Trying my best - and failing

Hopefully we all realise that we need to do more to look after our planet. But it can be very difficult and confusing to know what we can do that will really make a difference. I thought I’d start a series of blogs with the things that I’m discovering on this journey – you may find it helpful. Feel free to comment below with your suggestions, tips and advice.

What with COP26 taking place in Glasgow recently the climate crisis has seen a lot of media air time. As a church we marked the middle weekend of COP26 with a Sunday service exploring the theme: ‘COP26, the Climate Crisis and all that’. If you wanted to watch the highlights you’ll find them here: https://youtu.be/iNHm0wy4BVI

 

I expect that for most of us we have similar thoughts when it comes to this whole area.

·      My current lifestyle is partly responsible for the suffering of others who are experiencing the sharp end of the climate crisis.

·      I would like to do more in order to have a less damaging impact on the environment.

·      But what can I do?

·      And, what real difference will that make?

 

A couple of months ago we were challenged by one of our daughters to have a meat free week. It is widely reported that we need to eat less meat if we are going to reach carbon targets. In the end, our meat free week stretched to about a month, with us only eating chicken a couple of times – and that was chicken that we had in the freezer from before the meat free week started. Since then our diet has gone largely meat free. But is that necessarily better for the planet?

 

On the Sunday that I just mentioned above - our service was followed by a picnic tea. Previously a picnic tea might involve mini pork pies, sausage rolls, some ham. Occasionally even a pastie. But in the meat free spirit we thought rather than meat we’d get some bread, snacks and nice cheese – including brie and one of my favourites Castello pineapple halo soft cheese.

 

Once we’d done the shopping we watched a really interesting programme on BBC2 (it’s still available on iPlayer for a month) – Horizon: Feast to save the planet.

 

Five celebrities come together for a three-course meal where scientists have rated every dish for its carbon footprint. I’d recommend watching. The programme recognises that in practice, your average shopper is not going to be able to crunch all the numbers – but broadly speaking if you buy food that is local and in season then it doesn’t have transport miles attached (but boats are a lot better than planes) and anything that comes from a cow almost certainly has a high carbon footprint.

 

The take away for our picnic (so to speak) is that our cheese may well have been worse for the planet than a pork pie. 

 

Now, I don’t know, as I don’t have the details. But my pineapple soft cheese contained pineapple, papaya and almonds. None of these grow in the UK. The cheese is crafted in Denmark. At least it was a soft cheese – which is better than a hard cheese!

 

In contrast my pork pie would have been made in the UK with British pork. But it does contain Palm Oil – I’ve visited enough zoos to know that that’s bad for the rainforest and orangutans in particular.

I reckon I need to find an app – there’s bound to be one – that gives some indication of the carbon footprint of any food item. I also need to find out my current carbon footprint. And what that carbon footprint needs to be if the world’s not going to exceed the 1.5 deg C limit that everyone’s been talking about recently. 

 

Join me again next week.

 

 

Reflection 11 - the one about prayer and online shopping

On Sunday Graham was looking at Daniel’s prayer from Daniel 9. It is good to listen in on people like Daniel as they pray as we can learn so much from them. If you’ve not had a chance to listen yet you’ll find it here: https://youtu.be/Pu82R7FIqhs 

I don’t know about you, but I can very easily get frustrated and impatient when things don’t happen right away. That can be especially true with my computer. I turn it on and I expect it to be ready to go within a few seconds. But sometimes it won’t connect to the internet, or a web page will take about 3 seconds to load.

With online shopping you do have to be a little more patient – you don’t expect to order something and have it right there (unless it’s a digital download or a Kindle book, of course). But you certainly don’t expect it to take any longer than a day. If I order it today, I expect to have it by tomorrow.

Of course, it hasn’t always been this way. I remember when cereal packets used to have special offers – and my sisters and I would argue about whose turn it was this time for the free gift. But first of all, we’d have to spend weeks collecting enough tokens from the special packets. And then we’d send them off with the form in the post – and then weeks later the bowl, spoon, badge or book or whatever it was would turn up in the post.

This expectation – see, click, get – can very easily carry over into our prayer life. 

On Sunday, Graham highlighted that we need to be serious and passionate in our prayers and mean what we say. I’m assuming that the prayer we have recorded here in verses 4-19 is a summary of a much longer period of prayer given that it was accompanied with fasting and the wearing of sackcloth and ashes.

There is certainly a time and place for, what are sometimes called, ‘arrow prayers’. Quick, short prayers, fired off in a moment. That time someone shares some personal news with us, or asks us for advice – “Lord, give me wisdom to say the right thing. Amen.”

But we need to make sure that there is more to our prayer life than this. We know Daniel’s habit was to go to his room and pray three times a day. There were also times when he spent longer periods in prayer and fasting. What prayer habits do you have? What prayer habits would you like to develop?