New Year's Eve 2009

I have finally recovered from a computer crash. What a hassle!

Getting back to Little Portion after being away since July 18 was a relief. I left Copenhagen and went to Yorkshire, schlepping across Denmark in a snowstorm and missing the connecting boat at Esberg. Through a series of phone calls we got connected with a Lutheran pastor there who put us up over night. The next morning we decided to fly back to UK. In Yorkshire I preached at a combined Christmas Carol and parish memorial service (For once the liturgy expressed the ambivalence so many people talk about at Christmastime!)

Christmas has been lovely. It was the first snowy Christmas I can remember in a long time. We started off Christmas Eve with a really nice Eucharist in the middle of the night. The best part of Christmas Day was giving some young friends presents. Br. Tom's Yorkshire pudding crowned the evening with glory.

So now it is New Year's Eve, and I am thinking about the year past. In light of the recent Northwest Airlines bombing attempt I feel extremely grateful to have traveled safely. I don't like to think too hard about what might go wrong when I strap myself into yet another airline seat. It is a classic case of denial: "We'll be fine!" I tell myself. As a traveler I have trusted the airline security people to keep me safe, and I have complied cheerfully with every check they have invented. But now I need to add my voice to the pubic forum demanding that government departments and agencies share information. It is a shame that a near disaster is required to highlight the ineptitude at the highest levels. But the ships, railways and PMV's in Africa and the South Pacific have been more terrifying than any plane ride: skidding around hairpin turns in an overloaded bus; plunging through waves in a tiny boat, water sluicing the deck where I was trying to sleep; standing in stalled, darkened trains watching moisture seep through the concrete tunnel walls; walking narrow paths and pausing to let the snakes slither away.

But the travel has only been a means to an end: to share the real life experiences of my brothers, the way they must get around, the foods they eat, the houses they live in, meeting the friends who help them and make our Franciscan life possible, finding out about the ministries they have around the world. Perhaps because I am so aware of the fragility of life, I find all that goes on to be amazing. There is a Franciscan genius in finding ways to be with people. Brothers serve hot drinks to day laborers standing on cold street corners, we visit the sick in hospitals, sometimes at 4:00 a.m. in order to be sure the patients are seen before medical procedures. We lead Quiet Days, speak in school chapels, march in demonstrations for peace and justice. Many of us engage in subsistence farming; all of us have to make small financial resources stretch. The hardest thing of all, since it is the least glamorous, we welcome people into our homes, sit with guests, cook endless meals, change bed linens. In some places these linens must then be washed in a river and dried on a clothes line. Others take the sheets to the laundry! I think many brothers would willingly risk a plane crash over cleaning a guest house. And yet we do the daily work; different kinds of adventures lurk in unlikely intersections of life. God is definitely with us, helping us to grow more and more into the image and likeness of Christ, and to find ways of connecting with people.

As I unpacked some old journals this week, I read a few entries. One was a description of an accident in March 1996 in the Solomon Islands. we could have all been killed, and one brother was permanently brain damaged. But moments before it happened we were singing in the back of the truck. It seems to me that this is the only option we really have. To take calculated risks, sing God's praises, and do our best when and if disaster strikes. As we remember at Christmas, the only guarantee we have in life is that God is with us in it.

Farewell to Copenhagen

I leave Copenhagen today.

The talks are ”on a knife edge” according to the BBC. We watched the footage showing protesters clashing with the police. Everywhere people are feeling highly agitated. Some leaders are saying a deal is still possible, but the NGO’s question if a deal struck behind closed doors, excluding the world’s citizens, conforms to UN ideals of transparency and participation. Mr. Brown, the prime minister of Britain, was sounding cautiously optimistic on the T.V. No telling how he feels now.

Being here in Copenhagen has been like pitching a tent in a rumor mill. Everybody seems to be ”in the know,” but few predictions have come to pass. We will have to wait and see.

I feel as if we have done all that we could from our place at the periphery of the talks. We spoke with dozens of people, appeared on television, participated in huge liturgies. Most importantly we kept praying; and we will keep on praying!

I have many other wonderful memories of Copenhagen. Our delicious candle lit breakfasts and suppers (the Danes love candles, and they really make a difference in the permanent gloom!) with our hosts at the Swedish Church, the walks through the streets and my frequent runs through the park. St. Alban’s Anglican Church has been a beautiful place to pray and meet people, and to pull back from the hurley-burley of the Klimaforum. We got snow last night, and the city is transformed by the beautiful white blanket.

Now it is back to the train to the bus to the boat, then another series of trains before I rest at Doncaster for the weekend.

Praying for the summit

Yesterday Joyce and I had a chance to meet with a couple of hunger strikers, Anna and Mathieu. She is from Australia and he is from France. They are fasting in order to influence the Summit talks. They have been on a fast for several months, originally it was a fruit juice fast, now it is water only. While they do not claim religious affiliations, they speak forcefully about creating positive energy and moral power through their fast. I quite like that.

Fasting is one of the classic means of prayer, and has been used to terrific effect to bring about siginificant social changes. Gandhi fasted, so did MLK. Among my own circle of friends, the members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers fasted in their fight against Taco Bell: and they won!

Anna and Mathieu invite us to join them Thursday on a 24 hour fast.

But we had a very interesting discussion with a man who is a UK based ”climate steward” with A Rocha. Brendan Bolles spoke about how best to get the message about our need to change across to the world. Part of his responsibilities include posting ”Prayer points” on the internet. One of the things he pointed out is that fierce rhetoric alienates more people than it attracts. He reminded me that it is better to get many people interested in doing something rather than making people feel guilty and disempowered because they are ”only making token gestures.” That attitude can be very damaging. All efforts to engage in the effort to live more sustainably are heartily welcomed. Few of us are able to engage in hunger strikes or are able to cut out all air travel, or live without automobiles. But we can change a few light bulbs, we can walk more, we can cut back on meat consumption a bit. We can find ways to pick up litter.

Fast if you can, cut back where it is possible, and in all things, pray. Pray for the world, pray for all that live on the earth. Remember the poorest and most vulnerable. Your prayer will make a world of difference here at Copenhagen.

Certainly the summit is coming to a ”crunch” time. All of the NGO representatives have had to get re-credentialed and the allotment of passes has been reduced to 10 per delegation. There are some frustrated reps hanging about.

Last night the Østerport traqin station was closed because of a bomb scare. Fortunately there was no explosion, the things was defused. But it meant we had to walk three times the distance to our dinner (after having just met the hunger strikers…).

TV Spot

I was featured in a brief TV spot this week. Check it out! www.odysseynetworks.org
Look for Faith at the Summit.

The producer, Mark Dowd had read my blog entry about my conversation with the young athiest.

Do Not Be Afraid

Yesterday was a big day.

We began with Mass at St. Alban´s Church celebrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. He preached a brief, pointed homily about the prophets and our need to look at the world differently. We need to begin seeing the world as God’s. We are called to consider the whole of creation as we ”prepare the way of the Lord.” Even in the face of the great challenges facing us we are called to be people of joy. (If he didn’t say those things in exactly that way, those were the messages I got! Preaching, I’ve discovered, is more about what one hears than what is said).

Then we bundled ourselves off to a local restaurant for pickled herring and berry flavored yoghurt drink (among many other Danish delicacies).

It was a ”pinch me hard, am I really eating lunch with the Archbishop of Canterbury” moment.

And then to the Cathedral in the center of town. At two o’clock the Queen of Denmark marched in, followed in due course by a tremendous procession of world representatives. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu came in, still glowing I imagine, from his tremendous outdoor appearance where he was greeted as a superstar. (His message was direct: ’Hello rich countries—wake up! It’s cheap to finance climate debt. 150 billion dollars a year would do it,’ he cried. Amen!! I say). But it wasn’t a triumphal procession. Thirty choristers came in bearing the central symbols of COP15: withered corn from Malawi, symbolizing crop failures in Africa and through out the world: untold misery and death; large dead corals reminding us of the destruction of the South Pacific islands and threats to global marine life; and ten people from Greenland, each bearing a stone exposed by melting glaciers: proof of global warming, disappearing water sources, spoiled habitats and suffering for many species and peoples. These corn cobs, dead corals and black stones were heaped up at the ramparts to the choir. We must never forget what is happening. We were gathered to dedicate ourselves as people of faith to doing all that we can to help the earth and to remind the world that the people most directly affected by climate change are the world’s poorest. The Archbishop of Canterbury again preached, this time calling the world to resist fear, yet to respond with loving alacrity to plea of the earth and all that live upon it.

The four of us Franciscans helped light candles. Everybody in the cathedral has a candle and they were lit and we carried them out into the world.

Signs of hope.

Welcome to Hopenhagen we said.

Walking the Talk

Yesterday Br. Hugh and I participated in an interfaith walkabout. I managed to get to two places, a Jewish synagogue and a Tibetan Buddist temple. The theme at the synagogue was "Sabbath" and the rabbi spoke movingly about the meaning of the Jewish Sabbath; it underscores the core conviction that human beings don't control the world. By taking a regular Sabbath, no matter what is going on, the believer is forced to acknowledge they are not in control. This is God's world.

The rabbi's talk was follwed by an virtuoso performance by a young woman who gently struck a series of gongs and made bird calls. The effect was profoundly moving as the resonant sound of the gongs was embroidered in a way by the different bird calls. I was reminded of a conversation I had with a Solomon Island brother about music. Deeply impressed by the very foriegn sound of the singing in Melanesia I asked him about the source or inspiration of the tunes. "The birds," he answered. So we listened to nature's hymns sung in a Danish synagogue with amazing precision by a young woman: the enormous gilt room was alive with bird calls. How often do I pay such close attention to birds outside? As we left the synagogue I was determined to pay closer attention to God's music in nature.

Our next stop was the Tibetan Buddhist temple. There a nun spoke about karma. If I understood what she was saying correctly, karma means our past actions caused current conditions, and our present behavior will determine the future. This is true both personally and socially (or maybe that is just a connection I made in my mind?) She invited us to think about our ignorant, greedy or agressive behaviors and led us through a meditation, releasing these things with the intention of amendment of life. So much of our climate chaos has been caused by human ignorance, greed and aggression! If we can come to terms with these behaviors in ourselves and our world...

Indeed.

Obviously there are enormous areas of convergence among the world religions and the faith perspective on the climate turmoil in the world.

What was clear to me on the walkabout is that we are all here in Copenhagen to bring moral pressure to bear on the discussions, to help coalesce a consensus about what is wrong and the need to address the situation urgently. I do not know how isolated the delegates are in the Bela Center who are actually working on the documents of the conference, but certainly the rest of us can go back from here with fresh insights, renewed commitment and a deeper understanding of our interconnectedness on the planet.

Today an enormous crowd of people joined in a march. It was freezing cold. There were reports of violence, but I saw nothing of it. The crowd was huge. I was surrounded by a group very happy and friendly Christian Aid youth from Great Britain. But presumably the people "inside" heard about our march, they heard the estimates of the crowd size. They are not working in a vacuum. The world cares. We want them to come up with a binding agreement.

"Christians preach against the environment"

I had a provoking conversation with a young woman who calls herself an atheist at the Klimaforum. I was taking my turn at the Green Church booth, handing out leaflets and engaging our visitors in conversation. Most were curious about the churches'
response to global warming, and made encouraging comments. One young woman however, demanded to know if I was a Christian (fully habited friar; I suppose it is a fair question). "Why are you here?" she wanted to know. "Christians preach against the environment and are responsible for the destruction of the climate."

I was reminded of a comment printed at the bottom of one of my seminary Church History exams: "This is a jumble of things true, untrue, half true and almost true." (Yeah it stung a bit.)

I decided to be non-polemical. "Well we're here, doing our best to create moral pressure to reexamine some of those old Scriptural assumptions about the environment and human participation in it that have cause some problems."

She wasn't taking the bait. "I hate Christians."

"Bless your heart," I replied. Giving into my irritation, I said: "Have a nice day."

It really is an extraordinary convergence of people here in Copenhagen. People who may have never thought of working together or recognized the claims we have on each other as members of the human race and creatures on the planet, are being forced
into dialogue. Some of it is bruising. Some is very encouraging and heart warming. But you can't have it only one way. Every where there are stories of different encounters, rumors of things that might happen. My heart sinks at the prospect of
violence, but I still plan to be fully present and participate in everything. These are of course the kind of encounters I used to fantasize about when I resented the hum drum daily routine of cleaning house and making beds.

We must find ways to work together. If we permit our divisions to sour the effort, the goal of creating a global consensus on climate change and the imperatives to save the earth from our own destructiveness will be fatally flawed.

There are other rumors of course. We hear of incredible courage and powerful demonstrations of commitment from the developing nations' representatives in the COP 15 talks. We fan the flames of hope whenever we can. We are bringing out our greatest advocates for social justice and a renewed understanding of what it means to be a Christian and a part of the human family.

I am so proud to belong to the Church of Desmond Tutu and Rowan Williams.