After having woken up each morning some place different for almost a week, I thought for sure I would be acclimated by then to the delightful shock of wondering where I was.  But nothing could have prepared me for this.  I will never forget going to my balcony right above the water in the early morning hours after being awakened by the booming, crackling sound of thunder.  Only it wasn’t thunder; rather it was massive chunks of a glacier breaking off and falling into the sea.  It was scary, awe inspiring, and mesmerizing for me in particular because the ice was a deep, dark shade of my favorite color — blue.  According to the National Park Service, Glacier Bay covers “3.3 million acres of rugged mountains, dynamic glaciers, temperate rainforest, wild coastlines and deep sheltered fjords.”  It is a highlight of Alaska’s Inside Passage as well as a World Heritage Site.  One of the largest international protected areas, it rests on 25 million acres.  Since our ship was smaller we were able to get closer than some of the behemoths.  I could not believe we were just passing idly by as nature was, in all her sound and fury, warning us in 2006 of things to come.  I pray we take global warming seriously.  I pray for the wildlife struggling to survive:  the wolves, the polar bears, the lynx and the wolverine.  I pray for the otters, the whales, the seals and the sea lions.  I pray for the eagles, the puffins, the herons and the gulls.  I pray for all God’s creatures and this one planet we all share.  The first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Wilma Mankiller, once said that in Iroquois society, leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.  I pray that we may not simply survive but thrive — for the sake of us all as well as the next seven generations to come.  Achukma hoke.