Harrisburg SUN Day
Interfaith Pilgrimage

Harrisburg’s SUN Day pilgrimage took place on September 21, 2025. It was part of a national movement of over 500 events celebrating solar energy and ecological justice. Here you’ll find the pilgrimage route, readings that were shared, partners, related actions, and some photos from the event. Want to be involved in future events? Join the Harrisburg GreenFaith Circle.

Pilgrimage Readings and Stops

1 - East end of Walnut foot bridge

A reading from Thích Nhất Hạnh

Dear Father Sun,

Your infinite light is the nourishing source of all species. You are our sun, our source of limitless light and life. Your light shines upon Mother Earth offering us warmth and beauty, helping Mother Earth to nourish us and make life possible for all species. Looking deeply into Mother Earth, I see you in Mother Earth. You aren’t only in the sky but you are also ever-present in Mother Earth and in me.

A prayer from Sarah Dōjin Emerson

This is a prayer to disrupt disconnection.

This is a meditation to strengthen connection.

Wherever we are we can take a deep breath,

and invite our awareness:

First, into our body,

To every point of contact we are making,

We can attune to the stability and substance of our body,

And feel how it rests on the solidity of the earth beneath us.

And then we can feel how the planet herself, vast and stable, lifts us up,

Each of us, where we are, unique expressions of the earth itself.

Then we can invite our awareness into our breath,

Not to control or change it, but just to gently observe,

The rhythm inhalation and the exhalation,

And see how the solidity of our body,

is in an active and ongoing exchange with the world around us,

all the time.

How we take in the nourishment of air,

How we offer out the nourishment of our breath,

How we are not separate, how thoroughly we depend on this exchange.

On our next inhale we may invite an intention:

Breathing in, may I be well, joyful and at ease,

Abiding in my connection with this world and all things.

And on our next exhale we may invite the intention:

Breathing out, may I offer wellness, and ease, love and protection,

Abiding in my connection with this world and all things.

[proceed down Front; L on Market; R on 2nd]

2 - Market Square Presbyterian

"The Sun" by Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen

anything

in your life

more wonderful

than the way the sun,

every evening,

relaxed and easy,

floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,

or the rumpled sea,

and is gone –

and how it slides again

out of the blackness,

every morning,

on the other side of the world,

like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,

say, on a morning in early summer,

at its perfect imperial distance –

and have you ever felt for anything

such wild love –

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,

a word billowing enough

for the pleasure

that fills you,

as the sun

reaches out,

as it warms you

as you stand there,

empty-handed –

or have you too

turned from this world –

or have you too

gone crazy

for power,

for things?

A prayer from Reverend Micah Bucey

Spark of life,

Breath that flows through all,

Sustainer that first spun the cosmos into motion,

At our best, we observe all of the wonders that surround us in awe,

We remember that the ground beneath us is always holy,

We shout praise for the sky that arches over us as a sanctuary,

And we hear the constant calls to compassion and care for every being.

So forgive us for the ways we have broken trust,

Forgive us for meeting abundance with excess,

Forgive us for greeting the groaning of creation with self-centering silence.

May we absorb and embody the radiant reminders to serve rather than dominate, to steward rather than extract, to exist gently with the soil, the seas, and the stars, trusting in the wisdom of the many traditions that tell us the truth:

That the earth is not ours to own, but ours to cherish, to protect, to heal. Renew our humbled hearts and charge us to humble all human powers, so that our pleas and prayers become commitment, our faith becomes transformation, and our gratitude becomes actual embodied justice.

Amen

3 - Bank

An excerpt from "A Love Letter from the Sun" by Hillary Kobernick

I love you 93 million miles.

I love you generations.

The love I have is more than

what you have dwells in your ring fingers

or when you rock your little ones. This love

does not dim. I am the sun. I am love at its boiling point.

If I could burn for you any less

if I could trap my Cupid arrows

within my atmosphere, I would.

Your four chambered hearts

do not know how much I care for you.

When you first discovered

heat makes flame, I rejoiced.

When I saw your first fireworks,

I thought you were joking.

When I saw your smokestacks

lit the sky I told myself

you were jealous of the clouds.

But when the first atom bomb sun rose

over the New Mexico desert

I wanted to shrivel.

You had outgrown my love

and like a parent, if I could suicide

from the edge of your ecosystem

to save you, I would, children.

I love you more than my own elements.

You are earth air yet you crush your earth

and poison your air. I watched your heat

burn oceans until the plumes obscured my view

your fever only wetting your desire for heat.

I tried to wean you from your addiction

but my love was not enough for you.

You have been killing yourself

since the first industrial revolution.

What will it take, my children

to teach you I will always burn?

If there is an Icarus among you

who can fly to me until the heat

of my love melts his wings

will you know then that I have never

meant ill to your kind? Will you slow

your march toward burning?

If I could cry icicles

to lower your temperature

I would, children. When you die

I will still be here

burning

remembering

wishing

that if only I loved you less

I could have saved you.

But I am sun. I burn.

A prayer by Reverend Meagan Henry

Sacred source of light and life, we turn toward the sun’s eternal gift of energy. May we harness

this power with wisdom and justice, ensuring clean air and water for all beings. Help us heal

the wounds we’ve inflicted upon Earth’s web of life. Guide our hands to build regenerative systems that honor both humanity and nature. May we be instruments of restoration and hope.

Blessed Be.

[R on Market to corner of 4th]

4 - Dept. of Environmental Protection (Rachel Carson)

A reading from Persian philosopher Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi

"Allah's essence is the original creative Light, always illuminating existence. It constantly manifests the universe and energizes it. Allah's Essential Light radiates the whole cosmos in abundant beauty and completeness. To be illuminated by this process means nothing less than salvation."

A prayer by Sunita Viswanath

On the occasion of GreenFaith’s Sun Day, we invoke the popular and powerful Gayatri Mantra, a prayer to the Sun God:

“We meditate on the glory of the radiant Sun;

may our wisdom and discernment be inspired.”

In Hindu texts, light represents wisdom, knowing the right thing to do. The absence of light represents ignorance, and all of our mistakes, wrong paths, wrong decisions that stem from our ignorance. This is a prayer to the Sun God for the courage and wisdom to know the right thing to do, the right way to live, the right decisions to make. As people of faith, we know that fossil fuels are no longer the way to go, and we pray on Sun Day for our leaders and decision-makers to help us make the urgent shift from fossil fuels to solar and renewable energy.

[back to 3rd; turn R; cross Walnut; ramp up to]

5 - Mexican War Memorial

A quote from Peter Maurin, founder of the Catholic Worker, followed by a reading from Pope Leo XIV

“Regard for the Soil”

“It is in fact impossible for any culture to be sound and healthy without a proper respect and‬ proper regard for the soil, no matter how many urban dwellers think that their food comes from‬ groceries and delicatessens or their milk from tin cans. This ignorance does not release them‬ from a final dependence upon the farm."

The prophet Isaiah tells us‬ that the Spirit of God can make an arid and parched desert into a garden, a place of rest and‬ serenity. In his words, “a spirit from on high will be poured out on us, and the wilderness will‬ become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and‬ righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The work of righteousness will be peace, and the work of‬ righteousness, quietness and trust forever. My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in‬ secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places” (Isaiah 32:15-18).‬

The prophet contrasts justice and law with the desolation of the‬ desert. His message is extraordinarily timely, given the evidence in various parts of the world‬ that our earth is being ravaged. On all sides, injustice, violations of international law and the‬ rights of peoples, grave inequalities and the greed that fuels them are spawning deforestation,‬ pollution and the loss of biodiversity. Extreme natural phenomena caused by climate changes‬ provoked by human activity are growing in intensity and frequency (cf. Laudato Deum, 5), to say‬ nothing of the medium and long-term effects of the human and ecological devastation being‬ wrought by armed conflicts.‬ As yet, we seem incapable of recognizing that the destruction of nature does not affect‬ everyone in the same way. When justice and peace are trampled underfoot, those who are most‬ hurt are the poor, the marginalized and the excluded. The suffering of indigenous communities‬ is emblematic in this regard.‬ That is not all. Nature itself is reduced at times to a bargaining chip, a commodity to be bartered‬ for economic or political gain. As a result, God’s creation turns into a battleground for the control‬ of vital resources. We see this in agricultural areas and forests peppered with landmines,‬ “scorched earth” policies, conflicts over water sources, and the unequal distribution of raw‬ materials, which penalizes the poorer nations and undermines social stability itself.‬

Environmental justice—implicitly proclaimed by the prophets—can no longer be regarded as an‬ abstract concept or a distant goal. It is an urgent need that involves much more than simply‬ protecting the environment. For it is a matter of justice—social, economic and human. For‬ believers it is also a duty born of faith, since the universe reflects the face of Jesus Christ, in‬ whom all things were created and redeemed. In a world where the most vulnerable of our‬ brothers and sisters are the first to suffer the devastating effects of climate change,‬ deforestation and pollution, care for creation becomes an expression of our faith and humanity.‬ Now is the time to follow words with deeds.

By working with love and perseverance, we can sow‬ many seeds of justice and thus contribute to the growth of peace and the renewal of hope. It‬ may well take years for this plant to bear its first fruits, years that, for their part, involve an entire‬ ecosystem made up of continuity, fidelity, cooperation and love, especially if that love mirrors the‬ Lord’s own self-sacrificing Love.‬

I pray that Almighty God will send us in abundance his “Spirit from on high” (Isaiah 32:15), so that‬ these seeds, and others like them, may bring forth an abundant harvest of peace and hope.‬

“Lord, you love everything you have created,‬

‭ and nothing exists outside the mystery of your tenderness.‬

‭ Every creature, no matter how small,‬

‭ is the fruit of your love and has a place in this world.‬

“Even the simplest or shortest life is surrounded by your care.‬

‭ Like St. Francis of Assisi, today we too want to say:‬

‘Praised be you, my Lord!’”

[take ramp down to 3rd; turn R toward capitol steps]

6 - Capitol (3rd & State)

A reading from Rex Ambler

The present abuse of the earth from blatant self-interest and greed is enough to bear witness to the power of evil in human life, but we do have confidence in the God-given capacity of human beings to respond to the light when it is shown them, and fundamentally to change their ways. It is a confidence precisely in God's working in them based on the experience of God's working in us, and often against the grain of self-will.

We need not therefore be devastated by the evidence of human destructiveness. We can still believe that human hearts are vulnerable, and we can believe this of everyone without exception since the God we believe in is precisely the God within creation. We do not therefore need to build our hope on a fantasy of divine intervention in the future, despairing of ourselves and imagining that God will clean up after us when the party is over. Admittedly, the present outlook is particularly bleak, but it is bleak for everyone, and this fact alone can bring a light to bear on people's hearts as they seek to find a life with some hope and meaning.

We can resist, by conviction and daily practice, all violence, material greed and the ethic of domination. Quakers initially developed the "testimonies" of peace, simplicity and equality in relation to the conflicts of European society. But it is significant that they now apply equally well to global society, and even more widely to the ecology of the earth. Our perception has been—and it still holds—that destructive conflicts and oppression arise from a narrow commitment to our own immediate welfare, without regard for the welfare of others, and from a mistaken reliance on purely material means for achieving this. The sufferings of the poor, the brutality of war and the humiliations of state oppression can all be traced back to this spiritual inadequacy.

These evils will be overcome only when people can be persuaded to seek their welfare in the "common-wealth" of society, and to employ means for achieving it that are really commensurate with the ends they seek, that is, nonviolent and peaceful. Our testimonies against war and inequality have therefore been aimed at persuading people—and reminding ourselves—as to where their wealth lies: in the discovery of a common identity and a common cause with other human beings.

Spirit of Justice,

We pray that you would cast out the partisanship, corruption, and greed that plague this building. Reach into the hearts of the decision-makers who work here, give them wisdom, and inspire them to guide us toward a better future. Amen.

[cross 3rd; turn R]

7 - PennFuture (610 N 3rd)

A reading from The Quran - Surah 24:35

"GOD is the light of heaven and earth: the similitude of his light is as a niche in a wall, wherein a lamp is placed, and the lamp enclosed in a case of glass; the glass appears as it were a shining star. It is lighted with the oil of a blessed tree, an olive neither of the east, nor of the west:it wanteth little but that the oil thereof would give light, although no fire touched it. This is light added unto light: a GOD will direct unto his light whom he pleaseth. GOD propoundeth parables unto men; for GOD knoweth all things."

The Prayer (Du’a)

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

All praise is to Allah, who made the sun a radiant lamp, the moon a light, and the earth a stable home.

O Allah, we see Your signs in the sun’s energy, a pure provision for all creation. Forgive us, Ya Rahman, for our arrogance and greed in plundering the earth, ignoring Your gifts.

Guide our leaders and us, Ya Al-Hadi. Inspire a just transition from fossil fuels to Your benevolent gifts of sun, wind, and water.

Grant justice, Ya ‘Adl, to frontline communities, suffering ecosystems, and our children, that they may inherit a healthy world.

Make us true stewards who heal the Earth, a community that calls to goodness.

Ameen. May Allah’s peace and blessings be upon us all.

[continue to North and turn L]

8 - Elementary Coffee

A reading from Brian McLaren.

If we can see a likely path to our desired outcome, we have hope; if we can see no possible path to our desired outcome, we have despair. If we are unsure whether there is a possible path or not, we keep hope alive, but it remains vulnerable to defeat if that path is closed.

When our prime motive is love, a different logic comes into play. We find courage and confidence, not in the likelihood of a good outcome, but in our commitment to love. Love may or may not provide a way through to a solution to our predicament, but it will provide a way forward in our predicament, one step into the unknown at a time. . . .

To put it differently, even if we lose hope for a good outcome, we need not lose hope of being good people. . . . When we subtract from conventional understandings of hope all comforting optimism about future outcomes, the “hope against hope” that remains looks even larger, even more beautiful and powerful. . . . We feel rising within us this sustained declaration: We will live as beautifully, bravely, and kindly as we can as long as we can, no matter how ugly, scary, and mean the world becomes.

Author of Life, bring us

patience in the face of frustration,

understanding in the face of conflict,

love in the face of apathy,

peace in the face of chaos, and

determination in the face of injustice. Amen.

[turn L down second alley to State St]

9 - Cathedral of St. Patrick (State St)

On the 10th anniversary of its publication, I will do a reading of passages from

Laudato Si, Care for Our Common Home, encyclical letter of Pope Francis

“LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”

In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us…This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. (LS 1,2)

The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation. In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affect the most vulnerable people on the planet: “Both everyday experience and scientific research show that the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by those who are most poor…The impact of present imbalances is seen in the premature death of many of the poor, in conflicts sparked by the shortage of resources, and in any number of other problems which are insufficiently represented on global agendas…Today, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. (LS 48-49)

Any technical solution which science claims to offer will be powerless to solve the serious problems of our world if humanity loses its compass, if we lose sight of the great motivations which make it possible for us to live in harmony, to make sacrifices and to treat others well. Believers themselves must constantly feel challenged to live in a way consonant with their faith and not to contradict it by their actions. They need to be encouraged to be ever open to God’s grace and to draw constantly from their deepest convictions about love, justice and peace…all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start. We are able to take an honest look at ourselves, to acknowledge our deep dissatisfaction, and to embark on new paths to authentic freedom. No system can completely suppress our openness to what is good, true and beautiful, or our God-given ability to respond to God’s grace at work deep in our hearts. I appeal to everyone throughout the world not to forget this dignity which is ours. No one has the right to take it from us. (LS 200,205)

Let us pray:

Triune Lord, wondrous community of infinite love,

teach us to contemplate you

in the beauty of the universe,

for all things speak of you.

Awaken our praise and thankfulness

for every being that you have made.

Give us the grace to feel profundly joined

to everything that is.

Seize us with your power and light,

help us to protect all life,

to prepare for a better future,

for the coming of your Kingdom

of justice, peace, love and beauty.

Praise be to you! Amen.

[continue down State toward river and cross Front St]

10 - Kunkel Plaza (Riverfront at end of State Street)

A reading from Richard Levy (from Mishkan T’filah, p. 314)

The world is sunlight,

Restoring the soul,

Rejoicing the heart,

Bringing light to the eyes;

More welcomed than gold.

A Torah from heaven.

I have no light to give the morning.

My Torah,

My special human gift,

Is words.

As I bring my words forth from silence,

Welcome them,

You who redeems the sun

From darkness.

Baruch atah, Adonai, yotzeir ham’orot.

A prayer from Rabbi Laura Bellows

Makor Hayyim — Source of Life,

Bless us as we strive to become Shomrei Adamah and Rodfei Tzedek —

guardians of the Earth and pursuers of a more just world.

You know the power of words and of action

You spoke and the world became —

said: let there be light,

and there was

May it be Your will

that our hearts orient to a life of teshuva, tefillah, and tzedakah

– right-relationship with ourselves, You, and each other

so that our children’s children may live together

on this good earth from generation to generation.

Blessed are You, Source of Life, who strengthens the work of our hands.