Radical Abundance

I came across this You Tube presentation by David Korten recently and I am really enjoying his writings and talks. It's all in the past - but this is what the flier says:

God created the earth and entrusted its care to us

As we rethink how to grow, build, supply, consume, dispose, and recycle everything in our lives, we often fail at partnering with the marginalized and powerless, and thus adversely affect them. Building sustainable communities goes hand-in-hand with thoughtful building of infrastructures and physical spaces. Is there a theological basis for living abundantly while striving for justice and sustainability?

In 2009, Trinity Institute will explore sustainability through the lens of liberation theology, which views Jesus not only as redeemer but also liberator of the oppressed. It posits a vision of Christians working together toward social justice by considering all people as full partners in healing our planet and our communities, regardless of their social or economic status. Only in striving for sustainable relationships, rather than accumulating and consuming more for ourselves, can we discover true abundance.

Through previously recorded keynote speeches and panel discussions by leading theologians and grassroots activists, this two-and-a-half-day conference will consider radical ideas about abundance, sustainability, and well-being. You will be invited to share your own experiences and solutions with fellow attendees during small group break-out sessions.  Keynote speakers include Majora Carter, Timothy J. Gorringe, David C. Korten, Nestor O. Miquez and Miriam MacGillis.

I can recoomed the Korten talk. I shall check out the others.... but before I do I want to share the thought that has got clearer to me after his talk and thinking about the title of this conference: we do so need to imagine how things could be better in a sustainable, time-rich, new economy society. We need to talk about it with others and get all of us away from the stories that close down any hopeful option for the future. I'm for abundance (and that's different from shopping...)

The psychology of blame

The very idea of being "on the hook" makes me wince so the thought of being "off the hook"it is very attractive. I have been reflecting during this time of study leave how we often create a mental world where whatever's wrong is the other (blighter)'s fault.

The trouble with my area of study is that it doesn't really allow for "the other". Christianity says we are all made in the image of God, and ecology says we are all part of the earth. So blaming the other guy gets difficult. The other is our brother/sister or a member of the same community of creation. True, their attitude and behaviour may be what Christians call sinful, but we can't write them off. There will be a mote in  my own eye for sure if not a plank !

Writing up the research I have been doing with my excellent co-researchers in Liverpool reminds me of this. At various times our conversation would turn to those Chinese building all those power stations, or the madness of consumerism, as if we weren't part of the problem too. (to be sure tho' -  much of the time we were very self-critical. And painfully so ..)

It's very hard to live with climate change and to be reminded that we are part of the problem. We want to be off the hook. An article on nuclear power today in the Guardian suggests we project our fear and anger elsewhere. We blame nuclear power rather than the more humdrum coal.

We would do well to be aware of the games we play to get us off the hook. Sure we're guilty - but there's freedom in the honesty of facing these truths. Then we can act responsibility and hopefully. I pray for the grace to be aware and honest.

Changing the truth - Peer pressure

Two strands of thought have come together for me this morning. I was reading about how Margaret Thatcher, in 1990 made the conservative case for climate action but by 2003 had shifted her position.

In 1990 Global warming was, she argued, “real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.”. But by 2003 she was calling climate action a “marvelous excuse for supra-national socialism". This is all recorded on the Grist website.

Why the shift for Margaret ? Is the answer peer pressure?  It's not just politicians who follow the pack, we all do. To step outside of the reassurance and identity of the group you belong to, takes courage. It seems that Margaret Thatcher was influenced by right wing think-tanks. And I don't imagine that the ordinary conservative voter wanted to hear about the need to change lifestyle. (None of us do.... )

The other strand was hearing about Hannah Arendt's and the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.  I understand that her thesis, as presented in her journalism then in the book "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil" is that ordinary people who carry out the law as it is and conform to mass opinion, are part of the evil. (I feel more comfortable using the word "Sin". It's in the same ball-park as evil 'though)

Behind this is a truth. We often do a lot of bad stuff just following the crowd.

We can scape-goat our politicians to try and make us feel better - but the truth is that we are each prone to doing nothing, changing our minds, and going with the pack.

Staying in a French Village

Wendy and I have spent our first night at Courcelles des Montbard with the kind hospitality of the villagers. The heating was not working at the house we had booked to stay in. So we were fed and lodged at a neighbor's home.

It's been such a privilege to receive the kindness of these strangers. When we say thank you they say "C'est normal" and we pick up how much these villagers value community - and regret too much "individualisme".

Ironically the advent of second homes - such as we will be living in - has not been good for villages like this. Nor has big industrial farming (we have heard about the virtually disappearance of the swallows) or supermarkets (no shops in the village).

So it seems to me that the hospitality we have received is at the same time both human kindness and a political protest against all that atomizes and damages society.

Behind the quiet exterior of this pretty village lurks human kindness and concern.


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Dust, glorious dust !

Dorothee Soelle in her sadly now out of print book "to work and to love - a theology of creation" takes as a maxim that we are made from dust. When we do not take this into account in our theology we
get trapped in an "ideological superstructure".

Here in Turkey, enjoying the image of my friends' cat wallowing in the good dust. She has no truck with superstructures !




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The big six

Long time no blog ! But here I go again..

Lots of political chatter at the moment about the EDFs of this world and other big private companies that have increased their charges. Archbishop Justin rightly reminds them of their social obligations .... We wait and hope.

I was reminded of this while rereading Dorothee Soelle's "To Work and To Love - a theology of creation". I remember reading this 30 years ago on a bus going through Seaforth and being very moved by it all, the theology and the urban landscape

She writes: "it is a sacrilege to make the earth into a commodity. The earth does not know mine or thine. The concept of the earth as God's good creation and the concept of the earth as private property are mutually exclusive." (p 34)

So how right is it to profit from selling what does not belong to the seller ? For the seller is not the producer !

Greening the Eucharist ?

At breakfast at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre yesterday I struggled to explain my research to an undoubtedly intelligent woman. Whilst certainly partly my failing, I was reminded that it is not natural to connect in the contemporary Christian mind (She was a practising Roman Catholic  the Eucharist and the Environment. Of course not ! That's why I am doing my research - that's the problem the research tries to tackle.

So you can imagine how encouraged I was yesterday reading the book Greening Paul: Rereading the apostle in a time of ecological crisis which I would humbly suggest is trying to the same with St Paul as I and others are trying to do with the Eucharist.

The authors of this book try to develop some "hermeneutical lenses" which are from the Christian tradition and yet at the same time can be the means for its critical reading afresh. I know that this sentence sets up some barriers immediately to those not initiated into the secret mysteries of the theological ! Hermeneutics  is all about meaning and interpretation and the idea of critical reading is about what sense we make of it all in our current context; St Paul lived in a somewhat different world to us now and certainly wasn't thinking of environmental crises. 

So my answer to my friend at breakfast could have gone like this: I am working with others to research how we might "Green the Eucharist". How can we understand the Eucharist afresh in this time of ecological crisis. I think it's a problem that one of the main things we do as Christians does not obviously connect us with thinking, talking about the environment and what action we might take to protect life. I hope that what we are doing at my Church may lead us to reflect in such a way that leads to a renewal of our practice of the Eucharist and our talk about God.

Do you think that would make sense to her ?

We are all inhabitants of this pale blue dot - even those "on Welfare" !

There are deep spiritual/social problems behind our reaction to welfare (and I guess the environmental crisis too):

• We do not know our neighbour personally so well these days (esp if they are on "welfare" or a distant  African suffering from drought)
• We are in competition against our neighbour (for resources and do not have the beliefs or ways of thinking to unite us any more (Solidarity, Faith, Identity, etc)
• We believe some of the suspicious cynical lies around. John Harris is right to highlight the uncomfortable truth that many folk are convinced others are on the make with benefits

What do we do ? Keep the faith, work for solidarity, do proper analysis of how things really are, act for justice, reflect, inspire others. Don't lose heart sister and brother, and pray for me that I don't either !

Social Science: spectacles broken !

I think the French word for it is "boulverser" - turning everything upside down. That's how I often feel when I reflect on the relationship between me/humanity and the environment/climate change/animal kind. A blog post by the Australian Clive Hamilton challenges me still more in this whole disturbing area of how do I see the world ?

He says the social sciences (which were such a big part of my further education) are no more and "we can no longer separate the natural from the human and place some events into the box marked “Nature” and some into the box marked “Human”. The modern social sciences—sociology, psychology, political science, economics, history and, we may add, philosophy—rest on the assumption that the grand and the humdrum events of human life take place against a backdrop of an inert nature.

Our history can no longer be thought of as the actions of great men or women but will need to be seen afresh: all is entwined together. I can just about see that I have seen the world, and Christian faith, through a very human pair of spectacles. That way of seeing has got us into a climate change mess, and -as he says - has brought us into the age where every bit of the earth is impacted by human activity, so much so that it brings to an end the Holocene age of 10,000 years of climate stability.

To change the way I see the world isn't going to be easy !

Apathetic - I don't think so !

Do we deny the reality of climate change because we do not care ? Or avoid taking action, because we are heartless ? The psychologist Renee Lertzman asks: “What if the issue is not about caring too little, but perhaps caring too much?” She says that our anxieties may be unmanageable or unthinkable. We may deny what is staring us in the face because it is too painful to consider. She points out that humans use defence mechanisms of various sorts - such as denial, or an acute sense of inferiority, to avoid things that make us anxious. She suggests that it is simplistic to link an absence of action to an absence of caring) [1] The early experience of the action research group meetings here in West Derby have highlighted for me that people care deeply, but as well the difficulty of understanding the science and the way the planet works there is the very real barrier of emotional engagement - we just care too much.

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[1] Renee Lertzman, (2008) The Myth of Apathy. The Ecologist, 19(6): 16-17