suggested they could lead Willow Creek together.

“I’m grieved for Willow Creek tonight. Many of them are my friends. This is not the outcome I would have hoped for,” Dyer said Wednesday. “I hoped that Bill Hybels could have come to repentance, honoring the church, the generations of people who built Willow Creek over the last 40 years. If Bill and the leadership had come clean 2013, or any time from then until tonight, these tragic events could have been avoided.”

Amy Staska of Schaumburg has been part of Willow Creek for 24 years. She has chosen to continue worshipping at Willow Creek, but decided to withhold her contribution until the elder board was gone. She believes their resignations signal sincere repentance.

“I love the church and its work, and wanted to continue to be present and pray for its healing,” she said. “But I had made the hard decision to divert my tithe until the current elders were all off the board. I didn’t expect what happened tonight. I’m grateful for the church, and that I can continue to financially support this ministry in good conscience — and so so sad.”

mbrachear@chicagotribune.com

* * * * * * * *

Teaching pastor Steve Carter speaks in 2017 at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington. Carter, who took over as lead teaching pastor in April when Bill Hybels stepped down from the helm of the church, announced his resignation Sunday. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Teaching pastor resigns over Willow Creek’s handling

of allegations against Bill Hybels

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-willow-creek-steve-carter-resigns-20180805-story.html

Manya Brachear Pashman

Chicago Tribune

The lead teaching pastor of Willow Creek Community Church announced his resignation from the South Barrington megachurch Sunday, saying he could no longer serve there with integrity.

Steve Carter, who took over as lead teaching pastor in April when Bill Hybels stepped down from the helm of the church he founded 42 years ago, said he was “horrified” by allegations reported Sunday by The New York Times that Hybels had sexually harassed his former executive assistant for two years.

Carter also said he did not agree with the way elders had handled the first reports by the Chicago Tribune in March that revealed allegations of misconduct by Hybels with women — including church employees — spanning decades.

The alleged behavior detailed by the Tribune included suggestive comments, extended hugs, an unwanted kiss and invitations to hotel rooms. It also included an allegation of a prolonged consensual affair with a married woman who later said her claim about the affair was not true, the newspaper found.

Hybels had been the subject of a series of inquiries by Willow Creek’s elders, including one conducted by an outside law firm, but the pastor had been cleared of any wrongdoing in the allegations they examined, the Tribune reported.

“Since the first women came forward with their stories, I have been gravely concerned about our church’s official response, and its ongoing approach to these painful issues,” Carter wrote Sunday on his personal blog. “After many frank conversations with our elders, it became clear that there is a fundamental difference in judgment between what I believe is necessary for Willow Creek to move in a positive direction, and what they think is best. That is not to say that I am right and they are wrong. But I must follow the path that I believe God has laid out for me to live with integrity, and that path now diverges from Willow Creek.”

Carter led the charge in a series of public apologies issued by church leaders in July. He wrote on his personal blog that he told church elders he believed the church had mishandled allegations against Hybels and the subsequent investigation of those claims. He said he had personally apologized to “several of the victims” for the way they and their families have been treated.

Lead pastor Heather Larson followed suit and delivered a separate apology from the pulpit. Willow Creek’s elders later posted a written statement on the church’s website.

Hybels no longer has any role with the church that he founded in a rented movie theater 42 years ago and built into one of the nation’s most iconic and influential megachurches.

During Sunday services, Larson said nothing to the congregation about Carter’s departure, but wrote to members late Sunday night after meeting with regional campus pastors to express her sorrow.

“We had been processing together with Steve for a few weeks, and our team was hoping and working towards a different outcome,” she wrote. “Ideally, we know this update would have been given to you directly as the church family.”

But many church observers and congregants praised Carter for making the bold move, saying it sent a clear message that despite the evolving public response over the past four months, the powers-that-be have not corrected course or properly addressed the allegations against the church’s founder.

“I think Steve Carter’s words and actions are very brave and shed greater light upon the leadership dysfunction that exists among the staff culture at Willow Creek,” said Vonda Dyer, a former director of the church’s vocal ministry who told the Tribune that Hybels called her to his hotel suite on a trip to Sweden in 1998, unexpectedly kissed her and suggested they could lead Willow Creek together. “The continued allegations of abuse of power and sexual misconduct by Bill Hybels for many decades, must be fully addressed.”

On Sunday, The New York Times reported allegations that Hybels repeatedly groped his former executive assistant Pat Baranowski in the 1980s, beginning with a back rub in 1986. In her administrative role, she also was instructed to procure pornographic videos for research and watch them with the pastor while he was dressed in a bathrobe, the newspaper reported.

Hybels denied the allegations.

Carter said he tendered his resignation weeks ago but obliged when church leaders asked him to continue leading until they figured out how to make the decision public. On Saturday night, he interviewed public radio personality Ira Glass onstage in front of the congregation. Two repeat performances were expected Sunday morning, but a worship leader stepped in, telling congregants that Carter was throwing up backstage. Carter posted his resignation later that day.

“At this point, however, I cannot, in good conscience, appear before you as your Lead Teaching Pastor,” Carter wrote, “when my soul is so at odds with the institution.”

mbrachear@chicagotribune.com

Remembering Who We Are & the Spirituality of Surfing

This next is a little off beat - some personal, some not - but let's go with it...

In Jay McDaniel's accompanying article below what I like is how he weaves large large words and ideas like Process Theology, Panentheism, Creational Expression, Creaturely Freedom, and Spirituality into an integrated whole when selecting as his subject matter the recreational sport of surfing with its deep passion held by many having the blessed acumen of balance required to enjoy wind and waves.

Though I never had an opportunity to learn this sport a very distant relative of mine had, so much so that he has held the world championship record for surfing for many years. Who? You might have guessed it... its easy enough... Kelly Slater. Neither he nor I know one another yet we're from the same family tree out of Rhode Island through our common relative, yet another famous personality in his day, known as the Father of the American Industrial Revolution, the American Factory system, and of the American Sunday Schools. This same had established the Black River Valley textile industry throughout the New England Colonies which served the clothing needs of colonialists and an early nation growing up.

His name? Samuel Slater of Pawtuchett, Rhode Island, whose early textile factories spawned complex manufacturing machinery to meet the burgeoning needs of a populace fortunate enough to have one pair of clothes to their name. If you had a fire in your house the first thing you grabbed was your clothes. They were that rare or hard to come by. When we visited Pawtuchett several years back we drove through block after block of heavy textile factories - think Ford Motor but on a massive Textile scale and you get the idea. And when finally finding the Slater Mills, discovered the US National Parks Monuments had an immense museum, guided facilities, tours, movies, and public discussions ongoing through the year. Amazing. Who knew?

President Andrew Jackson: “I understand you taught us how to spin, so as to rival Great Britain in her manufactures; you set all these thousands of spindles at work, which I have been delighted in viewing, and which have made so many happy, by a lucrative employment.”

Samuel Slater: “Yes Sir. I suppose that I gave out the psalm and they have been singing to the tune ever since.”

- George S. White, Memoir of Samuel Slater

Anyway, Kelly and I are from this side of the family, come from England, whose descendants had migrated as white refugees seeking opportunity in a land promising freedom and hope. Not unlike the millions of worldwide refugees (61 million at present) dissettled from home and family looking for a homeland to live in, raise families, and grow businesses.

At present, we are witnessing America's deep difficulty with its previously rich heritage of having been the Land of the Free but is now in the process of relearning how to become the Land of the Free as opposing forces to human dignity and creational being lurk in the shadows disrupting and destroying those same passionate fires borne within the souls and breasts of those early colonialists seeking justice while fleeing the inhumanity of religious fanaticists across the face of England and Europe. Which sounds much like today's current events, which, I'm sad to say, proves the age-old adage true, that history ever seems to repeat itself.

R.E. Slater

July 1, 2018

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

- Emma Lazarus

    

* * * * * * * * * *

​Surfing and Panentheism

http://www.openhorizons.org/surfing-as-spirituality.html

​a short reflection for my son, Matthew McDaniel, a surfer

by Jay McDaniel

Pan-en-theism means everything is part of God even though God is more than everything added together. 

​Developed by process theologians in the 20th century, but with precedents in many world religions, it is the view that the whole universe is unfolding within the mind and heart of a single life -- God -- in much the way that a living embryo develops within a womb. God is a womb-like Consciousness in whose life the universe unfolds, and the oceans and waves on our small planet, along with us, are among the cells in whose Life all things unfold. 

This does not mean that everything that happens on our planet or anywhere else is God's will. The hills and rivers, the trees and stars, the oceans and the surfer -- all have their integrity and independence; all have power of their own which cannot be overridden by the divine life. God is all-loving, but not all-powerful; just as a Mother in whose womb an embryo unfolds may well be deeply loving, but not all powerful. Many tragedies occur that even God cannot prevent. They affect God even as they affect the world. God, too, can suffer. Still, just as a mother has a will, a desire, that her embryo enjoy safety and happiness, so it is with the Life in whom the universe unfolds. God is Love. God's aim is that we love our neighbors and the whole of life as we love ourselves.

Spirituality is the act of connecting with this Love. The word "spirituality" means many things, but most deeply it means becoming fully alive in whatever ways are possible, relative to the circumstances at hand, in a loving way, and in consonance with the Life in whose mind the universe unfolds. There are many moods the spiritual alphabet. Indeed, so we learn from the work of Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat in Spirituality and Practice, there is one and sometimes two for every letter: attention, being present, creativity, connectedness, courage, devotion, enthusiasm, faith, forgiveness, gratitude, hospitality, imagination, justice, listening, meaning, nurturing, openness, peace, play, questing, reverence, silence, transformation, unity, vision, wonder, X (the mystery of life), yearning, and zest for life. 

The practice of surfing can open a person to many of these moods. It may be part of a new religion, as Bron Taylor suggests, and it may also find its home in a more traditional religion such as Christianity, as the video "Spiritual Surfing" makes clear, as narrated by an Episcopal priest. Surfing is a trans-religious practice that can be enfolded into many different religions and also practiced by people who are "spiritually interested but not religiously affiliated." It is a form of meditation and faith. It is faith that waves will come, even in tough times, filled with fresh possibilities for life and love, no matter what the circumstances. And it is faith that we can respond to these waves creatively, with skill and effort and a little balance., to help build a world that is good for all, as best we can.

- Jay McDaniel