On April 29, with 200,000 others, I marched in the 2nd People’s Climate March in Washington DC to mark President Trump’s 100th day. It was something I couldn’t not do. We have a national environmental justice network emerging within the United Methodist denomination called Caretakers of Creation. I had been invited to lead some music at their gathering the day before. So I couldn’t show up without a song to match the passion and urgency of the time we are in and what’s at stake. The first people I recognized, when I showed up somewhere near the Washington Monument on march day, were our courageous friends Patty Hine and Debby McGee from Eugene, Oregon. I am wearing my vestment as clergy of the church so everyone will know people of the Hebrew and Christian stories care about justice and future.

I dedicate this song to Patty and Debby and the hundreds of thousands of citizens around this world who can’t but show up to demonstrate that fossil fuel corporations and arrogant administrations will not have their day with us and everything we love. It’s for those who’ve marched before us, those who will keep marching long after we are compost and for those who’ve not yet found the courage to demonstrate for what they believe. We want to make plain the message that God’s good water, soil and sky, the coral reefs of Tuvalu, the Tar Sands caribou and Niger manatee cannot be bought and sold. God’s Creation and the conscience of humankind is not for sale!

Listen to my new song, We Rise, below and download the mp3 here.

We Resist. We Build. We Rise.

Words & music by John Pitney

CHORUS:
We resist. We build. We rise.
We resist. We build. We rise.
Fossil fuel corporations, arrogant administrations,
They lay claim to God’s good water, soil and sky,
But they will not prevail! It’s not for sale!
We resist. We build. We rise.
We resist. We build. We rise.

V1:
We will resist non-violently the greedy and uncouth
Like King and Chavez, Black Elk, Dorothy Day, Sojourner Truth.
The damage of 100 days may take 100 years to make it right.
So we’re marching to the White House. We’re protesting on the track,
Making policy to put a stop to those who drill and frack.
And we’ll put a price on carbon and we’ll keep coming back,
They can’t keep us down.  Till we keep it in the ground.

V2:
We build strong coalitions so no mountain tops are moved,
Bringing lawsuits and petitions so no pipelines are approved,
From Standing Rock to Shishmaref and New Orleans 9th Ward, we’ll not be ignored
Like swords beat into plowshares, we’ll retool and we will save,
Making pipelines into panels and power from sun and wave
And coal mines into wind farms and workers all retrained
If we have the nerve! If we have the nerve!

V3:
We are called to love our neighbors from the Andes to Darfur,
Refugees of glacial melting, famine, fear and war.
The bleaching coral of Tuvalu, Alberta’s caribou, the Niger Manatee, they all wait to see:
Will we keep our Paris Promise or in hubris turn our back
And like Antarctic ice shelves leave our dreams to shift and crack?
Or let God’s justice roll down, then like a rising tide out of our demise
Yes we will rise!