Bishop Philip Huggins writes about the transition to renewables where so many other faith bodies and international organisations are doing so without theatrical grandstanding and rhetoric. It is all noise, whereas the committed take the need of Earth – the only home we have – into their prayer, their meditation, their hearts.
CARING FOR CREATION:
MAKING THE TRANSITION TO RENEWABLES
WITHOUT SO MUCH DIVISIVE NOISE
Ever since the Leader of the Opposition’s statements on nuclear reactors, along with many, my heart has ached.
It’s not personal. It’s just that the climate is changing so quickly and we must cooperate better. We have two years to save the world.
As it happens, in the days after I met again a friend and fine theologian, Graeme Garratt. He and his partner sat by the sea, listening and watching, then wrote On the Edge:A way with the Ocean. It is an invitation to listen to creation and recover our wonder.
Always asking, ‘what then shall we now do?’, we are planning a Liturgy that speaks more fully of the Creator’s gift of our planetary life. In the way of divine presence, once decided one then finds that many are likewise responding to this hour.
In March an amazing gathering took place in Assisi. You can read Assisi seminar report – Feast of Creation
Today there is more news: https://seasonofcreation.org/
And my friends from the Interfaith Liaison Committee to the UNFCCC are continuing to raise awareness.
(Webinar commences on 1 July. Youtube link)
In this country, it is painful that the prevention of catastrophic climate change continues to produce so much divisive noise. Watching the combat is beyond tedious.
We can’t keep pumping carbon emissions into the atmosphere so the planet heats and life dies!
We simply must transition to renewables so life is sustained.
We just need to do it.
It’s like getting a flat tyre on a country road. You just have to change it.
We don’t need non-solutions like nuclear reactors with their lethal, poisonous wastes.
Talking with another friend,we decided the messaging just needs to get simpler and more like the rest of life.
We rely on other’s expertise for many areas of life.
Be it building bridges; raising healthy chooks; managing the Reserve Bank or helping anxious kids, for example.
Other people help us to live well, offering their expertise.
So too with this.We know there are wonderfully gifted people offering the best years of their vocational life to help this transition. I have met them at the UN’s COP – Conference of Parties. See https://unfccc.int/
I have listened to them through the miracle of Zooms and seen their planning for a better future here: https://www.betterfutures.org.au/forum
It should be possible for the rest of us to get on with our contribution to the commonwealth, trusting that this necessary transition is being accomplished.
Yes, so that when we put on the kettle it will still boil; the lights at the footy won’t go out when the game is tight; the lives of our Pacific neighbours won’t become impossible. And if we want to sing Old Man Emu there will be emus.
I can’t fly but I am telling you, I can run the pants off a kangaroo!
‘If we look after the land then the land will look after us.’
Soon to turn 4, my granddaughter said this to me the other night. We were watching Molly of Denali. Molly and her family are indigenous folk of Alaska.
The program conveys indigenous wisdom in a warm and engaging manner.
Can’t we just get on with this transition without divisive noise, looking after the earth and the future of children like our granddaughter?
This life is so amazing. Just to be here at all and amidst the beauty of creation.
Mary Jo Hoffman, every day, for a decade, made a photograph of found nature.
She shares her appreciation and her deeper awareness of the connectedness of all things in her book: STILL The Art of Noticing (Monacelli Press,New York 2024)
If we appreciate creation like this, we cannot bear to poison it or otherwise render life impossible.
This is the place from which we can cooperate on our transition to renewables.
If we look after the earth, then the earth will look after us.
Caring for creation, we breathe in and out … ever grateful that we have this gift of life on our amazing planet.
So, with friends, we are offering a simple visual meditation every eve until UN Peace Day on September 21. The focus is on our Australia in the cosmos.
100 Days of Peace: June Intention
It keeps us focused and is a simple thing to recommend.
Still hoping there might be sensible cooperation,we must persist.
Accordingly ,we wrote this on our Church blackboard between the rain showers. Like a Tibetan sand mandala ,taking the time to do it is a meditation…and it can always be renewed!
BISHOP PHILIP HUGGINS
27 June 2024
Bishop Philip Huggins is a member of the UN Interfaith Liaison Committee and is currently Director, Centre for Ecumenical Studies, Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, Canberra
