Don't worry, there's plenty of oil

"We can fall for the oil industry hype and keep ourselves chained to a resource that's depleting and comes with ever increasing economic and environmental costs, or we can recognize that the days of cheap and abundant oil (not to mention coal and natural gas) are over."
That's the clear message from the Energy Bulletin article August 28, 2012 from the post carbon institute.
And this isn't just something affecting Americans. It affects us all, globally. 

Don't Worry, There's Plenty of Oil
by Richard Heinberg

Please go on over there and watch the video.

Sunflowers in Tuscany

Leaving no Change Behind

We worry at the moment about the world's fiscal problems
...of course we do. But…"to fix our broken world we need more than profits. We need prophets - faithful, fearless people, willing to invest in social change through prophetic proclamation in word and deed." This is the message of Brad R. Braxton, founding senior pastor of The Open Church, a cross cultural, radically inclusive congregation in Baltimore, in an important article he has written "Leave no Change Behind" in the August 2012 edition of Sojourners: a Christian magazine dedicated to Faith in Action for Social Change. Braxton's article is really directed at the preacher, but there are lessons for us all in this message.

Responsibility for the changes needed in this world must start from the bottom up, from ourselves. And for this to happen, Braxton urges us to be concerned about the "balances in our moral accounts, lest insufficient funds lead to bankruptcy of our souls and foreclosure on the common good."

I love synchronicity

Don't you just love synchronicity?

Today in church at our mid-week Eucharist we celebrated and remembered the Blessed Virgin Mary, called to be the mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And she accepted her role with humility and obedience. We were asked to reflect on what our own personal callings were, how we might ourselves make a difference in this world, shining the Gospel and the light of Christ around the world for the benefit of all.

It so happens that I have just completed and posted a review on Amazon of a fascinating book by Reiki Master Deborah Lloyd, Believe and it is True. The review speaks for itself, but what I found so interesting is her different approach to the idea that healing ourselves can heal our world, from that taken in my own first book, Healing This Wounded Earth. True we both had deep wounds that needed healing, true we both come from conventional Christian backgrounds (mine Anglican, hers Catholic), but there the similarities more or less end. Her wounds came with polio at the age of three, mine came much later in life through breakdown. And her physical healing seems much more miraculous than any of my own experiences. But we both found strength in our weakness, and we both were called to make a difference in the world, and whilst Deborah does not articulate the concept of the Wounded Healer as such, it is there between the lines of her later chapters.

I think we both understand our own calling. In our own different ways we hope we can make a difference in the world. With the help of God we will.