This weekend Ron and I are attending Caring for Creation, a conference at Lake Junaluska that promotes care and justice for Earth and its people. For the past two years, Ron has found this event to be very important to his understanding of how the faith community needs to be involved in these issues. This year he encouraged me to participate and after observing his efforts to make environmental issues matters of faith, I could not refuse. It is unique for me to be the tag-along at a church-type conference. That is usually Ron’s role.
However, I have encountered folks I know and especially have been pleased to visit with Thomas Henderson who after a nearly tragic accident has been able to return to his passion for creating a sustainable culture as it relates to agriculture. He is a walking, talking miracle. He would love to offer South Carolina a program on some of the work he has done in several different settings. I will welcome any thoughts about this.
We ate breakfast this morning with some folks from Broad St. UMC in Kingsport, TN. (By the way, they are very excited to have Clark Jenkins as their senior minister). They were sharing some of the ways their congregation is becoming more eco-friendly, but said that they are having to proceed slowly because older people don’t like change. Then, almost immediately we all decided that this might not be the age group which is hindering progress for most of the attendees of this conference are 55 and older. Also, many older adults have known rural life, minimal consumerism and a simpler lifestyle. They have an appreciation for the impact of nature on their lives that comes from life experiences. Just think of all the changes older adults have seen in their lives. It is probably the younger generations who have a more difficult time changing. Just a thought.
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3 comments:
Love the new wide-angle landscape pic in header!
Rather than qualify two groups as older and younger, would it be apropos to qualify three groups as
1. Those who have and have always
had
2. Those who have but have had
not (this group is the same
as those who have not but have
had)
3. Those who have not and have
always had not
It would appear that 100% of the people on Earth fit into one of these 3 groups. Their perceptions of what the cosmos can give up to each life without losing the sustainability of itself are focused through the lens of one of the three groups.These perceptions are separate realities that carry the conviction of previous generations who probably fit the same group. Moving from one group to another is usually a slow, multi-generational, single-minded effort.
If the mindset that allows true stewardship is to prevail, the groups must become one. That would be the group of those who have just enough and have always been happy to have just enough.
The path of the evolution of that one group is as essential as it is unimportant. As a species collectively, we can not hope to reach a plane of spiritual enlightenment high enough to allow us to fulfill a proper new covenant until the one group is the norm. Some few individuals will grow, but mankind can expect only a step backwards. God is screaming for a new understanding of a sustainable covenant. There are too many people to make the leap fast enough to avoid catastrophe.
Unless "on earth as it is in heaven" is just idle chatter, the Kingdom of the Everlasting Covenant needs an earthly model. The model will be based on a smaller population. Either we get started on an ethical and moral solution to the problems of the "One Group", or God will take the first step. We know what the first step has to be, and we know that God might run and jump, but he does not play.
Why, yet again, should man, in the information age, be waiting on God. Think what a proud father God would be if we took the first step toward understanding "our daily bread". More so than ever before, we must invoke God to "Give us, this day, our daily bread.", or rather. the understanding of our daily bread .
Tom
I think young adults are pretty tuned into this concern. It's those inbetween that stay so busy, overscheduled, and overcommitted that they take time neither to sit and enjoy the beauty of creation or to organize their lives around "going green." I say this confessionally as a member of this inbetween group. But I am working on it, and it is the witness of both older and younger adults who remind me to make this a priority.
I remember another generation of young adults who were so "tuned in" that they "dropped out". Beware.
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