Annual Gathering Food for Thought and Prayer

May, 2013 tied (with 1998, 2005) as the hottest May on record.

A weekend ago I was at the annual gathering of United Methodists in our region. Methodists, following John Wesley, have long argued that there can be no personal holiness without social holiness, and no social holiness without personal holiness. As there are as many ideas to what social holiness entails as there are people, this leads into some debates about what we are to do to have a social just and compassionate society. In essence, what does the Kingdom of God look like? How does the Kingdom/Kin-dom call us to act in this time and this place?

One of the realities of Global Climate Change is that those who are contributing to the Green House gasses the least are those who are effected the most. Take for example the Republic of Kiritati. Kiritati has a population (2011) of 100,000 and consists of 32 atolls and 1 raised coral island, dispersed over 1,351,00 square miles of Pacific Ocean. Other than the one island (Banaba) the rest of Kiritati rise only 1 or 2 meters above the ocean. In 1999, two uninhabited atolls (Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea) disappeared underwater.* I don't think it takes much imagination to see what the results will be in 50 years or so.

I attended a luncheon hosted by Creation Care 365. While eating lunch we heard from four different groups about what these groups were doing. Then we broke up into four small groups to discuss the issues. The small group I attended used a roll play (each group of two representing a different "interest group") as a way of looking at divesting from oil companies as a response to climate change. I hadn't even thought of this as a possible response and found the entire process interesting. Afterwards, it did leave me wondering how many of us talking about divesting from oil companies are only talking about doing so from a financial stand point. In the meantime, we would not change our life-styles (i.e. driving or other oil use) at all. Hmm. Then there is the reality that once one has left the table (divested) there is no way to carry on a conversation with the share-holders via face-to-face or share-holder resolutions. Obviously I'm still thinking through this issue, but still think reducing one's carbon foot-print via life-style has a great impact regardless of one's stock choices.

I also had a conversation with a colleague of mine regarding if we humans will "wake-up" in time to change our behavior and tend to the Garden. Both of us were commenting that the Garden can continue without the human caretakers, but that the human caretakers cannot live without the Garden. With the leaps that are happening in personal choices to live a simpler with a smaller carbon-foot-print, will we suddenly see that 75% of the human population awake one more morning and make a change? That truly would be the work of the Spirit.

All in all, lots of food for thought and prayer.

Where are you finding your thoughts growing, being challenged and leading you to prayer? Where are you finding support to make changes to your life-style


*See the Wikipedia article.