Grandad Reflects on Faith, God, Climate & Environment

In 1969 the late Prince Phillip said, “ If the world pollution situation is not critical at the moment, it is as certain as anything can be, that the situation will become increasinglyintolerable within a very short time… If we fail to cope with this challenge, all the other problems will pale into insignificance.' A man ahead of his time. A voice crying in the wilderness.   Time passed. Pollution increased. Children died. Floods came and went and came again. Fires and drought joined in.   Whole states and nations were devastated by storms. Hunger ravaged the earth. Refugees died hopeless. Cars and trucks belched smoke. Coral died. Fish were poisoned. Dear David Attenborough grew more exhausted as he quietly and firmly told what was happening and warned of the dangerous levels of toxins in the air and sea, and the loss of countless species. People loved him, knighted him, but ignored his warnings. “Atta’boy Attenborough”, but only token actions. Another voice crying in ...

The house shook – even more than last week’s earthquake. A 20 foot tree crashed to the ground, its roots bare in the rain; an iron sheet flew from the neighbour’s fence. But we were the lucky ones. Some cars and houses were crushed; thousands without power even a week later; families homeless. Yet this was Melbourne!   I checked on family and friends but none of us could remember such winds in this city. It seems to get worse as the years go by. Perhaps global warming is also a warning. I wonder what storms in life my grandchildren will face. Yet we blithely continue as if nothing was happening. What will they think of our inactivity- our ignorance?   Many people were delighted to hear that Australia is to go to the Glasgow conference on climate change with a plan for net zero emissions by 2050. However, the conference in fact is seeking urgent action including new targets for 2030. By 2050 I will be dead, but my 8 grandchildren will face a world that is being destro...

 I have enjoyed reading the short version of In Touch and it is about right for my old brain. In the last issue there was an interesting comment on Lent, and it contained two things which caught my eye and I thought I could add some additional comment. The first is the correct statement that the temple authorities were concerned for their livelihood but perhaps it goes further. By the time this was written the temple had already been destroyed by the Romans after another insurrection. The temple hierarchy were responsible to the Romans for collecting the taxes and obtained a cut from this but were also expected to keep the population subservient and peaceful. Jesus’s actions and statements threatened this peace and particularly at the time of the Passover remembering the time when the Israelite nation had been freed from the domination of the Egyptian pharaoh it could have stirred up unwelcome nationalism. The couple on the road to Emmaus commented. “we had hoped that he might be...