Category: Climate Change

Climate Change · faith

How Then Shall We Live ?

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I’ve been catching up with a couple of people I haven’t come across before … writer and ex environmental activist Paul Kingsnorth, and mythologist and storyteller Martin Shaw.

Paul Kingsnorth has a very powerful and to me convincing take on the climate emergency- or rather how we are responding to the climate crisis. Essentially the responses are mostly not out of reverence for nature or the planet. They are a human centric response that is recognising the gravity of the situation, but aiming to deal with it in a way that enables us to continue our consumption driven way of living.

It’s a technological way of seeing things. We will, we must, progress in our expertise in devising new ways to enable the human race to enjoy life.

The argument goes – yes, It might mean defacing the countryside with solar farms, but it is all about saving the planet.

The question is – saving the planet for whom ? For the planet ? Or simply as the biggest project in selfishness ever ?

What is inconceivable to most of the human race is to work to consume less., travel less, use less power etc etc.

What is unthinkable is to plan for negative growth. At least for the richest communities.

But unless we do plan for negative growth we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can save the planet – at least, the planet as we know it.

As Paul Kingsnorth rightly says, everything is spiritual. What we need is not technological solutions, but spiritual solutions. (If solutions is the right word, which is probably isn’t)

Why would we expect that establishing outposts on Mars is going to work any better than the mess we have made of our home ?

How then shall we live ?

We need, as a race, to realise that we are not the centre of everything. But there’s a massive problem here, because for the most part, we live in a post God world where the only conversations we have are with ourselves. We’re not willing to engage in a serious conversation with the planet, or with our maker.

In people like Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw, we have interesting signs of a serious grappling with this fundamental issue that everything is spiritual and until we accept that, we’re going nowhere.

Or rather, we’re going, just going.

Climate Change · Ecology · Poverty · Songwriting

There’s Something In The Water

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I wanted to write a song about inequality and the idea that the rich have unequal access to resources – with the example of a river, where upstream factories and communities are taking all the water, so that the land downstream is depleted.

The end result was a bit different but linked. I’ve played it our band, (The Apple Snatchers), and they like it, so it’s provisionally in the set. We’re looking at doing a couple of gigs in the Autumn, which should be fun.

There’s something in the water,
floating down the stream.
It’s come from up the river,
I wonder what it means.
There’s moonlight on the water,
blue lights in the town
Sun’s up in an hour or so,
soon I will be gone

And it’s not just in the water
it’s everywhere around
You can see the people thinking
to move to higher ground
They don’t want any trouble,
they’ll just let it be
And sometimes these old eyes of mine,
they don’t want to see

And the river is deep, the river is wide –
it’s way too far to the other side.

We need you to survive,
you must carry on
We need you to keep going
or else we’ll all be gone
Can the oak tree stand forever,
its branches touch the sky ?
We can tell most any story,
but it’s hard to live the life.

And the river is deep, the river is wide –
is it too far to the other side ?



Climate Change · community · Economics · Generative and Distributive · Political

Let’s Try A New Direction

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So … following on from my last post, and directly connected to the subject of economic growth, I’ve been listening to Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell chat with Kate Raworth about Doughnut Economics

I saw Kate Raworth a couple of years ago at the Greenbelt Festival and she is going to be there again this year …

She developed something called ‘Doughnut Economics’ (or Donut Economics if you prefer).

Basically, imagine a doughnut, the kind with a hole in the middle. The inside of the ring describes a quality of living that no one should fall below. In other words, if you are in the hole, you are living below an acceptable line of economic well-being.

The outer ring of the doughnut describes the limit of our resources on Planet Earth. That is, if we are living outside the outer ring, it is going to be unsustainable.

Her vision is for thriving, not for growth. That is thriving for the human race, but also for the planet, because everything is connected. Her two key drivers are that life should be regenerative and distributive. Resources should be renewable, and should be shared.

In other words, growth and GDP (Gross Domestic Product) are not the measures we need. Our ability to thrive will be determined by meeting everyone’s basic needs, but without destroying the planet. Sounds good to me.

The podcast above is a great way to get into her ideas, and to hear Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart respond to her ideas. As political animals, they see all the problems with implementing Kate’s ideas, although they get what she is saying, and appear to be supportive.

The problem is two fold. One is that her ideas would result in a levelling up of economic wealth. The richest would need to accept limitations on wealth in order for the poorest to have their basic needs met. The other problem is time. Even if we tried to move towards the new economics the planet is already past the tipping point.

Kate speaks so powerfully and passionately – and I suspect that unless we aim for something like her plan, we will all suffer the consequences. In the long run, If the poorest suffer, then so will we all. Or as someone else (I think, I forgot who) has said – no one survives unless we all survive.

.

Activism · Climate Change · music · Poetry · Songwriting

Why Do I Always Weep ?

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And other related musical questions.

I’m quite an emotional person. I will have tears come to my eyes at the oddest things. A tree in leaf, a scene from a film … but mostly music.

I can hardly listen to some music without weeping. I chose that word carefully – I could have said cry, rather than weep, but I think weep is closer.

The artist who does this so consistently that I have to be careful who is around when I listen to him is Jackson Browne. I was out on week 5 of Couch to 5 K (again, and for for the fourth time) this morning, and listening to the title track of his 1974 album ‘Late For The Sky.’

Mmhh. Here come those tears again.

So anyway, I cry a lot.

And, related to that, another musical thought.

For some reason, the words of a Moody Blues album came to mind early this morning, so I put it on to listen. From ‘On the Threshold of a Dream’. It reminded me of a time before music streaming, before the internet, before CDs and even before cassettes, when all we had was the radio and vinyl.

So let me take you back to the late 60’s. The news comes out that your favourite band are about to release a new album. You can’t just google it and listen, but you might just be lucky enough to hear a track played on Kenny Everett, or John Peel. Or a friend might have, quite by chance, heard the track and told you about it, knowing how mad you are for their music.

So what do you do ? You head off to the local record shop. In the late 60’s it would be an independent, but by the early 70s, Virgin Records were opening stores all over the place and we had one in Brighton, just a short train ride from where I lived.

Depending on how much you loved this band’s music, you might just buy it without hearing it, or you could ask them in the shop to put the record on, and you would listen to it in a small booth, equipped with speakers in the walls. That’s where I first heard Deja Vu, the magisterial album by CSNY.

But let’s say you just went out and bought it. I remember around that time a typical price for an album was £2.29.

You would get it home, and put it on the turntable. Remember, you’ve only heard one track, or maybe not even that. You’re in your room, and listening to the album, track at a time. And, as you listen, you’re looking at the lyric sheet, if there is one. (Jackson Browne’s early albums had no lyric sheet, so you need to listen really carefully)

The lyric sheet will tell you who is playing on the album – so for example, if Jackson Browne’s second album had a lyric sheet, you would have seen that someone called ‘Rockaday Johnnie’ was playing piano on the track ‘Redneck Friend.’ It was in fact Elton John, but not having a permit to work in the US, he went by a pseudonym.

The point is, you would invest time to listen carefully, and having heard side one, you would carefully turn the vinyl over and play side two, all the way through.

My son and his wife are in the new vinyl generation. The price has gone up – typically £30 for a vinyl record, but I’m guessing the experience is similar. The band that does it for him is ‘Everything Everything’ and I’ve heard him talk about getting and playing the vinyl in the same way that I did back in the 60’s and 70’s.

So, where does that leave me … ? I think I need to be more intentional about my listening to really get the most out of the music that I love.

For example, I had never properly heard this line from Jackson Browne’s song ‘Doctor My Eyes’ before the other day:

Doctor, my eyes 
Tell me what is wrong 
Was I unwise 
To leave them open for so long?

What a great lyric. And as time went on, we heard Jackson Browne write and sing about the big issues of our time – especially the nuclear threat, war, and the environment. Despite the challenge and tendency to become disillusioned, he has kept his eyes open and brought to our attention the things that matter.

Good listening.

Climate Change · Songwriting

These Arrangements Are Not Working

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I’ve been working on a song ….

I took some ideas to the songwriting circle I go to and sang what I thought might be a part of it

If you don’t feel the despair, you’re not listening
If you don’t feel the despair, you’re not listening
We might as well be walking in the dark
We might as well be walking in the dark

I wanted some positivity in the song, not just despair, so I tweaked those lines to repeat later

If you don’t feel the desire, you’re not living
If you don’t feel the desire, you’re not loving
We might as well be walking in the dark
We might as well be walking in the dark

I had some other lines, but hadn’t managed to put them together. One of the others at the songwriting circle offered to take some of my other words and work on them.

Interesting proposal … I said yes. Why not give it a go ?

The only reservation I was having was that the heart of the song was to be about not seeing the reality of a situation that is in crisis. Being blind to it, or seeing it, but not being willing to do anything about it.

Within hours, I had a message from Chris with some words … some from the bits I had sent him, and some he had added. I had a problem with one of the lines he had written, and to be honest, I couldn’t get past that line. I hate being negative about what other people do, and I couldn’t bring myself to be honest about that one line, so I just stalled.

We were away from home, and I couldn’t process what he had sent me until we were back home, a couple of days later. But when I finally got around to looking at what he had sent, I was able to see beyond that one awkward line and work on the whole.

Here is what we ended up with …

Is it dusk or is it dawn,
The beginning or the end?
We’ve been here so many times before!
Nothing left but tears and pain,

These arrangements are not working,
Don’t cry, you’re not to blame,
My soul is calling for the soil,
Let me dream again!
Oh Let me dream again

It seems like death just falls away,
Like drops of water, just about to land!
You’re holding on to every yesterday
But find there’s nothing in your hand!

If you can’t feel my despair, you’re not listening,
Like jewels, the tears on my cheeks are glistening!
We might as well be walking in the dark

If you can’t feel my pain, you’re not listening,
I’m like a ship that’s slowly listing!
We might as well be walking in the dark

Throwing ashes in the sky
There’s a message in the rain
It seems we’re deaf to every cry
Maybe there’s one last chance for us to change

These arrangements are not working,
Don’t try to shift the blame
The Earth is calling for the soil
O let her breathe again

These arrangements are not working,
Every breath is pain.
When the time comes round
To lay down in the soil,
We’ll dream again!

We’ll dream again!
We’ll dream again!

I’m happy that I’ve been able to keep the heart of what I intended in the song. Also very happy that the collaboration was a success from my point of view. Without the collaboration, the song would not exist !

The text exchange with co-writer Chris was very encouraging. He likes the end result, which is important to me.

The next time I go to the songwriting circle in a week’s time, I hope he’ll be there, and I’ll play it …

To hear the song – go here – These Arrangements Are Not Working

Activism · Climate Change · Ecology · faith · God · Political

Daring, Imaginative, Faithful And Challenging

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Continuing thoughts on the prophet Jeremiah.

In chapter 43, Jeremiah has arrived in Egypt – against his wishes.

He had, over a long period, distanced himself from the ruling elite in Jerusalem and preached a message of God’s judgment against Israel. He had urged the leaders to stay in Jerusalem; God would have a future for them if they listened and stayed.

They had not followed God’s word as proclaimed by Jeremiah, but had insisted on going their own way – to Egypt where they believed they would be safe.

Once in Egypt, Jeremiah engages in a symbolic act that continues the message that God’s future for Israel lies not in Egypt but with Babylon.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes: 9 Take some large stones in your hands, and bury them in the clay pavement that is at the entrance to Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes. Let the Judeans see you do it, 10 and say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to send and take my servant King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, and he will set his throne above these stones that I have buried, and he will spread his royal canopy over them.

In this act, Jeremiah not only subverts Egyptian power, but affirms the superiority and God appointed influence of Babylon in Egypt. The large stones that he buries are the foundation for Nebuchadrezar’s throne.

This symbolic act is: daring – a public act; imaginative – seeing the power of the symbol; faithful – to what God has been saying; challenging – both to Egypt and to Israel.

What symbolic acts of resistance have we seen, or might we engage in, that would subvert, for example the power of oil and gas companies, or militarism, or the gun lobby in the USA ?

And behind all of the above there is something to do with that part of our human nature that is driven by fear of the other, and an overwhelming sense of entitlement and privilege.

Climate Change · Ecology · Poetry

Receive This Cross Of Ash

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Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. A few years ago, I took ashes out into the town centre and offered ‘Ashes To Go.” – taking the ashes from last year’s Palm crosses and offering the sign of the cross to anyone who was willing to receive it. Ashes are a reminder that in the end, we all turn to dust. That reminder of our mortality, can be a signpost to turn to God, the ground of all our being.

One of my readings today was from Malcolm Guites book of sonnets, that traces the church year, with a sonnet for different seasons. He has written a sonnet for Ash Wednesday.

Receive this cross of ash upon your brow
Brought from the burning of Palm Sunday’s cross;
The forests of the world are burning now
And you make late repentance for the loss.
But all the trees of God would clap their hands,
The very stones themselves would shout and sing,
If you could covenant to love these lands
And recognise in Christ their lord and king.
He sees the slow destruction of those trees,
He weeps to see the ancient places burn,
And still you make what purchases you please
And still to dust and ashes you return.
But Hope could rise from ashes even now
Beginning with this sign upon your brow.

Below is a short extract of the introduction to the sonnet that he originally wrote for it when wrote it over ten years ago. He has reposted the sonnet with a new sense of urgency here on today’s blog post.

As I set about the traditional task of burning the remnants of last Palm Sunday’s palm crosses in order to make the ash which would bless and sign our repentance on Ash Wednesday, I was suddenly struck by the way both the fire and the ash were signs not only of our personal mortality and our need for repentance and renewal but also signs of the wider destruction our sinfulness inflicts upon God’s world and on our fellow creatures, on the whole web of life into which God has woven us and for which He also cares.

Bible · Climate Change · faith · Prayer · World Affairs

A Boundary For The Sea

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We’ve been watching ‘The Sinner’ in the last week. Series 4. It’s a crime drama set in Maine, USA, and stars Bill Pullman.
The main character, Percy Muldoon, is a woman in her 20’s and is very troubled by something in her past. Her uncle Colin is trying to help her recover her catholic faith and one scene shows them repeating these words together.

“I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea,
a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass …”

I didn’t recognise the words, but thought they were probably from the psalms.

Weirdly, I came across the exact same words the following day, as I came to the next section of Jeremiah in my daily prayers. (I’m reading through Jeremiah a few verses a day).

When I experience an extraordinary coincidence like this (serendipity), I try to be alert to what God might be saying. The conclusion I came to was to write a post about it in the hope that it might speak to someone.

In “Praying with the Prophets,” Eugene Peterson comments on this verse – “Oceans and lakes know and respect the boundaries set for them by God. Why will not human beings do the same ? But everywhere there are people who scorn and flout guidelines of justice and gratitude, compassion and generosity.”

The consequences of living outside the boundaries that God has given us are that our lives go out of alignment, and on a macro level, we see injustice spreading and the earth itself groaning.

Eugene Peterson’s prayer following his comment in this verse:
Dear God, I want to live in harmony with what you have created in and around me, not at odds with it. I want to increase in wisdom and stature, in favour with God and humanity. (Luke 2:52)”

Church · Climate Change · Prayer

Responsive Call To Worship Litany

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We had this piece of liturgy in our service on Sunday. It forms part of the work “Liturgical Material on Climate Change” that was compiled in 2009 by The National Council of Churches in Denmark Climate Change Working Group written to be used in Creation Time. The words are especially powerful in the light of the recent COP26 summit.


Today and Tomorrow
in time and in eternity
Your kingdom come

In our world, and in our streets,
In our homes and communities,
Your kingdom come

In our lives and in our loves,
in our hope and in our travelling,
Your kingdom come

Sisters and brothers, rejoice.
We are sustained and nourished by God’s presence and love.
Thanks be to God.

As we mourn the distress and wounds of God’s creation.
God weeps with us.

As we face rising waters, hunger, and displacement,
God suffers with us.

As we struggle for justice,
God struggles with us.

As we expose and challenge climate injustice,
God empowers us.

As we strive to build alternative communities,
God works with us.

As we offer our gifts to all,
God blesses us.

Sisters and brothers, rejoice.
Sustained by God’s presence and love we worship God.

Activism · Bible · Climate Change · community · Ecology · Political · World Affairs

Ben Sira and the Psalms

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For the past few days, my reading has taken me to the book of Ecclesiasticus, in the Apocrypha. This book, also known as the Wisdom of Sirach , was written by the Jewish Scribe, Ben Sira, in the period between the Old and New Testaments.

I must admit to not being familiar with the book, which is full of great advice to live a godly life.

Today’s reading in chapter 31 had these words:

Are you seated at the table of the great?
Do not be greedy at it,
and do not say, ‘How much food there is here!’
…
Do not reach out your hand for everything you see,
and do not crowd your neighbour at the dish.
Judge your neighbour’s feelings by your own,
and in every matter be thoughtful.

Eat what is set before you like a well-bred person,
and do not chew greedily, or you will give offence.
Be the first to stop, as befits good manners,
and do not be insatiable, or you will give offence.

If you are seated among many others,
do not help yourself before they do.
How ample a little is for a well-disciplined person!

He does not breathe heavily when in bed.
Healthy sleep depends on moderate eating;
he rises early, and feels fit.

Eating with others is, or at least should be, a great leveller. When we sit around a table, especially perhaps with strangers, there’s an opportunity to learn more about the conditions under which they live.

On the face of it, Ben Sira’s words are good advice as we sit around the meal table – not to be greedy, but think of others. Essential ways to promote healthy living in community. As I thought about these words, it seemed to me that they can also help us think about greed on a larger scale.

In the context of the current COP 26 talks, imagine that the world is one great meal table. We were watching the BBC programme ‘Panorama’ last night and it brought home the crisis that we are living through – or dying through for many.

As we observe the inequalities in the world – the poor suffering most from the effects of the climate change that the rich nations have caused, we are looking at a level of ‘greed that serves the indiscipline of the entitled.’ (Walter Brueggemann).

Another of my readings today struck me forcibly. it’s from Psalm 50. In the psalm, God is the one speaking, but as I read it today, I imagined that this was the earth speaking: (The Bible quotes below are in italics, the other words are mine). Just change the word God and replace it with ‘The Earth’

The earth has been silent, but now it speaks.

The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons … our God comes and does not keep silence, (verse 1)

These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one just like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you. (Verse 21)

In just this last year, we have seen unprecedented fires out of control, and floods devastating whole communities.

before him is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest all around him. (Verse 3)

Unless the human race changes, the consequences – that are already evident – will only get worse

Mark this, then, you who forget God, or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver. (Verse 22)

Am I stretching the words of scripture ? I don’t think so.

I am praying this prayer from CAFOD, the Catholic development agency.

Loving God,
We praise your name with all you have created.

You are present in the whole universe,
and in the smallest of creatures.

We acknowledge the responsibilities you have placed upon us
as stewards of your creation.

May the Holy Spirit inspire all political leaders at COP26 as they
seek to embrace the changes needed to foster a more sustainable society.

Instil in them the courage and gentleness to implement fairer solutions
for the poorest and most vulnerable,
and commit their nations to the care of Our Common Home.

We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ your Son. Amen