the healing power of nature

We seem to be intent on destroying the creation around us. My heart bleeds everytime I see a massive tractor and cutter ravaging the hedges and ditches down our lanes to keep them under control, without any regard for the wild life, both plant and animal, that are being thoughtlessly destroyed. And what a mess those hedges then look, until nature heals them again. But nature cannot go on healing for ever! Neither can we! What are we all going to do to save ourselves and this world - To save our planet of which we are a part?

We can wait for more and more government interventions before we do anything ourselves. But this only creates resentment and cries of alarm about a nanny state! And as we know many rules and regulations are nowadays widely flaunted.

Or we can heal our own behaviour to define our future. We can listen again deeply to the natural world around us and let it speak to us through the silence or the tempest. We can allow ourselves to rediscover that sense of wonderment and awe and respect for the living, breathing network of all beings animate and inanimate that we call Gaia, and of which we form a part. We need to be open to the healing power of nature. And then we will no longer want to destroy it. We need to rediscover a reverence and awe, a love and respect for the world of creation around us. Only then will we no longer defile it with our litter and filth, our plastics, our bottles and our cans. We can even walk barefoot upon the earth. Because, as Alastair McIntosh has said, we will then experience a harmony of body, soil and soul.
We will regain our spirituality.

May it be!

Creation in Crisis; Christian Perspectives on Sustainability

How many books have to be written on the related issues of climate change, environmental sustainability and the growth economy before people sit up, take notice, accept the facts and do something to pay back the next generation for our own profligacies?
When I go to bed I rarely manage to read more than a page or two of a book, even a really good one, before sleep overcomes me. Some will envy me this gift - I know that a few of my friends struggle to sleep for most of the night, fall asleep in the early dawn and then wake up feeling lousy.
Last night for me was an exception from my normal pattern. I was reading Creation in Crisis; Christian Perspectives on Sustainability. An impressive cast of acknowledged experts in their fields, scientists and theologians, had got together for a workshop in the summer of 2008 at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, in Cambridge, UK. The purpose of this gathering was to explore the root causes of environmental unsustainability. Why, they asked, do we continue on a fast track to ultimate and total environmental degradation. Is it ignorance? Partly perhaps. Is it denial? Quite possibly. None of us want to give up our "comfortable" lifestyles for a perceived drop in standards of living. Is there procrastination? Almost certainly. And where does ethics come into the equation?
This book was born out of the cross fertilization of ideas at that event. And it is essential reading for all who really do want to change the world for the better. It brings together many essays, and explores possible solutions and ways forward, within a context of Christian thinking.
Then I started tossing and turning and could not sleep. Because I couldn't stop thinking over this question. So many excellent books have been written on the concerns we have about these issues. But the sad truth is that most people would rather bury their heads in the sand, ostrich style, and would rather be entertained than worried into action by stark facts, when of course there is room for both in our lives.
Witness also to this is the huge following of what I would call the frivolous blogs, clearly addressing only the here and now, against those blogs that try to be more serious about our perilous futures.
In the magazine of Christian Ecology Link, John Mead wrote in 2007 in an article Letting Loose Despair:
"What we in the rich countries are doing to people in poor countries, to future generations, and to the planet, is beyond all argument morally outrageous."

Come on everybody wake up!

In the UK, near Birmingham, the Hindu community has reclaimed an area of polluted industrial scrubland. Here they have built a beautiful Hindu Temple within surroundings that now incorporate a historic canal, woodland and hills. From early beginnings where there was much resistance from local communities, there is now a place of beauty that is available for not only Hindu worship, but also cultural and educational events. The Hindus have healed the earth and restored a green and healthy environment to wildlife and the local community.


Here is a religion that teaches its followers to live simply and to see God in everything in the Universe. “Conserve ecology or perish,” says the Bhagavad Gita, (or Song of God), the Hindu sacred scripture.

“God’s creation is sacred. Humanity does not have the right to destroy what it cannot create. Humans have to realize the interconnectedness of living entities and emphasize the idea of moral responsibility to oneself, one’s society, and the world as a whole.”

Hindus teach that we can learn spiritual happiness and find fulfillment by living simply and without chasing after material wants and pleasures:

"They have to milk a cow and enjoy, not cut at the udder of the cow with greed to enjoy what is not available in the natural course. Do not use anything belonging to nature, such as oil, coal, or forest, at a greater rate than you can replenish it… do not destroy birds, fish, earthworms, and even bacteria which play vital ecological roles; once they are annihilated you cannot recreate them. Thus only can you avoid becoming bankrupt, and the life cycle can continue for a long, long time."

These quotations are taken from an excellent book, Faith in Conservation- New Approaches to Religions and the Environment, with permission, from the Hindu Faith Statement written for the book by Swami Vibudhesha Teertha, Acharya of Madhvacarya Vaishnavas, Udupi, Central Advisory Committee Member of the Visva Hindu Parishad.

Nature as a Wounded Healer

We seem to be intent on destroying the creation around us. My heart bleeds everytime I see a massive tractor and cutter ravaging the hedges and ditches down our lanes to keep them under control, without any regard for the wild life, both plant and animal, that are being thoughtlessly destroyed. And what a mess those hedges then look, until nature heals them again. But nature cannot go on healing for ever! Neither can we! What are we all going to do to save ourselves and this world - To save our planet of which we are a part?

We can wait for more and more government interventions before we do anything ourselves. But this only creates resentment and cries of alarm about a nanny state! And as we know many rules and regulations are nowadays widely flaunted.

Or we can heal our own behaviour to define our future. We can listen again deeply to the natural world around us and let it speak to us through the silence or the tempest. We can allow ourselves to rediscover that sense of wonderment and awe and respect for the living, breathing network of all beings animate and inanimate that we call Gaia, and of which we form a part. We need to be open to the healing power of nature. And then we will no longer want to destroy it. We need to rediscover a reverence and awe, a love and respect for the world of creation around us. Only then will we no longer defile it with our litter and filth, our plastics, our bottles and our cans. We can even walk barefoot upon the earth. Because, as Alastair McIntosh has said, we will then experience a harmony of body, soil and soul.
We will regain our spirituality.

May it be!