Grandad Reflects on Faith, God, Climate & Environment

Most of us now know that global warming is a fact and that it affects the future of our planet. Those of us who have younger family members including children and adults are rightly concerned for their future. Those of us who have friends in low lying areas and particularly in the pacific island countries are aware that some of them are under immediate threat. Often the problem seems too big, and we do nothing much in resignation.   Here are some simple actions you can take – and if you haven’t already you can begin today. (The good news that almost everything you do will save emissions and also save your money.) 1.        Every night, switch off as many appliances as possible at the wall not just the remote. If there is a little light showing you are using some electricity. Don’t switch them back on until you need them the next day. 2.        Turn off lights when you leave the room or if there is sufficient li...

I awoke from a dream with the words going round in my head….. Your God is too small. In the dream I had somehow been aware of times of need or grief or fear when I had turned to prayer and yet the words came – Your God is too small. God could not be conceived or as merely a personal support or guide or means of finding peace or healing. Then I had noted matters with the family as a whole where I had cried out for help and support – but again the words had come, Your God is too small. God was not just their to look after those I love and worry for. I thought of our community and nation. Times of pandemic and threats of war. And yet the words repeated, Your God is too small. God is not there to fulfil nationalistic pride and desires – to support wone nation against another. I had dreamed of the poverty and starvation and displacement of people around the world. But still the insistent – Your God is too small. God is not just about the human race and its needs and its amazing ab...

From childhood for some reason part of Hamlet’s soliloquy has caught in my mind. “Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?”. For many of our Pacific Nations the sea is in fact a sea of troubles with the possibility of some being extensively flooded and some disappearing as global warming increases. Already thy have suffered the devastation of typhoons and underground eruptions. In Australia we are concerned we might lose power now and then but as billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has pointed out “At some point we have to admit we have made this problem ourselves.” He was the one who provided funding for candidates in the recent election who supported policies to promote climate action and most of the independents who were successful were in that group. As its majority shareholder he also scuttled the plans of AGL to divide the company assets in a way that would pre...

 I chose not to publish this in paper form to avoid adding unsold books to the environment so you are free to download and copy Faith and the Concept of God and to use it with acknowledgement. It is not available otherwise and there is no cost involved. Grandad

  When the ancestors walked the earth they new this world as a living being. Their “mother” who gave them life. Indigenous peoples around the world understood this and learned to live in harmony with their environment. The elders heard the ancient voices and regulated the use of the land and the of other creatures who shared it with them. They could not conceive of a people who would rape the mother and take as much as they could from her. They spent more of their time in community than in gathering food and knew the meaning of wisdom. In time cities grew. Nations flourished. Rulers dominated. Crowded together, they needed more food and land to sustain them. They took it from their neighbours and enslaved the less fortunate to till the soil and care for the food animals for them. Huge machines grew from the intelligent species. Advancement brought freedom for some and greater poverty for others. Wars were needed to create more “free-holdings” and cement the power of those in ...

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...