Nenagh churches day of prayer for climate change

If you are anywhere near Nenagh, Co Tipperary, on Saturday 3rd October, why don't you pop in to join us? You can also take in the Farmers' Market, and Nenagh's excellent shops and cafes!


A joint Day of Prayer
Nenagh Christians, including Catholic, Methodist and Church of Ireland, will join together on Saturday 3rd October in a day of prayer for climate change, to be held 11am – 3pm in Teach an Leinn, Kenyon St, Nenagh. They are inviting passers-by of all faiths and none to pop in for a few minutes, as long or short as they please, to hear prayers and readings, to share quiet time in reflection and meditation, and to find out more about the climate change crisis.

An unholy mess…
Church of Ireland lay reader Joc Sanders explains the background. "We are making an unholy mess of our planet, which we share with so many others of God’s creatures. The facts of global warming are clear and human beings are the main culprits. People have been putting excess greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, largely by burning coal, oil and gas, but also by cutting down forests and intensifying agriculture. Global temperatures are rising inexorably. As a result, sea levels are rising, extreme weather – storms, floods and droughts – are becoming more frequent, eco-systems world wide are being disrupted, and species extinction is accelerating.

"The poorest of the poor in the 3rd World are worst affected for now, but we will all suffer if global warming is not halted. People all around the world must urgently change the way they live and work to protect our fragile planet for our children and grandchildren. World governments have promised to agree to implement a workable and comprehensive package of measures at the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen this December. This may be the last chance to do so before the planet passes a point of no return and suffers run-away heating.

"News headlines may be dominated by financial meltdown and economic crash, but we must not lose sight of climate change as the most complex and serious problem we face in the 21st century. We are responding to a call by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland to pray that God’s will be done at this critical time for the planet. For churches to come together is a prayer in itself, and what better day for it than St Francis’ Eve?"

What the churches will pray for
So just what exactly will the Churches be praying for together on 3rd October?

• Church of Ireland Rector Rev Marie Rowley-Brooke says, "We will pray that God’s Holy Spirit will lead the Governments of the world to agree at Copenhagen to take action on climate change which is both effective and just."
  
• Cloughjordan Methodist lay minister John Armitage adds, "We will pray too for Awareness and Awakening – all of us need to become more aware of our carbon footprint and our personal responsibility in this gathering crisis, and each one of us must wake up and start to walk more lightly on God’s good earth."
  
• Agreeing with them, Sister Patricia Green of the Sisters of Mercy says, "We will also pray for God to forgive our human greed and selfishness that is driving global warming, and for God’s mercy on those who are suffering already."

Day of prayer team, left to right: John Armitage, Sr Patricia Greene,

Joc Sanders, Rev Marie Rowley-Brooke and James Armitage

View from the Pew - Swine Flu is not the end of the world!

View from the Pew is a regular column I write for Newslink, the diocesan magazine for the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe. This article was published in the September 2009 edition.

We are in the early stages of an influenza pandemic, the first of the 21st century. Health professionals call it Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, but the rest of us call it Swine Flu. It is timely to review the situation and what we should do about it.


The science
The flu virus is very cunning. No more than a tiny bit of DNA hidden inside a protein coat, when it infects a cell in our nose, throat or lungs, it takes over the cell’s machinery and reproduces countless copies of itself. These infect other cells, making us seriously ill, until we develop immunity. And by making us cough and sneeze, the flu spreads itself from person to person in tiny liquid droplets in the air or on surfaces.

Our bodies are also cunning – our immune system has evolved to protect us from viruses, so that once we recover we can’t catch the same virus again – we become immune. But the flu virus is tricky – from time to time it changes its coat proteins so that our immune defences cannot recognise and eliminate it before it makes us ill.

In this pandemic, scientists believe, the new virus picked up some DNA from a form of pig flu – which is why we call it Swine Flu. Most people in the world have no immunity to it, so Swine Flu has spread rapidly world wide since first detected in Mexico in April – this is what is meant by a ‘pandemic’. Hundreds of thousands have already caught it in North and South America, the Far East, and in parts of Europe, particularly Britain. Now it is spreading in Ireland, with our rate of infection being about four weeks behind that in Britain.

We have had flu pandemics before - there were three in the 20th century: Spanish Flu in 1918, Asian Flu in 1957 and Hong Kong Flu in 1968. Flu is always a serious disease, but some kinds are much more severe than others. Asian Flu and Hong Kong Flu were quite mild, but Spanish Flu probably killed more people than the 1st World War.

Thank God, it seems that Swine Flu is a mild one - at least for the present: some are concerned that the virus could change again to become more lethal later on, as seems to have happened with the Spanish Flu. Most people recover fully at home in a week or so with no special treatment. 1 or 2 percent may develop complications needing hospital care, and a few die. The very old, the very young and those with certain pre-existing conditions are most at risk. As of late August, we have had just three deaths in the island of Ireland. Around three-quarters of Swine Flu cases are in children and young adults under 30 – older age groups who have had flu in previous pandemics may have some immunity.

Unlike previous pandemics, doctors can now treat patients with anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza, but they are ineffective unless given within a couple of days of symptoms appearing. Anti-virals are not a cure but they help recovery by relieving symptoms, they reduce the length of illness by around one day, and they reduce incidence of serious complications such as pneumonia. If used too widely the virus may become resistant to them. Bio-technologists are also working to make Swine Flu vaccines to give recipients immunity. The first supplies may be ready in October and Ireland has ordered enough for the whole population.

Once children go back to school and we spend more time indoors in the colder weather, we will see a big increase in infections. The Department of Health has warned that 1 million people – a quarter of us – are likely to get Swine Flu this year, but I suspect this is no more than a guess and nobody really knows.

How should we respond?
Whatever we do we should keep a sense of proportion – for most people Swine Flu, however nasty, will not be life-threatening. The real issue for all of us is what we ought to do to reduce the impact on those at most risk.

Those of us who have had flu before, as I have, will know the symptoms: fever over 38°C and a cough, often with sore throat, muscle or joint pain, headache, chills, fatigue and runny nose. They come on quite suddenly and are much more severe than the heavy cold which we sometimes colloquially call the flu.

If you think you have Swine Flu, you should do everything you can to avoid passing it to others. If the rate of transmission can be slowed, there will be less strain on health services and fewer people in high risk groups will catch it before they can be protected by the vaccine. Vaccines will be offered first to those at most risk as well as health care and other essential workers, which is as it should be – it would be unchristian to try to jump the queue.

The HSE web site (http://www.hse.ie/eng/swineflu) and information line (1800 94 11 00) provide good advice. In summary, if you contract it:

1. Phone your GP – do not visit the surgery or A&E, where you may infect others. Your doctor will advise whether you need any additional treatment or monitoring.


2. If your symptoms are severe or if you or household members are in a higher risk group, your doctor may prescribe anti-viral drugs, which are available free of charge. Ireland has stockpiled enough anti-virals to treat 55% of the population. It would be unchristian to demand anti-virals if you don’t need them.


3. Stay at home for up to seven days or until well again, take paracetamol or ibuprofen to reduce the symptoms, take plenty of liquids, and discourage visitors.


4. Women who are pregnant can take anti-virals safely, and paracetamol, but not ibuprofen.


5. Contact your doctor again if you begin to have difficulty breathing or other unexpected symptoms, or you start to relapse after improving – you may need emergency care.

The HSE also advise that whether sick or not we should all follow hygiene and cough etiquette guidelines (see separate box). Face masks may do more harm than good except for health professionals.

Implications for parishes
It is good to see that the house of Bishops have issued interim advice about Swine Flu on the Church of Ireland website, but most parishioners will not see this. I feel clergy should also give clear advice to their congregations.

First, as a matter of common sense, people who feel unwell and may be developing Swine Flu should be discouraged from coming to church until they are better.

Second, there are liturgical implications. The Bishops advise that we can continue to shake hands at the Peace provided hands have been washed, since Swine Flu is transmitted primarily by droplets in the air. The Bishops also suggest that if infection levels rise it may be advisable for communicants to receive the bread only and not the common cup. They discourage intinction except for sick communions, as it is no safer than sharing the cup. And it is always open to those particularly concerned to share the peace with a smile and a wave and to take communion in one kind only.

Third, it is likely that ministers will fall sick at short notice. Parishes should review the availability of lay people to lead services should the need arise, and neighbouring clergy should perhaps discuss arrangements to cover for one another.

Lastly, the Swine Flu pandemic has created a great deal of fear as well as significant sickness among the community, and at this time it is our duty as Christians to remember those who are affected in our prayers.

Poetry

I've just been devouring Top of the Pile, an anthology of stories and poems written by members of the Nenagh Writers Group. I heartily recommend it (see here for details). My favourite piece is the very first, a short poem by my good friend and neighbour Duncan Bain, who has gone before us into the presence of his maker, to the great sadness of all his family and friends and his widow, Aggie. Here it is:

Communion

© Duncan Bain

The verdant woodland is my church serene

Where hymns the sighing zephyr in the trees;

I worship where the leaves are broadly green,

And list the droning prayers of humble bees.

Fragrance, as a fir-cone censer spills

Incense from a lofty soaring pine.

The tintinnabulating streamlet rills,

Thought, Prayer and Harmony are mine.

Soft Doves are Angels in the air,

Deep, warm, my hassock is the sod,

Here, with no other soul to share,

Sounds clear the voice of God.

The voice of this sensitive man with a deep love of nature speaks still through these beautiful words. Thank you, Aggie, for permission to share them here.

And my distant cousin Jocelyn Mertens has just sent me this lovely tribute to her own fellow gardener:

Mr. Eastlake In Late Summer

© Jocelyn Mertens, August 2009

That sound

As the moon glides up

That pause in the night

Between bird and bat

That vibration of

An opening bloom

That is the peace you give me.

This too speaks to me. I love to take a glass of wine out into the garden as dusk falls, to wait in the Lime Alley during that pause between the swallows and the bats.

An empty garden

Joakim’s garden feels empty again – the four grandsons and three daughters have all gone back to their own homes, variously in Kilkenny, Wales and England, leaving behind them very happy memories, many photos, and a large pale patch in the lawn where the tent was pitched. The big boys – Cal, Finn and Gabe - came for a week’s sailing tuition on Lough Derg (with Shannon Sailing - I can heartily recommend them). They had a super time I think, and certainly plenty of wind! Little Jonah came with his parents to be shown off and run charmingly around the garden. I felt sad to see them go, reminded of so many goodbyes said, but very grateful indeed that they should have come so far to visit Dad or Grandfather/Grandpa/Oompapa on his own turf. The jury is still out on what Jonah will call me: I prefer Grandfather, because that was what I called my mother’s father and I value the sense of continuity, but there are those who feel that sounds too Victorian and cold – I can’t think why, because though older than I am now, my Grandfather certainly wasn’t.

Flower-fairies - Jonah and Grandfather in Susanna's Labyrinth

Happy Jonah!

Boys make a sandwich (t-b Cal, Gabe, Finn)

The Tent

I've not been good at blogging the garden this month (mea culpa!), but here are some pictures of the garden in August:

Susanna is the sweet-pea queen of North Tipp!

Day-lilies and white Agapanthus

Blue Agapanthus

Coppery Sunflower

Salvia patens - a gorgeous gentian blue!

Salvia cacalifolia - I have a bit of a thing about Salvias!

I have managed the vegetable garden better this year - here we have leeks, brassicas (Brussels Sprouts and Purple Sprouting) with asparagus, potatoes, climbing beans and artichokes behind. Susanna's peas were most disappointing, but we are now dining on our own potatoes, French beans and spinach-beet, and freezing for the winter.

A shaft of light before nightfall

The last day of July, and what a day we've had of it - rain from dawn until just before 9pm! Not exceptionally hard, often not more than a light drizzle, but unremitting. Even before today's rain, reports suggest this will be the wettest July since recording began in some places in Ireland. The third wet summer in a row.

Susanna continues to do well, and has today moved back to her own side of the bed, but I am still on cooking duty. A warming supper was what we needed: tagliatelli with meat balls in a tomato sauce. I ventured out for sage and a couple of bayleaves and came back dripping. A good flavour, though I say it myself, but most of the meatballs disintegrated into the sauce - another dish I haven't cracked yet, another challenge for the future!

Then as we ate, the clouds began to clear, bringing a shaft of sunshine from the West straight into my eyes. Knowing my shoes will be drenched in the wet grass, I am drawn out into the garden for the first time today.

I am reproached by the sodden piles of clippings from the Beech and Eleaganus hedges which I failed to collect yesterday before the rain began - please God tomorrow will bring a window to finish the task. I skimped on the Eleaganus this spring, and to get it straight I had to cut part of it back to bare wood, which I believe, fingers crossed, will sprout again. And once that's done, the evergreen oak (Quercus ilex) hedge by the road needs its annual trim - it is gradually creeping out and constricting the path.

The air is filled with flights of swallows, swooping low - several dozen over the garden, perhaps a hundred. On a dry day their cries fill the air, but this evening they are almost silent. I suppose the rain has prevented their feeding, and they are too hungry to waste energy on singing. They need to stuff themselves with insects to build up the energy reserves they need to return safely to sub-saharan Africa in a few short weeks. This wet weather must be a real threat to their lives.

I suppose the wet is good for my vegetables. I have never had such good brassicas - Brussels sprouts, Purple-sprouting broccoli and green Romanesco - though perhaps the barrow-loads of compost rotivated into their bed has something to do with it. And the climbing beans - Scarlet runners and three kinds of French beans, planted rather late - are close to the top of their poles. No trouble from the hares this year. We will be eating them in 10 days, but Susanna's dwarf beans started in pots in the conservatory have been cropping since early July. The rain has also suppressed bolting of the spinach beet, which we have been eating and giving away, and threatens to get away from us. Susanna's peas in the raised bed are a disappointment - I'm not sure why, but suspect they may be getting too little sun. And the potatoes are poor and showing the early signs of blight - I must dig them while I can, and perhaps I can get a late crop of peas from the ground too.

The wet must be good for the flowers too. Susanna's sweet peas continue to bloom their socks off - she has been able to get out to cut the seed pods, even though crutches prevent her from cutting bunches for the house. The Lobelia cardinalis, spared by the slugs this year, is about to burst. And the blue Agapanthus from South Africa is following on from the day-lilies and better than ever. The wonderful blue of Salvia patens has been joined by the slightly deeper blue of S. cacalifolia and day-glow pink Zinnias at the front of the croquet-lawn border, the first sunflowers at the back have opened butter yellow and copper, and the Dahlias are about to begin. S. uliginosa and S involucrata 'Bethelii' both survived last winter outdoors and promise to perform later on.

I made the mistake of reading the blogs commenting on the US Episcopal Church's recent General Convention and Archbishop Rowan Williams' reflection on it. The hatred and bile displayed by so many commentators is disgusting. Our Lord said (John 13:34-35), "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." If love is the test of discipleship, where may we find disciples today?

Imagining a Future of Abundance

View from the Pew is a monthly column I write for Newslink, the magazine of the Diocese of Limerick. This piece appeared in the issue for July/August 2009.

It cannot go on.
I think in our heart of hearts most of us realise that we cannot continue to live the way we are living now. The global civilisation we have built over the last 50 years – within my lifetime - is starting to falter. We are moving into a time of crisis. In the modern jargon, our way of life is unsustainable.

We are using up finite resources at an ever faster rate. The most obvious is fossil energy – oil, gas and coal – but there are others, including water and fertile soil. Already we have used up about half the oil on the planet; gas is following fast behind, and coal will inevitably follow, if rather later. The era of cheap energy is over.

Our agriculture and industries are damaging and poisoning the planet on which we live. The carbon dioxide we emit by burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests is causing global warming, about which I have written before. Scientists advise us that at best this will be very costly, and at worse catastrophic, both for us and for all the species we share the planet with.

Growth and consumption drive this crisis.
The global economy is focussed solely on them – when they stop for any reason we have a recession such as we are experiencing now. So governments try to stimulate investment to produce more stuff, so they can levy taxes to pay for the services we all want; and corporations try to boost sales to get rid of the stuff they make, so they can sell more and make bigger profits. Advertising encourages people to desire more. Fashion encourages them to throw away the old to buy the new. People are thus encouraged to work ever harder to earn the money to keep consuming and throwing away. But all too often this is at the expense of their relationships, their communities, and even their own health, as well as the planet. Children see less and less of their parents; volunteering and community spirit dwindle; unhealthy lifestyles make more people dangerously obese. And for all the increased consumption of stuff, people are no happier than they were - even in important respects less happy, studies show.

We have no option but to change. If we do so sensibly we can preserve this wonderful planet, so that our children and our children’s children can continue to enjoy our bountiful inheritance. But if we don’t, change will be forced on us by chaos and catastrophe. If you are one of those who doubt this, you owe it to yourself and your children to investigate the issues. A good starting point would be to watch Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth (on DVD from Amazon, price £4.98) and Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff (20 min to view free at http://www.storyofstuff.com/).

The crisis is spiritual
Many people look for technology to fix the crisis of our time, and I’m sure that will be part of the solution. But I am convinced we need more than that. In the wise words of Alastair McIntosh, a Quaker and Professor of Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde,

The deep work must be this: to learn to live more abundantly with less, to rekindle community, and to serve fundamental human need instead of worshipping at the altars of greed.

Greed drives you and me to grasp more and more, to keep up with the Jones’s, as we ignore the damage caused to neighbours, the poor and the planet. Greed is at the root of the crisis. And greed is an old fashioned sin to which all human beings have been liable since the dawn of time. Our Christian faith has a lot to teach us about sin and how to overcome it. Jesus calls us to repent and believe in the good news, as the kingdom of God has come near. But how exactly should we respond to Jesus’s call in the face of this crisis?

I think we must all prayerfully seek answers to this question. Just as God loves variety, there will no doubt be a great variety of answers. But I believe that people in every parish should do so, and by God’s grace they are already finding their own answers. Here is a story about what a group of us in the Nenagh Union have been doing. Please let us know your stories!

Nenagh Carbon Watchers
For our Lent course this year a small multi-denominational group followed the Omega Climate Change course (see http://omegaclimate.wordpress.com/). It is stimulating, focussed on the scientific facts complemented by a little theology, and I heartily recommend it - if other parishes are interested in running it I would be glad to share our experience. We looked at why it is urgent to act now; how big our individual carbon footprints are and how to reduce them; global justice issues; how quality of life can be good in a low-carbon society; and how we might take action.

At the end we were so convinced of the need to act now that we decided to continue meeting as the Nenagh Carbon Watchers group. Our first aim is to support each other in our efforts to reduce our household carbon emissions – repentance must be personal, and each one must confront his or her own lifestyle. It should save us money as well as helping the planet. And we also aim to promote in our community the changes in lifestyle needed to flourish in the inevitable low-carbon, sustainable future.

We took the initiative to ask the election candidates standing in the Nenagh area to outline their positions and tell us what they would do if elected. We published their responses on our website (http://nenaghcarbonwatchers.blogspot.ie/), and local newspapers also printed the questions and a report on the responses. We were pleased to note that all who responded were positive – the need for change seems to be so widely agreed now that all are in favour of it, like motherhood!

A Future of Abundance
It is difficult to imagine what a low-carbon, sustainable future will be like, except in terms of what we must give up. It is easy to see such a future as poorer, greyer and less exciting than the present. It is tempting to fall into the trap of denial, to do nothing in the hope that the prospect will go away. But if we do we will be unable to make the sensible choices and we will be forced to suffer chaotic change.

I think we need urgently to re-imagine a future of abundance, and to do so as communities, so that we can begin to create it together in common purpose. Because the future can be one of abundance, and more fulfilling than today. What we need is a vision of the kingdom of God for the 21st century.

The Transition movement is one promising approach. This aims to stimulate groups within a local community to come together to envisage what must happen for the community to flourish in a sustainable future, to begin to plan for it, and to encourage stakeholders including local councils to buy into the vision. Started in Kinsale and piloted in Totnes in England, this model is rapidly being adopted in hundreds of communities in Britain and Ireland. You can read about in The Transition Handbook written by its founder Rob Hopkins (Amazon, price £8.28). The Carbon Watchers are actively mulling over whether and how to start a Transition Town initiative in Nenagh.

And I feel sure we can learn from the Eco Village in Cloughjordan, where construction started early this year (see http://www.thevillage.ie/).

The most beautiful flower in the garden

It is raining gently as I write this, looking out over Susanna's labyrinth garden, so full of colour and variety of form. The sweet peas for which she is famous, grown this year up a half circle of canes around the famine pot, have not been picked for five days and are a riot of colour - I must pick them this morning, to keep them blooming. The tree-mallow which I cut down to the ground in the spring has bounced back and is now a blaze of shocking pink. The day-lilies she got from a specialist nursery in Britain are in full blow, varying in colour from lemon yellow, through orange, to salmon pink and a rich, deep red. And the flower-buds of the blue and whit agapanthus are just begining to burst.

But the most beautiful flower is not in her garden today - Susanna is in the Galway Clinic. She had hip-replacement surgery last Monday afternoon. It has gone well, thank God, the surgeon is pleased and she is cheerful. Although the wound is sore, she says the pain is much less than with her previous knee-replacements, and the pain she has been feeling in her knee has gone away, proving that it was referred from the hip, great relief to her. On Tuesday she was got out of bed to walk on a zimmer frame to the loo, yesterday she was able to swing her own leg out of the bed and sit in a chair and walk more, and today I think the physio will start her on crutches. Her main complaint is that they will not let her shower until Friday when they change the dressing!

In a little while I will drive back to Galway to be with her, and I shall be able to bring her a bunch of her own sweet peas and a punnet of her own strawberries, though I expect I shall be soaked if the rain doesn't stop!