Many churches will read Psalm 104 at Pentecost – or on other occasions. Here is a PowerPoint which covers the Pentecost reading.
You may also wish to look at our Pentecost “God so loved the world” PowerPoint and video.
Originally written for the International Day for Biological Diversity in 2025, this prayer can be used at any time of the year to celebrate the diversity of God’s creation and our call to be in harmony with all that God has created. It comes with a downloadable PowerPoint slide, jpeg or pdf. If you are using, please do acknowledge CCOW.
Creator of all things,
Your greatness is seen
In the diversity of creation,
Whose myriad different elements
Join together to hymn your praise.
Help us to listen to creation’s song,
And to perceive the distinctive beauty of each note.
Guide us, so that our words and our actions
May respect and preserve
Our fellow creatures and the common home we share,
Bringing us into harmony with each other and all of nature
For the good of all
And the glory of your name.
Amen
Biodiversity Prayer (pdf)
Biodiversity Prayer (PowerPoint)
Biodiversity Prayer (jpeg)
Political economy models often assume that voter beliefs are consistent with available information. Recent work emphasizes instead the role played by narratives, subjective causal models that may be incorrectly specified. In this paper, we study the role of political narratives in the context of climate policy. We develop a theory of narrative entanglement, where policy dimensions—initially distinct—become strategically intertwined through narratives created by politicians to sway support. Shocks in one dimension can thus influence unrelated policy areas. We test this theory in the context of EU climate policy before versus after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which affected the economic costs of climate policy but not its ability to address climate change. Using a large language model to analyze speeches in the EU Parliament, we find that narratives are strongly entangled: Members of the European Parliament that emphasize the need to address climate change also emphasize economic benefits, while those denying climate change stress economic costs. After the energy price shock associated with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, narratives shift not only in the economic dimension but also in the climate dimension, with speeches becoming less likely to imply that climate policy is necessary to combat climate change. This pattern holds at the individual politician level, with politicians from right-wing parties showing a more pronounced narrative change than those from the left.
Groundswell is an annual festival for regenerative agriculture – held on a farm, with a combination of practical and theoretical talks, workshops, exhibits, etc
Lannock Farm, Hertfordshire, SG4 7EE, UK
The Groundswell Festival provides a forum for farmers, growers, or anyone interested in food production and the environment to learn about the theory and practical applications of regenerative farming systems.
Groundswell Festival takes place on the 2nd and 3rd of July 2025. Tickets are available to purchase through Red Box here.
Corpus Christi Church Hall, Margaret Rd
OX3 84J
Friday July 4th
7.15 pm refreshments 7.30 start
“This inspiring film shows the ways different faith communities respond to environmental issues. It is dedicated the memory of environmental defender Fr Marcelo Perez, a Tzotzil Indigenous Catholic priest from Mexico, murdered in October 2024.
Celia Deane-Drummond, Director of LSRI, will introduce the film and convene the discussion.”
FREE – ALL WELCOME
St. Katharine’s, Parmoor
Parmoor Lane Frieth RG9 6NN
“Retrofitting our homes” – a talk by Turner Prize-winning collective Assemble
“Join Oxfordshire Community Land Trust for a talk by members of the Turner Prize-winning, multi-disciplinary architecture, design and art collective Assemble about retrofitting buildings. They’ll tell us about the general principles they use to guide their retrofit projects, as well as more specific detail about their current project at St Anne’s College in Oxford, where they’re refurbishing 10 Victorian villas.”
Tsuzuki Lecture Theatre, St Anne’s College, 56 Woodstock Rd, Oxford OX2 6HS
A calendar of dates for prayer and action, with links and suggestions. Download it here.
“How much time do we spend looking – really looking – at what’s in front of us? One day, the train I was on stopped for quite a while at a red signal. My window looked out on a tree – so near that you could see the ridges and whorls of its bark and the insects that were crawling out onto a sunlit ridge or scurrying back into a crevice. It was mesmerising, and when we started again, I found myself reflecting on the variety and beauty revealed in that one tiny element of creation – something that was normally just a blur, one of thousands of trees we passed on our daily journey.
If we take the time to look at any part of the world around us, we will find almost infinite treasures: the reflections on a drop of water, the vein patterns on a leaf, the blurred wings of a hovering insect. Pause to see things as they really are and the sense of how precious creation is will almost overwhelm you …”
What an amazing gift the world is! In response to God’s goodness in creation, you might want to:
You may sometimes find it helpful to ponder things outside your own surroundings. You might choose a single image or scene from a video – maybe from a PowerPoint or from one of the ‘Our Planet’ nature programmes.
Sometimes, as you contemplate, you may be led towards not only thanks and praise but also lament and anger – conscious of how fragile what you see is, how imperilled by environmental degradation and climate change, how it is already damaged by human carelessness or greed. You may find yourself lamenting what you don’t see – the insects that are missing from our countryside, the species lost in areas that have been deforested. You may find yourself angered by the lack of response … or at least of response that reflects the urgency of the situation.
Allow your heart to lament or rage – and bring it before God.
The Psalms are full of sorrow, questioning and anger. Some people find it helpful to adopt in their prayers the pattern of lament Psalms:
Sometimes, though, that may not feel possible or honest. Cry out to God in words, or, where you have no words, simply offer God your pain, and let the Spirit guide the prayer. Whatever you pray, if you are bringing your heart before God in faith, trust that the God who loves you and all created things hears your prayer.
