>Environment Sunday

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>Today is Environment Sunday – because it’s the Sunday nearest World Environment Day (June 5th). I don’t hear much about Environment Sunday even though

“To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth”

is one of the Five Marks of Mission. Friend Barbara sent me a video of a 12 year old Canadian girl pleading to adults to do something about the environment. It’s a powerful and well-spoken plea.
In the House of Lords recently, friend and Bishop, Peter Forster gave waht was a cautionary take on environmental concern. Speaking against the tide “as a scientist in a previous incarnation” he said there was no consensus among climate scientists that “carbon dioxide levels are the key determinant” and that “Climate science is a notoriously imprecise area, because the phenomena under investigation are so large.That makes precision difficult to achieve.”
Friends of the Earth has condemned +Peter’s comments but is he not simply saying that we jump to conclusions and all we are working on is hypotheses.
However, whether we are with +Peter, or with Friends of the Earth (and how many of us know enough to take sides?) – our personal courses of action need to be the same (and we need to co-ordinate our efforts in local communities) – which is to reduce the wastefulness of earth’s resouces on the basis that consumption and waste do have an environmental impact and those most likely to suffer are the world’s poorest people.
Here we are hoping to develop a local action group and have invited friends from a neighbouring village to tell us about their success in becoming the first carbon neutral small community. That meeting is on June 24th at Tarvin Methodist Church.

Faith

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[Faith] is not a well-fluffed nest, or a well-defended castle high on a hill. It is more like a rope bridge over a scenic gorge, sturdy but swinging back and forth, with plenty of light and plenty of air but precious little to hang on to except the stories you have heard…All you have to do is believe in the bridge more than you believe in the gorge.

Barbara Taylor Bradford

>Love your enemies

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> Well, I guess you couldn’t have the challenge of Jesus “to love our enemies” more starkly put than in this cartoon – (apart from the cross perhaps!) What do you make of it? How much thought do we give to Jesus’s teaching on this? I found the cartoon on Intentional Christian’s site with a good response to it from someone serving in the US military in Iraq. If we love our enemies do we decide which of them to love—thereby putting some enemies off limits? Do we love only those who we can cope with? Where do we draw the line? Where did Jesus draw the line? Intentional Christian points out: “Jesus loved those who held the hammers that drove the nails into his hands and feet.”
It’s a tall order isn’t it? And we are taught to do all of that on top of loving our neighbour ….! Is Jesus joking?

>Book List

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>Doing a bit reflecting in the shower I concluded that books no longer are my main source of learning. It’s probably debatable whether they ever were but the assumption was that a student needs books if s/he is going to learn. I would have to say that significant turning points – things that have set me thinking have been articles I have stumbled across on the internet and chance encounters and experiences. But books are easier to categorise – they are there on the shelf as visible reminders, and if I was to stack the ten which I think had had the most impact on me over the last ten years, these would be them:

  1. Transforming Mission by David Bosch

  2. Team Roles at Work by R Meredith Belbin

  3. Hard Times by Charles Dickens (and it only cost me a penny!)

  4. Transforming Priesthood by Robin Greenwood

  5. Ministry in Three Dimensions by Steve Croft

  6. I and Thou by Martin Buber

  7. A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffith

  8. Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent Donovan

  9. Being as Community by John Zizioulas

  10. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

These are books which have been memorable. Of course there are others – and I didn’t give it a great deal of thought – and I haven’t included any read in the last 12 months because it’s easy to be enthusiastic about what I’ve just read. None of them have been particulalry authoritative as once they might have been which leads me to conclude that the way we learn has changed so much and reflects our networked society – with one thing leading to another and learning being practical and contextual. Perhaps more relevant to me would be to list the 10 theories, or the ten thinkers, which have had the most impact on me – but that’s another post altogether.

Image is be Faeryan http://www.flickr.com/photos/faeryan/289547369/

Likes and dislikes

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> If “no man is an island” (John Donne) why are we so insular? I often hear people report back from their holidays on friends they made while away. “We had so much in common” and “we all had similar backgrounds/jobs”. I wonder if we like the people who are most like us.

I’ve enjoyed the work of many people who have highlighted the many different styles of personality and behaviours we have. This is how we have been made. Some of us are built for a quick sprint, others for the long haul. We are individuals who need to like those who aren’t quite like us. Practical people lose patience with visionaries. Visionaries may regard the practical people as a bit boring – but both need each other. Those who can crack the whip can move people forward but may be seen as insensitive by those who are conscious of the feelings of others. To get anything done we all need to work together and talk together.

This is not a new insight. God from the beginning of time said “it is not good for man to be alone”. The stories of Cain and Abel, and the Tower of Babylon are both examples of how difficult it is to come to terms with our differences. Centuries later St Paul was shocked by the divisions in the Corinthian Church. Members had taken sides liking those who were like them. Paul calls them to order encouraging them to think that they were members of one body and that they needed to get co-ordinated. Every part of the body has a different function – fingers, bowels and eyes. Each member is gifted differently and we need to learn to like what we’re not like – otherwise we can’t live together or work together for a better world.

Paul’s is a good lesson (as is Belbin, Myers-Briggs and all those working on similar lines) for the Lambeth Conference (coming soon), and any group of people. Paul insists that it is all possible if we have a mind on the bigger picture and allow God to do the knitting.

written for Grapevine June 2008

Hope

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When an organisation loses its shared vision and principles, its sense of community, its meaning and values, it is already in the process of decay and dissolution ….. Without a deeply held, commonly shared purpose that gives meaning to their lvies; without deeply held, commonly shared, ethical values and beliefs about conduct in purtsuit of purpose that all may trust and rely upon, communities steadily disintegrate, and organisations progressively become instruments of tyranny.
Dee Hock

Christian Aid

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Lord Jesus, you were anointed to bring good news to those who felt no good news, to proclaim freedom to those imprisoned by injustice, and recover health and wholeness to all the world.You took up the cause of the oppressed.You proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favour.At the heart of your ministry was action.Remind us of the unlikely group of people you gathered around you to perform your work of love, and empower us to bring your good news so your kingdom will come and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen
From Walthamstow Parish Magazine