In the Christian community, Holy Week is nearly upon us, that dizzying roller-coaster ride from the heights of the triumphant feel of Palm Sunday to the depths and lows of betrayal and crucifixion to the gift of forgiveness, resurrection and renewal of Easter Sunday.

It is the culmination of the season of Lent, a season of introspection when we hold a mirror to our souls and search those places where we continue to hold the hammer that pounds nails into the gift of unconditional love. On Easter, in the midst of our celebration, we are invited to recommit to a way of life that is willing to sacrifice so that all may have life abundant. Easter is an opportunity to embrace once again life that is always reconciling, always making new.

I learned long ago that the pain of betrayal, abandonment, crucifixion and death is relived every day by those whose lives exist on the margins. Their burden is often the result of our choices, and so the Easter message is mine to live not just in word but in the everyday decisions of my life. I am called to examine my actions that they be life-giving and affirming, that they not be sullied by exploitation I failed to be aware of, or abuse I didn't want to see. I must be aware of the impact of such choices not just on my human brothers and sisters but on the rest of God's creation as well.

Lately I have seen horrific images of destruction that comes from mountaintop removal in the pursuit of coal, a mining method in which mountains are literally flattened. The effect of watching one mountain after another be blown apart is numbing. Of course, so too might be a video montage of clear-cut foresting, industrial manufacturing, ocean trawling, the production of pork, chicken and beef, and so much more.

The second-nature pursuit of the good and opulent life that so many of us enjoy or desire comes with a terrible price: God's creation, that which also receives the double pronouncement of being blessed and very good within the Genesis creation stories, has been largely taken for granted, trivialized, subjugated, and abused. The hands of the human community capable of being folded in prayer, or interlocked in partnership with the rest of the creation have too often been molded into a fist. Paul is absolutely right when he writes in Romans 8, "The creation groans." God's gift is being nailed daily.

If I am going to be an Easter person, one who lives in the light of the emptied cross, I need to extend my hand of reconciliation, my expression of God's liferenewing and life-resurrected presence to the entirety of God's creation, not just to the human community.

After all, we are told that in Christ God is reconciling the entire world, the cosmos, to God. May we be part of that reconciliation.

The creation groans and pleads for us to do so before it is too late for all of us.

The Rev. David Baumgart Turner, a United Church of Christ pastor, is one of the founders of Hawaii Interfaith Power and Light.