Hurt,
Lament,
Confession, and
Conversion

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together”

Understanding the hurt …

Photo: Drought, cracked soil. Alabama Extension, public domain.

Climate, soil and water

“Humanity is now acting like a super volcano. We’re releasing CO2 at an even greater rate than the prehistoric mega-eruptions that extinguished life in the past.” (David Attenborough, A Perfect Planet)

Key Resource – Climate Change: The Facts

Sir David Attenborough’s special for the BBC outlines the science of climate change and its impacts. Beautifully made and very powerful. Available on i-player (click the title above) for two more months: you must live in the UK and have a TV license to view it.

Photo: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill – 0628, Arlis Reference. CC BY-SA 2.0

Losing life’s diversity

“We are wiping wildlife from the face of the planet, burning our forests, polluting and over-fishing our seas and destroying wild areas. We are wrecking our world – the one place we call home” (Tanya Steele, Chief Executive, WWF)

Key Resources:

Our Planet

A Netflix/WWF collaboration, again narrated by David Attenborough, explores earth’s ecosystems – the wonder of them and the perils they face. Available to watch for free on YouTube (trailer with episodes down the side) Powerful and moving.

Living Planet Report 2020

WWF’s annual report on the state of the world’s creatures. Focus this year was on ‘Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss’

Photo: On the ground in Tacloban,  Joe Lowry/IOM. CC License 2.0

Environmental injustice

“A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (Pope Francis, Laudato Si‘, 49)

Key Resources:

Introductions

Take a look at a ‘Declaration on Climate Justice’ from key global leaders, introductions from Yale Climate Connections and Climate Just, a short Christian Aid briefing and theological reflection, and IIED’s Saleemul Huq on practical approaches to climate justice.

Going Deeper

Take a look at the Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate Justice.

“Take what is broken – our hearts, our priorities, this earth …”

Prayers, hymns, & teaching for a hurting world

Hymns & Prayers of Lament, Confession & Conversion

Creator God …
Bless us as we lament.
Cradle us as we regret.
Restore us as we start afresh.
(John Polhill)

Reflections and Teaching

“The practice of grieving the Earth equips us to hold our human distance and creaturely intimacy in tension, resisting the desire to control or abuse while acknowledging that we are responsible: both in destruction and in participating in Christ’s work of healing” (Hannah Malcolm)

What I want to protect

In the spirit of the #ShowTheLove campaign, CCOW is asking companions on the journey to share something that motivates them to care for creation and that they would like to protect. Read their testimonies … and contact us to share yours!

“Turn us again, Lord, and we shall be saved”

Reflections on repentance and conversion

What changed your heart? In this section, we’ll have people’s stories of the moment when if they realised – in their hearts, as well as their minds – that our planet was in crisis and that they needed to respond. Email us if you’d like to share yours.

“We had moved into a house that had been vacant for some time, and there was a lot of cleaning up to do in the garden. I had seen the  overgrown  blackberry patch and rejoiced to think of the jam and crumble it could provide. So I started there first.

And then I started to find them. Bags of rubbish – some simply tossed, some burned, with their chemicals seared into the earth. Odd bits of plastic. Strands of barbed wire. A few old wooden items. At some point – perhaps while the house was vacant? – the area had been used as a dump. As I cleared the area, I started to mark where the worst pollution was, so that we wouldn’t eat the berries from those spots. And I began to think – if this was what a relatively small amount of waste had done to this land, what of the large quantities of waste I was “putting out” in the bins? Where was it going? What land was I poisoning? And when would I start to do something about it?”

Find out about new resources!