It has been encouraging this Spring to see how much our easing of pollution and way of living has affected the physical world around us. We’ve all noticed the cleaner air and abundance of nature. For the first time for many years, in my garden, I’ve noticed many more birds; I’ve seen a hedgehog with family playing on the grass and quite a few elegant foxes taking a nap there too. Wildlife, this year, has been making a bit of a comeback. How wonderful it would be to ensure nature continued to heal in this and many other ways.
It would be good too if after this strange period of lockdown, we might consider living lives a little more simply. In our personal lives, recycling and buying stuff that can be recycled is a good start. A another simple example might be to commit to limiting our use of paper by learning to use modern technology more adventurously. I haven’t bought a daily newspaper for a number of years, preferring to read it on line. Churches especially use a lot of paper through service sheets, reports and notices. Is it possible we can actively cut back on that usage? Can we think of other ways to reduce our use of valuable resources?
Our friends at St John’s URC, Marsh Green, have been very successful in making their church building a focus on using resources well, from the use of rain water in their toilets to their growing a wild meadow; I am sure they will agree there is still a way to go but it is impressive to see how easily it is to change what they do and how they do it. What a visible sign of caring for their environment and making a difference in their church life.
For a very long time, Moat has regularly supported the charity “A Rocha”, a Christian charity working for the protection and restoration of the natural world, both as a response to the biblical mandate to care for the earth, and as a demonstration of the Christian hope for God’s world. They have run a project since 2016 called Eco Church, encouraging each and every church to diagnose what they do and what they can do better in being more ecological. After all, it makes sense if we are to save the world.
We know the risks we are taking with our planet. But why do we persist in carrying on just as we were?