Network of Earthkeeping Christian Communities in South Africa
NECCSA Update: December 2008
A monthly newsletter on Church and Environment in South Africa
1. ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS
Advent: Putting the waiting back into wanting.
Do you feel at all stressed by the coming of Christmas? Are you troubled about all the money you still have to spend on presents and food, decorations and travel? If we let it, the financial crisis will just add to this anxiety, making us more worried about all the money we are spending. That's if we let it. How about if we don't? How about if we use the credit crunch to make us reign-in our spending, to turn our focus away from buying stuff and reclaim the true spirit of Advent!
As Fr Christopher Jamison (BBC 'Monastery') writes in his forthcoming book:
Advent is the traditional month of preparation before Christmas, a time of fasting and intense prayer, a time of eager expectation. It is above all a time to celebrate waiting as a normal part of human experience, when the Christian tradition invites us to wait for the birth of a child. In Advent we rejoice that we are waiting, that there is still time to prepare a way for the Lord and we celebrate the virtue of patience. By contrast, the consumer world tells us not to wait but to `buy now.' Greed cannot wait, so to learn to wait is a simple antidote to greed.
So this Advent, why not pray now and buy later? And while you are praying, make some of these great alternative presents from the Canadian web site http://www.buynothingchristmas.org
Reclaim Christmas
Have a read through these twelve 'C's of Christmas. Which do you want to keep?
2. CLIMATE CHANGE: IT IS TOO LATE TO SAVE OUR ISLAND, BUT NOT TOO LATE FOR THE WORLD, SAY PACIFIC CHRISTIANS
At the 16-21 November United Nations Advocacy Week of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Christians from the Pacific islands have appealed for worldwide solidarity with regard to climate change, a question of life and death in their communities. Rev. Asora Amosa, a Samoan-born pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, spoke of the region's feeling of threat: 'If icebergs break off and float past the south coast of New Zealand we wonder what is coming next.'
Addressing a diverse group of more than 100 representatives from churches and organizations defending people and nature around the world, Amosa underscored that it is time to take action together: 'We have criticized the industrialized nations for failing to take courageous action, but we realize also that the time for according blame has gone.'
Rev. Baranite Kirata from Kiribati, one of the three Pacific island states which will lose their territory to the rising sea level in the foreseeable future, explained what it means to know that not only will his people become refugees but that the place they call home will disappear under the rising waters.
'Myself, when I am travelling my heart always longs for home, for where I can cry and rejoice with my people,' Kirata said.
People in Kiribati already lose their homes and livelihoods as floods have become more frequent and intense while fish become fewer. Their health is threatened by diseases and extreme heat, or as an elderly lady on one of the outer islands once told the pastor: 'The sun burns as if it was just above my head.'
The rising sea level leads to salt water killing the roots of trees and polluting wells; at the same time, rainfall, the second source of drinking water for the islanders, becomes scarce.
Eaten by the waves
For the Pacific churches, the issue is not only political and economic, but deeply theological, ethical and spiritual. They feel that their place in God's creation is at stake. 'The storms and waves eat away our beaches and as they continue they will some day eat us,' said Kirata. Those whose houses on the coast have been destroyed move further inland. It is clear, however, that this is not a lasting solution. 'If we don't end up in the lagoon, we will end up fighting each other over land, food, water.'
Fe'iloakitau Kaho Tevi, general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, said he already had received many requests to help relocate places of worship from threatened coastal areas to higher ground.
Churches in the Pacific have developed action plans and conservation activities. Pacific islanders also cooperate with partners in the North in raising awareness. For example, recently a small boat full of 'climate refugees' including two Pacific islanders in traditional attire floated on the River Spree in front of the German parliament, giving visibility to the issue during a Stop Coal Campaign supported by the agencies Bread for the World and EED of the Evangelical Church in Germany.
The discussions at the event in New York underscored the injustice that the populations who will be hardest hit by the atmospheric changes are the ones who have hardly contributed to them. While for example European countries have only few low-lying, densely populated areas, the resources they have available for the construction of seawalls exceed by far the possibilities of island states like Kiribati.
Elias Crisostomo Abramides of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Buenos Aires and South America affirmed the WCC's role as the voice for ethical and justice issues during international negotiations on climate protection.
Objectives of Church advocacy
Rev. Jorge Domingues, a Brazilian from the United Methodist Church, called on Christians in the financial markets to adopt a shareholder advocacy policy and press companies on climate change agenda. He added that churches also need to consider the carbon footprint of their own work.
Tevi, the general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, said a series of actions the churches should advocate includes contributing to an adaptation fund based on the 'polluter pays' principle and calculating each country's greenhouse gas emissions and gross domestic product.
Another action is the promotion of renewable energy, as opposed to non-permanent solutions like carbon capture or nuclear power of which the Pacific islanders have 'bad memories'. Tevi also called for research into the cultural, legal and economic implications of a nation's sovereign territory disappearing.
With a mixture of realism and optimism, Rev. Baranite Kirata explained that 'it is now too late to do something for Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands; but together, we are the world, and it is not too late to do something for us all.'
WCC campaign on climate change:http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3416
Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 cmedia@wcc-coe.org
3. GQUNUBE GREEN GATHERING
By Natalie van Wyk (future resident)
On Saturday 28 June 2008, the future residents of Gqunube Green Eco-village on the eastern side of the Gonubie River in the Eastern Cape gathered at their newly completed Tri-circle Pavilion to meet, workshop, walk the new roads to visit future home sites and braai around the kraal pit braai. On the Sunday we gathered again for a worship and dedication service and a blessing of the Nguni cattle herd. This was led by Rev Roger D. Hudson and retired Bishops Norman Hudson and Eric Pike.
Gqunube Green Eco-village hopes to become 'an enacted parable of earthkeeping and to explore the shape of a possible eco-ecclesiology that links Christian spirituality with earthcare.' (1) 'Such eco-village experiments are happening on all continents and it is hoped that Gqunube Green, with its specifically Christian ethos, might help the Christian community find ways of more faithfully caring for God's earth.' (2)
The Tri-circle Pavilion serves as an architecturally inspired meditation on eco-ecclesiology and an orthodoxy of practice. It was conceptualised by Rev Roger D. Hudson and designed by local East London architect and one of the founders of Gqunube Green, Dave Muller.The design itself has already received international recognition as a leading sustainable design.
It consists of three overlapping circles. The one is a rammed-earth structure which serves as a church / pavilion and the second circle contains an organic vegetable and healing garden. The third circle is a cattle kraal. These equal sized circles 'affirm the equality of the natural realm with that of the human in God's eyes.' (3) The three circles also symbolise people, planet and profit. Social capital, natural capital and economic capital must be equally considered if we are to live sustainably in God's Kingdom.
The design also 'affirms the unity of the spiritual and the material, rejecting the dualistic world view of the West that separates the two with catastrophic consequences for creation.' (4) The three circles also symbolize the Trinity. No dangerous pantheism here!
At the centre, where the three circles overlap, is a fountain. The overlaps also create three fish, reminding us of the early secret symbol for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.
The exciting thing is that the design of the church enables these insights to be experiential rather than simply intellectual!
A transcript of the sermon preached by retired Anglican Bishop, Eric Pike at the dedication service follows.
(1) Rev Roger D. Hudson, Eco-Ecclesiology, http://www.gqunubegreen.org
(2) Rev Roger D. Hudson, Eco-Ecclesiology, http://www.gqunubegreen.org
(3) Rev Roger D. Hudson, Eco-Ecclesiology, http://www.gqunubegreen.org
(4) Rev Roger D. Hudson, Eco-Ecclesiology, http://www.gqunubegreen.org
As I've spent time with you over the past weekend I've been reminded of a picture that I have of Hilda's great Celtic Monastery at Whitby in the 7th – 8th Centuries. Unfortunately the picture that many people have of a monastery is that of a huge stone structure with cloisters and spires. But the Celtic monasteries were nothing like that Hilda's 'double' monastery at Whitby was more like a village. There would have been simple timber and daub houses, workshops and animal enclosures with agricultural activity all around. In the centre there would have been a low timber and daub building, large enough to accommodate the community in worship. There was no great wall surrounding the community but a ditch to stop the animals from straying. It was an open and welcoming, self sustaining, village community.
But there was an essential difference from other villages. Hilda's was a village of God. And for everyone associated with Whitby;
In their waking and sleeping
In their rising and working
In their raising of children and in their ministry to the sick
In their care for their flocks and their herds
All was couched in their sense of the presence and worship of God.
This was reflected in that;
There were prayers for every aspect of the day
For the whole community, this village of God
Prayers for rising and prayers at the end of the day
Prayers for milking and prayers for damping down the fire at night
Prayers for fanning the fire into fire in the morning
Prayers for planting and prayers for harvesting
Their Christianity was a way of life
Informed by the Scriptures and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
As I've spent time with you at Gqunube Green this weekend it seems to me that you are creating a 21st century model with, for me, striking similarities to Hilda's Village of God. Gqunube Green is indeed, for me, a splendid expression of what Christians ought to be planting around the globe.
I do indeed praise God for what I see here.
I want you now to reflect with me on some verses of Psalm 104 in which the Psalmist, I believe, speaks of Three Mysteries. In verses 1-5 we read:
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord my God, though art very great!
Thou art clothed with honour and majesty,
who coverest thyself with light as with a garment,
who hast stretched out the heavens like a tent,
who hast laid the beams of thy chambers on the waters,
who makest the clouds thy chariot,
who ridest on the wings of the wind,
who makest the winds thy messengers,
fire and flame thy ministers.
Thou didst set the earth on its foundations,
So that it should never be shaken.
These verses speak to me both of the pre eminence of God yet of his presence in Creation. The writer is trying, in words, to describe a mystery. The creator God who is so great and majestic, who (vs1) 'is clothed with splendour and majesty', yet who chooses to be present in his creation. The one upon whom the whole creation depends chooses to live amongst those whom he has created.
The Celtic Church of the 5th – 7th Centuries, from which I draw much of my inspiration emphasised, not only our essential goodness but also an awareness, that all created things carry within them something of the grace and goodness of God. So Patrick is able to write:
I bind unto myself this day
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun's life-giving ray
The whiteness of the moon at even
The flashing of the lightening free,
The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.
As the Psalmist sees God 'stretching out the heavens like a tent', so Patrick sees something of the virtue of God in the 'starlit heaven'. The Psalmist sees God 'riding on the wings of the wind' and who, 'makes the winds his messengers'. While Patrick binds unto himself, `the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks'. There is in Patrick's mind a vital connection between the material and the spiritual. That somehow there is within the created order something of the `uncreated' …God himself.
There is, as Tom Wright puts it, an overlapping and inter-connection between earth and heaven . The two, earth and heaven, are intertwined.
And so Patrick could write:
Christ be with me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ before me,
Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ in quiet,
Christ in danger,
Christ in the hearts of all that love me,
Christ in the mouth of friend and stranger.
This mystery of the God who is pre-eminent, who is above and beyond, who, as the Psalmist says; 'is clothed with splendour and majesty', who, 'rides on the wings of the wind' yet who is present and among us.
Eriugena, another Celtic scholar of the 6th Century had a lovely way of explaining this 'mystery' of God's presence in his creation when he wrote:
'Christ moves among us in two shoes, as it were, one shoe being that of creation the other that of the scriptures', and stressed the need to be as alert and attentive to Christ moving among us in creation as we are to the voice of Christ in the Scriptures.
It is this mystery that I see you seeking to express in Gqunube Green. Your village of God.
The second mystery is that of God's provision.
In Psalm 104 verses 10-23 we read,
Thou makest springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills,
they give drink to every beast of the field;
the wild asses quench their thirst.
By them the birds of the air have their habitation;
They sing among the branches.
From thy lofty abode thou waterest the mountains;
The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy work.
Thou dost cause the grass to grow for the cattle
And plants for man to cultivate,
That he may bring forth food from the earth,
And wine to gladden the heart of man,
Oil to make his face shine,
And bread to strengthen man's heart.
The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,
The cedars of Lebanon which he planted.
In them the birds build their nests;
The stork has her home in the fir trees.
The high mountains are for the wild goats;
The rocks are a refuge for the badgers.
Thou hast made the moon to mark the seasons;
The sun knows its time for setting.
Thou makest darkness, and it is night,
When all the beasts of the forest creep forth.
The young lions roar for their prey,
Seeking their food from God.
When the sun rises, they get them away
And lie down in their dens.
Man goes forth to his work
And to his labour until the evening.
What a beautiful and amazing picture of God's provision for his creation. Not only does he provide an orbit for the moon and planets, but also the water that pours forth into the ravines. Plants for man to cultivate together with wine and oil and bread to bless and to sustain him. A habitat for the birds, the wild goats and the beasts to prowl the forests, even the lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. An incredible sense of harmony, interdependence and dependence upon God.
And that's the picture we have from way back in Genesis where within the wonder of creation God gives dominion to humankind:
Genesis 1; 27 – 28….. 'fill and subdue' ….. 'rule over/have dominion'
Sadly we, humans, have failed to understand what God intended when he gave us dominion/ authority to rule.
In the Hebrew mind the one who had dominion, who ruled………….; The king was to mediate God's blessing, but far from mediating God's blessing upon creation we've raped and abused God's creation. We've exploited the poor and through our greed we've squandered God's resources. We've violated that special relationship that God intended for us to have within his creation, but, praise God, I see you at Gqunube Green seeking to restore that proper relationship between God and the whole of his creation. To mediate the creator's blessing upon that which he has created.
Then, finally, the third mystery. The mystery of God's purpose
Verses 33-34 read:
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. (5)
Within the wonder of God's creation his purpose is that we might live 'for the praise of his glory'. We are called to be part of the great choir/chorus of praise offered by the whole creation to almighty God. In Psalm 104; 35 the Psalmist indicates that God has little time for those who would not see and respond to his glory.
Of course, building community is not easy. Seek God's grace that as you reflect on His Pre eminence and Presence, Provision and Purpose.
As you build here, at Gqunube Green, a 21st Century 'Village of God.'
If you are interested in Gqunube Green Eco-village and would like to get involved in their programmes or be part of this intentional community contact:
Stephan van Wyk
Managing Director
D.T. Hudson Christian Eco-village Trust
0824147750
www.gqunubegreen.org
(5) Revised Standard Version
Notes: