abbotsford.org.uk

8.7 million and counting

 

Apparently, at the latest estimate there are 8.7 million species which would take about 1000 years to count and catalogue. This image is of a Darwin's Bark Spider that spins the largest webs in the world with the strongest biological material known to humankind and 10 times stronger that Kevlar. I hope this is the 8.7 millionth creature I meat and that it would take me 1000 years to meet it.

However it got me thinking, what animals, bacteria, fungi etc would you like to meet? In celebration of the diversity of the world, let's litanise creation. I'd put on the list this spider even though it scares the breath out of me... and you... what would you add.

Let me introduce to you...

...the pancake batfish.

This is one of the top ten new species last year. I've got  nothing to say about it except Wow! It walks along the sea bed with those fleshy fins. Isn't this planet amazing.

A little to the left

Who cares about the wonder of the world after Japan's earthquake? The images of the tsunami devastation leaves you speechless.

But also the sheer size of what happened also leaves you with few words to say. Japan moved 4 metres to the west, that's 13 feet.

Sat Nav is now going to have to be recalculated because of that.

The earth was shifted on it's axis by about 13 cm (more than 6 inches) and the ocean depth changed by about 1 metre (3 feet).

I've been reading a book about finding places of depth/God/meaning in the world and it comments that we are so busy thinking about where we've come from and also where we are going we have no time to think about where we actually are now. It takes a slower pace to find where we are.

The movement of Japan just makes you pause a bit in our fast living to reflect a moment on the greater powers and bigger picture: to notice those things bigger than ourselves. The size of the shift of the world's plates was enormous but still slow compared to us. Lent: slow down to see what is really big and happening around us, for us, because of us.

Can you do that!?

We have an eco-communion tomorrow where we share bread and wine in the context of creation/environment and justice. Tomorrow the liturgy will talk of both bread and wine but we will only share bread and leave the wine on the table symbolic of a creation that is not fully shared with everyone, where so much is taken in the west there isn't enough left for the south let alone for future generations.

Are you allowed to deny people the wine? Of course God's grace is such that it is fully given to all unconditionally. That's why I'm still a follower, but to stop the sharing tomorrow at communion offers a message, a prophecy and a picture of what truly happens to the sacrament of creation (see post below somewhere).

Jesus took bread
grown from the earth
and broke it and said:
This is my body
when you eat of it
share of it all of you

And he took a cup of wine
pressed from the fruit of the land
and said:
This is a sign if my promise
when you drink
drink it with all

do not keep to yourself what is given for all
do not take more for yourself, that others have less
go share the gifts of God with the People of God

Come
let us share this gift of the earth with each other
that is filled with Jesus

But let us share only bread here
for still the world does not share fully what creation offers us
some take so much others have nothing
and a desert is being created for future generations
the wine remains here as a symbol
that the full promise of creation is not yet shared by all

Come let us share bread
and the longing of justice

Rebirth of Sacrament

silently, waits the promise
buried in the earth.
dark it’s days of longing
to be reborn in grain and grape.

but all creation gives birth
to sacrament daily
in the ever renewing of life
through time and hope

a living sacrament
but a broken sacrament
for too much is taken
and not enough returned
to bless
a future generation

silently waits the promise
in grain of bread
and sharpness of wine
longing to be reborn
resurrected
embodied once more
in justice

BIOmass

In the earth a promise is stored.
A dark promise. Waiting.
It is nothing. Nothing at all.
Waiting.
As only a word waits.
As yet unsaid.
It is nothing.
From the earth.
A seed.
It harbours a loaf
Rich in the whole story.
Creation.
But yet it is nothing.
Silent.
Not yet incarnated.
Only when it breaks.
'Alleluia's' shout.
Then the promise.
Becomes everything.
Every leaf. Every lichen.
Every turn of air.
An 'Alleluia'.
Flowing and dancing.
From the brokenness.
What was nothing.
Becomes everything.
The hidden promise.
Revealed in everything.
A bio-celebration. A bio-Mass.

We have a eco-communion next week. Just getting into the space to prepare...

When 'Boney M' says it all

Harvest is turning into a a place of lament this year for some reason. Without forgetting to offer thankfulness, that thankfulness is conditional surely. Indeed it ought to be utter humility rather than thankfulness for the west. How can God's People, who have signed up to justice and the integrity of gospel values, ever give thanks for 'the harvest safely gathered in' when that is the last thing it is for the majority of God's People in Palestine and Vietnam and Niger and Pakistan.

We can't say thanks for the crops we eat grown in fields of the poor while our own lie fallow and pay lip-service to justice. Harvest ought to be a national moment of reflection. All those traditional hymns we have were written in an age of Empire where those who grew our food weren't worth much to those who owned them and ruled them and enslaved them. I don't want to sing hymns like as if they have anything to do with God's Realm. 

10:10:10

We'll be getting involved with this over the next week, month, year. Our worship will focus on it but in the mean time for the contemporary reading this week, top ten... Can you suggest various top tens: top ten singles, top ten tips for the commonwealth games, top ten hymns, top ten home bakes, top ten words you hear in church, top ten children's talks? Just for fun of course, but may help out a bit in putting together the worship. Over to you.

Church Garden

This sounds a bit cryptic but...

If you were to design a garden for the church, or be given a plot of land that you could build a couple of houses on, what would you suggest we do with it?

Note, we haven't suddenly been given that size of land but it is a thought in my head about using land ecologically, creatively, functionally, theologically. So what would you come up with?

Allotments for the congregation or others in the community?

A meeting place that was designed for safety?

A picnic area?

A piece of land to grow soup for Sunday?

Go on, be creative and see what you can come up with. This isn't without reason or direction but is all part of a cunning plan...

Capitol Hill and the elephant

A congressional hearing seems to be a bit of a ramp. I'm not American so I'm coming to this as an outsider with my own impressions and prejudices and I'm not imagining BP is in an way guilt free. Most oil companies are certainly not guilt free.

But a whole hour and a half as people vent their spleens saying the same thing over and over again is perhaps a way of cooling off before the flack starts flying. And everyone has to have someone to blame as if it is one persons fault or only one person has responsibility for the way we live. Take a look at our own lives that need all that oil. There is a whole lot of responsibility there, far more than the companies that we are paying to extract all that fossil fuel so we can carry on living the way we want. The one finger pointing at BP has quite a few pointing back at ourselves. The average US CO2 footprint is twice the size of any other country.

That's quite a big elephant in the room.

The other thing that's been going round my head is that we look at all these oil companies who are producing phenomenal profits and we tie up our pensions in it, but these are not profits. This money is a debts. Any profit we make from harvesting the resources of the earth is a debt in the long term. We've got the wrong short term attitude and I'm just as guilty of this. What is seen as a profit now is really a debt to the Earth.