Arizona Interfaith Power & Light

09/26/2026

Skyrocketing electricity bills are a problem for small businesses as reported here. This is true for houses of worship too, as budgets are tight for faith communities too. Decisions about rate increases are made by the Arizona Corporation Commission and have an impact on everyone's budgets.

A Phoenix small-business owner says soaring APS bills have reached a breaking point, with one month’s electricity charge totaling about a third of the shop’s rent.

09/16/2026

Board member Lori Bryant, member of First Christian Church - Tucson, has a poignant story of roadrunners and loss. Follow AZIPL's Sacred Earth: Common Ground page.

09/09/2026

Last week, the UN reported that we’ve passed the 1.5° global warming threshold. It’s not a point-of-no-return, but it is a rude awakening. This news failed to reach beyond the 24 hour news cycle, but this is a headline we can’t ignore. How would you like to share the story in your faith community?

Record heat waves, deadly flooding and extreme weather reflect an ever-warming planet poised to soon breach safe temperature limits, according to a UN report released on Tuesday, but doubling down on climate action now could avoid a climate catastrophe.

08/27/2026

"Arizonans should take the health threats of heat seriously, 'None of us is smarter or stronger than this heat, we are all at risk.’" - Kelli Donley Williams, deputy director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.

The Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner has confirmed 81 heat-related deaths so far in 2026. At the same point last year, 35 deaths had been confirmed.

08/27/2026

"Arizona knows heat. But in recent years, even long-time residents have felt the difference between a hot summer day and the kind of extreme heat that stretches household budgets, tests local infrastructure and makes reliable electricity a matter of public safety."

Arizona's record summer electricity demand shows why battery storage is becoming an important tool for reliability, affordability and grid flexibility

08/27/2026

Looking for a Good Story to brighten your day? Look no further!

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.”

-

This Good Story is brought to you by Thomas Merton: Trappist monk and author of "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”.

To see more stories of connection - to our deepest selves, our neighbors, the wider natural world, and the Holy - follow the Sacred Earth: Common Ground page! You can visit azipl.org/subscribe to join the AZIPL mailing list and receive Good Stories directly to your inbox every two weeks.

If you have a story of your own you’d like to share, please reach out to Rev. Doug Bland ([email protected]).

08/07/2026

Here is a Good Story from Mike Sills-Trausch, President of the AZIPL Board of Directors! Read on for a story of hardship and adventure with a dash of nostalgia.

07/16/2026

Solar energy brings benefits for the environment and local economy, but that’s not all! Turns out solar panels also make great owl habitats… who knew? Check out this article for a bit of good news, and to see a burrowing owl up close!

A solar farm and nonprofit built artificial burrows for burrowing owls at a solar farm in Arizona. The site gave displaced birds a new home. Researchers are now working on ways to help them thrive in the environment.

07/10/2026

"State leaders, environmental groups and consumer advocates say these two repeals will cause energy demand and electricity rates to go up while committing the state to decades of unnecessary climate-warming air pollution from additional fossil fuel infrastructure." Read Joan Meiners' article on reactions to the Corporation Commission scrapping energy efficiency programs.

Since 2011, the statewide standards have saved ratepayers an estimated $1.7 billion on electricity costs, while preventing pollution and grid strain.