Those Clever Swiss!

Not long ago we were visited by a friend from Switzerland, his first time in Canada. As he awaited his return flight he texted us from the airport. He was bewildered by the menu at Swiss Chalet, which contained nothing that was even vaguely Swiss! Where do we begin in "splainin?"

Yesterday we decided that it was "any chalet in a storm" after a busy two weeks with family. As the server brought our water I noticed that there were no plastic straws brought automatically, which we always politely refuse. When I inquired about this she told us that they are only provided on request now, and that they are transitioning to paper. We reviewed our table settings and realized that there was no single-use plastic and next to no disposable items, which was good for a semi-fast food experience. The same can't be said for their take-out which we've agreed we won't do anymore.

While my dearly departed mother was in her last hours in November we slipped out for a quick meal at MacDonald's, which I've been boycotting because they won't put coffee in a refillable thermal mug. Since we were eating there I asked that my orange juice not have a plastic lid, only to be told by the cashier and then the manager they couldn't do for "safety reasons." I calmly challenged the friendly manager on this rather silly company policy (I didn't use those words) given growing concerns about plastic waste. Someone nearby piped up and said this was a good point and he admitted that a container of juice wasn't the same as a cup of hot coffee -- don't get me started!

I figure that every day I need to figure out how to create less consumer waste, knowing what ends up in our lakes and oceans and just about everywhere else. We know that the recycling bin is not the answer, even though it may assuage our guilt. As a global citizen and a creation-care Christian it is a matter of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, with the first two coming first in practice.

A Voyage of Discovery

HMS Beagle

"There is grandeur in this view of life ...
from so simple a beginning,
endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been,
and are being, evolved."

Charles Darwin

In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950),
my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed
 that there is no conflict between evolution
and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation,
provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points.

Pope John Paul II 1996

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the departure in 1831 of the HMS Beagle on an epic voyage with Charles Darwin aboard. Darwin spent two months in Devonport, England, waiting for the weather to improve so that the Beagle could begin its journey to South America. Darwin later wrote that those two months were "The most miserable which I ever spent." I've visited this harbour but wasn't aware that it was the site for the beginning of such a world-changing voyage.



Darwin's daughter, Annie, died shortly after her 10th birthday;
he was too overcome with grief to attend her funeral.

You may be aware that Darwin's Christian faith evaporated after the death of a daughter, although his wife Emma remained devout throughout her lifetime. Darwin may have held back on publishing his controversial theory of evolution for twenty years because he didn't want to offend Emma, whom he loved greatly.

While some fundamentalist Christians are adamant about a six-day Creation, the majority of Christians now choose to accept evolution even as they affirm God as Creator. I'm one of them and it is certainly part of the United Church ethos.  It interesting that the first Roman Catholic statement about this reconciliation was made in 1950. Here is a portion of the Song of Faith "creed" of the United Church of Canada.

God is creative and self-giving,
   generously moving
   in all the near and distant corners of the universe.
Nothing exists that does not find its source in God.
Our first response to God’s providence is gratitude.
We sing thanksgiving.

Finding ourselves in a world of beauty and mystery,
   of living things, diverse and interdependent,
   of complex patterns of growth and evolution,
   of subatomic particles and cosmic swirls,
we sing of God the Creator,
the Maker and Source of all that is.

A Song of Faith United Church of Canada

 

 

Father Christmas &...the Beavers?

 Pauline Baynes

Beavers are part of the Christmas story, right? They are if you've read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, the classic Narnia children's book by C S Lewis. You might recall that on their way to Aslan, the Lion Christ figure of the series of novels, Mr and Mrs Beaver shelter the Pevensy children in their lodge. Then they venture out together and encounter Father Christmas. He gives presents to all, and his appearance is a sign that the witch's control over Narnia is slipping. The Beavers and the children arrive safely at Aslan's camp near the Stone Table, as the Witch's magic weakens further and the snow gradually melts.

When I read these books as a child and young adult and then with my children it didn't occur to me that beavers were anything but a fanciful element in Lewis' Narnia, a parallel world to 1950's Britain. Beavers were native to England and Scotland but wiped out by the 16th century.

In recent years beavers have been reintroduced to both countries because they are important animals for creating and maintaining wetlands which are home to a variety of bird, animal, and insect species. In Scotland they are a protected species but not everyone is happy to have them around because they are "destructive," which in some people's eyes is cutting down trees and flooding land. In the United Kingdom, as with Canada, it is establishing the right balance between this species and ours. When we lived in Northern Ontario the collapse of beaver dams led to road flooding and train track collapse on occasion. Yet there is great value to ecosystems in having beavers around.

Beavers teetered on extinction in Canada as well, almost extirpated by a frenzied fur trade that supplied --you guessed it -- England. I'm pleased to say that we've seen several in recent weeks on our rambles.

So, forget the "ox and ass" of Christmas Nativity legend (no animals are mentioned in the gospels) and think Father Christmas and the Beaver family.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/21/scotland-must-commit-to-helping-beavers-make-a-comeback?CMP=share_btn_fb

https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/our-positions-and-casework/our-positions/species/beaver-reintroduction-in-the-uk/

Peace, Joy and...Snow

A Y Jackson

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

 For you shall go out in joy,
    and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
    shall burst into song,
    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
    instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
    for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

 

Isaiah 55: 10-13(NRSV) 

The forecast calls for two to four centimetres of snow for Christmas Eve day -- not even two inches -- but I will be mollified if it actually happens. We had a significant snowfall in November and that raised my hopes for true Winter activity but all that is long gone. There is plenty of scientific evidence for climate change but the grey, snowless pre-Christmas reality of Southern Ontario is a dreary statement about the new normal.

When we were at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg recently there was a delightful display of Winter scenes by Canadian artists in an entrance gallery, including works by A Y Jackson of the Group of Seven. I've mentioned before that I'm ancient enough to have met Jackson as a boy. He was living with the McMichael's at that time and would sit in a cozy corner as visitors passed by. Jackson was a master at capturing the essence of Winter as he tramped about Quebec, often on snowshoes (his are pictured here.) He was fondly known as Pere Raquette (Father Shoeshoe.)


There isn't a lot of snow in the bible, for obvious reasons, but it is mentioned several times and readers must have known what it was. Jerusalem get the occasional dusting, which quickly disappears. It is usually a metaphor for purity and washing away sin. I like this reference from Isaiah where it represents God's replenishing promise, as well as both joy and peace which are key aspects of the Advent season.

I suppose that my Christmas gift wish that the human race is sane enough to address climate change so that we will always enjoy a fresh fall of snow in these parts. I also accept chocolate.



A Y Jackson

Darkness & Light, Solstice & Christmas

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.

 

Isaiah 9:2  (NRSV)

Sometimes I'm not sure whether a blog entry should be Lion Lamb or Groundling, so I cheat and use the same text for both of them. This is one of those days!

Earlier this year Canadian writing celeb Margaret Atwood and partner Graeme Gibson visited Newgrange in Ireland. It would have been much more difficult for them to do so yesterday, the Winter Solstice, because a small group of people chosen by lottery were the only ones allowed to be present as a ray of light illuminated the inner chamber of this Neolithic tomb. The monumental Newgrange was only rediscovered and excavated in the 1960's but it's estimated to be 3200 years old -- older than portions of Stonehenge. Well, yesterday there was no sunlight and so no illumination for those chosen from 28,000 applicants.


Inside Newgrange

There are Christians who would cringe at the popularity of this pagan site, although it's likely that it was built for a religious purpose. And yet we know that our celebration of Christmas happens in December because of the Roman celebration of the solstice, Saturnalia, which was a public festival which was a time for feasting, goodwill, generosity to the poor, the exchange of gifts and the decoration of trees -- sound familiar? Jesus was likely born in the Spring of the year but the early Christians adopted this festival as their own.

There is something to be said for acknowledging the wonder of changing seasons, the tides, the movement of Sun and Moon and planets in their orbits. If the Jesus we follow and worship was aware of all of these rhythms during his Earthly existence, we can be as well.

I would much rather intertwine my celebration of Christ's birth with these rhythms than have the Incarnation coopted by commercialism. How about you?

Stonehenge

Human Extinction and Joy to the World

New Creed illustration Gary Crawford

Joy to the world! the Lord is come:
 let earth receive her King!
 Let every heart prepare him room,
 and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing,
 and heaven, and heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth! the Saviour reigns:
 let all their songs employ,
 while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
 repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy,
 repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

                        ************************

 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but may have eternal life.

                   John 3:16 (NRSV)

 Have you ever wondered whether the planet would be better off without humans? There are 7.7 billion of us and that's just too many, given that we a greedy bunch when it comes to consumption of the world's resources. We fight a lot and our arrogance is seemingly unbridled. Little wonder that we have been described by some pessimists as a "weed species."

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times is provocatively titled Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?: Our species possesses inherent value, but we are devastating the earth and causing unimaginable animal suffering. It's written by Todd May, a professor of philosophy at Clemson University. Early on in the piece he posits:

...what I am asking here is simply whether it would be a tragedy if the planet no longer contained human beings. And the answer I am going to give might seem puzzling at first. I want to suggest, at least tentatively, both that it would be a tragedy and that it might just be a good thing.

The rest is worth considering and I'll leave it to you to read it, should you choose to do so.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/opinion/human-extinction-climate-change.html

As I read I thought of this season and the strange and wonderful contention that the God who brought the cosmos and the planets of our solar system, including Earth, into being also choose to enter humanity as a child. The incarnation is a stretch, granted, but also remarkably affirming of human existence. Not only has God entered Creation in the person of Jesus, the Christ, this is the source of joy for everything that lives.

On my cynical days I figure that God should smite us all, ala Noah and the ark. And it does seem that we are a "self-smiting" species, unable to stop ourselves from destruction. In the end, though, I'll celebrate God-with-us, praise my Maker, and live with respect in Creation.

In Search of the Christmas Tree

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree
How lovely are thy branches
O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree
How lovely are thy branches

There are legends upon legends about the origins of Christmas trees in the Christian tradition. One attributes the first tree to Martin Luther but there is plenty of evidence that they were in use for hundreds of years before Marty got in trouble with the pope. We know that Roman solstice celebrations were coopted by the early Christians to celebrate Jesus' birth and that may be where the trees originated as well.

Hey, does it really matter? Word on the GTA streets is that it's tough for procrastinators to find a real tree this year with many lots already sold out. A number of reasons are cited including a swing back to trees that actually grew out-of-doors rather than plastic. The argument is that actual trees are healthier for the environment even though the plastic versions may be more convenient and actually look quite life-like now. Some of you may remember the aluminum versions that were popular in the late 50's until the mid-60's. What a strange trend that was. I wonder if there is anyone left who still deploys one of those abominations at Christmas?



We still choose a real tree as an annual test of the strength of our marriage (kidding) and a bunch of other reasons, including the scent. The Creator God is the source of our senses, including smell, and what is more fragrant that a fresh-cut fir?

Most years we arrange for Christmas wreaths created in Nova Scotia to be sent to a couple of households. There is always a delighted response from recipients, in no small part because of the fragrance as the box is opened.

Thank God for the gift of the sense of smell and for all that Christmas trees evoke for us as we celebrate the birth of Christ. And, yes, we got our tree a week ago from the same folks we've purchased from for six years now.

The Star of Wonder & Light Trespass

 

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth

 

    O Holy Night

 

O star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy perfect light.

 

    We Three Kings

 

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

 

    O Little Town of Bethlehem

Some of you will know from bitter(ly cold) experience that I inherited a tradition of going outside to sing Silent Night with candles in hand at the conclusion of Christmas Eve services in Sudbury. I can't recall looking upward but it probably would have been disappointing because it was a downtown church and there was plenty of street lighting. The same was true in Halifax, although in both Bowmanville and Belleville there were magical moments on the church steps when the stars shone brightly.

Stars are a biggie in Christmas and Epiphany carols, as you can see in the lyrics above. They were natural witnesses to an extraordinary birth according to scripture and song. Sadly, we can't really see them anymore thanks to excessive lighting in urban areas, and we are hardly aware of what we've lost. When we were in a fairly remote spot on the south shore of Nova Scotia this past October we had some amazing experiences of the night sky, including the Draconid meteor shower. These were opportunities for spacious wonder.



Enter a Canadian company which is manufacturing a line of  "dark sky" street lights. Lumican describes these lights as having low blue content and a warm amber colour and have full cut off shields that direct and shape the light to illuminate only where intended. Their literature speaks of addressing "light trespass" which is a great term. The "trespass" of light can ruin a decent night's sleep and make us physically sick as a consequence, not to mention psychologically ill. Spiritually ill as well?

There in nothing in Lumican's advertising that offers to make Christmas Eve a holier night but maybe they can add this pitch to the advantages of their lighting!

http://lumican.com/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkart/2018/05/23/dark-sky-friendly-lighting-lets-you-see-the-stars/#69691c467c3e

Raven Power

Who provides for the raven its prey,
    when its young ones cry to God,
    and wander about for lack of food?

                         Job 38:41

When we visited Iceland a couple of years ago we visited a spot where glacial ice had flowed out to sea along a river then was pushed back onto the beach. Not only was the contrast with the black volcanic sand striking, I caught this raven in flight.

I am quite taken with crows, ravens, and other corvids including jays. They are smart, opportunistic, and can thrive just about anywhere on the planet. It appears that ravens have a sense of humour which you have to admire.



I enjoyed a recent CBC interview with the Raven Master of the Tower of London, Christopher Skaife, who seems delightfully raven-like himself. He reckons that he has the best job in the world, one which he alone can claim, apparently. He finds the birds fascinating and says that he learns from them, even as he provides care. Their presence is traditionally believed to protect the British Crown and the tower. The legend is that "if the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it"

Of course there are ravens aplenty in the bible, at least in the Older Testament. The first bird mentioned by species in the bible is the raven of Noah's Ark and ravens feed the prophet Elijah in the wilderness. When God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind God reminds him in the form of a rhetorical question that God feeds all creatures, including the young ravens.

In Haida culture, the raven is the most powerful of mythical creatures and is the Trickster. Bill Reid's 1980 sculpture of The Raven and the First Men depicts the story of human creation. According to Haida legend, the Raven found himself alone one day on a Haida Gwaii beach (also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands). He saw an extraordinary clamshell and protruding from it were a number of small human beings. The Raven coaxed them to leave the shell to join him in his wonderful world. Some of the humans were hesitant at first, but they were overcome by curiosity and eventually emerged from the partly open giant clamshell to become the first Haida.

 

I figure that this is a time for the church of Christ to be raven-like in our playfulness and willing to explore new possibilities for the community of faith and all of Creation. It's the reason my personal letterhead has a raven in flight and the verse from Genesis which says  ^"and [God] sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth." Even if we aren't the ones to experience the fullness of a new way of being, we can be "ravenous" in our commitment to God's intention.

The Border Wall & All God's Creatures

All earth is waiting to see the Promised One,
And open furrows await the seed of God.
All the world, bound and struggling,
Seeks true liberty, it cries out for justice
And searches for the truth.

Thus says the Prophet to those of Israel:
A virgin mother will bear Emanuel,
One whose Name is, God With Us.
Our Savior shall be through whom
Hope will blossom once more in our hearts.

Mountains and valleys will have to be made plain.
Open new highways for our God.
Who now comes closer for all to see.
Open the doorways wide as can be.

In lowly stable the Promised One appeared.
We feel his presence on earth today.
For Christ lives in us, and is with us now
Again on arriving, Christ brings us liberty.

In today's Lion Lamb blog I write about the challenges Donald Trump is experiencing squeezing five billion dollars out of American legislators to build a border wall with Mexico. This may be another failure for The Donald, poor guy.

I note that this reluctance may sound like welcome news but the "build a wall" mentality has seeped into American sensibilities in a profound way. Hearts have been hardened to the extent that millions, including many Christians (?) have accepted that taking young children from the parents of migrants and incarcerating thousands of refugee teens in a facility designed for a few hundred is acceptable. Not only is the proposed wall inhumane, it would have a profound effect on other creatures as well, including the denizens of the National Butterfly Center. Here is a portion of a piece in The Guardian:

On any given day at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, visitors can see more than 60 varieties of butterflies. In the spring and fall, monarchs and other species can blanket the center’s 100 acres of subtropical bushlands that extend from the visitor center to to the banks of the Rio Grande river, where their property, and US sovereignty, ends.
“It’s like something from Fantasia,” said the center’s director, Marianna Wright. “When you walk you have to cover your mouth so you don’t suck in a butterfly...”

“...Border walls are death sentences for wildlife and humans alike,” said Amanda Munro of the Southwest Environmental Center, an organization that works to restore and protect native wildlife and habitats. “They block wild animals from accessing the food, water and mates they need to survive. They weaken genetic diversity, fragment habitat, and trap animals in deadly floods. At the same time, they drive desperate asylum seekers to risk their lives in the unforgiving desert.”

One of my favourite Advent hymns is All Earth is Waiting which offers a vision of a world in which the Promised One, Jesus the Christ, is Good News for all of Creation. I pray that hope will blossom, doorways will be opened wide, and the wall will not be built.

The Lorax & the COP24 Rule Book

Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid,
for the LORD GOD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

 And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name;
make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted.

 Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously;
let this be known in all the earth.

 Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

                            Isaiah 12:2-6

Early this morning one of our grandlads asked me to read him The Lorax, the classic Dr. Seuss story of the madness of unchecked consumerism and environmental destruction, as well as a plea to act on behalf of Creation. It's a book I've used with adults but its been a while since I read it aloud.

How appropriate that this was his choice given the announcement that after extending the international climate change conference called COP24 for a tense day more than 200 countries have signed on --barely -- to an implementation agreement for 2015 Paris Accord guidelines. This "rule book" as its being called is not binding, so God only knows where this will go, but we can hope that it is better than nothing. Countries did agree on most of the tricky elements of the rulebook including how governments will measure, report on and verify their emissions-cutting efforts. This will ensure that all countries are held to proper standards and will find it harder to renege on their commitments.

One of the readings for this Joy Sunday in Advent speaks of drawing water from the wells of salvation and praise throughout the Earth. We can pray that our sadness will be turned to joy for the planet as a result of what leaders decided today.

Watsa Wassail?

British Wassailers

Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green;
Here we come a-wand'ring
So fair to be seen.

REFRAIN:

 Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too;
And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year
And God send you a Happy New Year. Our wassail cup is made
Of the rosemary tree,
And so is your beer
Of the best barley.

REFRAIN

If only I'd known years ago. This is the jaunty song that North Americans usually sing as Here We Come a-Caroling (if at all) with the refrain line "Love and joy come to you, and a merry Christmas too." Why change it? Well most of us wouldn't know a wassail from a weasel, so this is a more comprehensible if less intriguing alternative.

According to that unimpeachable source, Wikipedia, the word wassail comes from the Anglo-Saxon greeting Wæs þu hæl, meaning "be thou hale"—i.e., “be in good health”. The correct response to the greeting is Drinc hæl meaning "drink and be healthy".

There were two forms of wassailing during Yuletide, the house-to-house visiting and good cheer tradition and "the ancient custom of visiting orchards in cider-producing regions of England, reciting incantations and singing to the trees to promote a good harvest for the coming year."

What?! The former sounds a lot like the delightful Newfoundland tradition of mummering, which I've written about in the past. The latter intrigues me greatly. What a wonderful notion of standing in an orchard or perhaps a forest and singing to the trees.

There is a recent article in the Christian Century by Terra Brockman about their family celebration of this ancient spiritual practice of gratitude. She offers:

This is the tradition that my sister Teresa had us revive. First we make a big pot of wassail using this past season’s apple cider. Then as midnight draws near we bundle everyone up, and traipse out of the house, with the kids leading the way and the adults bringing up the rear with a jug of steaming wassail and a bag full of pieces of bread.

Last year, although the mercury was hovering at zero, and the barren trees cast stark shadows, we laughed all the way from the house to the old orchard at the crest of the hill. Once there, we placed cider-soaked pieces of bread on the bare branches for the birds, thought to be good spirits, while the kids banged pots and pans to ward off the bad ones. Then we poured some wassail at the base of each tree, formed a circle, and sang an early American version of the old wassail song:

Let every man take off his hat
And shout out to th’old apple tree:
Old Apple tree, old apple tree;
We’ve come to wassail thee,
Hoping thou wilt bear
Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full;
And a little heap under the stairs.

For a decade we lived in apple country around Bowmanville and a couple in the congregation gave us a bushel of apples at Christmas every year. If I had known I would have arranged to have a congregational wassail. There are orchards in Prince Edward County, so I'll have to do some scheming.

Thanks to Terra and CCfor this enlightenment. Now to find some of those incantations...



Wassailing, the winter ritual of expressing gratitude to the plants and animals who provide us with sustenance, at an orchard. Photo © Transition Brockley via Creative Commons license.

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/first-person/why-we-wassail

The Children of COP24

 "You are not mature enough to tell it like it is.
Even that burden you leave to us children."

Greta Thunberg

 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

 His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear;  but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

 The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.

Isaiah 11:1-6

International climate change conferences are baffling entities, bringing together thousands of representatives from governments which often seem reluctant to make bold decisions or are deliberately obstructive. At COP24, now drawing to a close in Poland, four countries, including the United States and Saudi Arabia, have refused to endorse an important United Nations report on the catastrophic prospects of climate change. It's obvious that these countries have no intention of doing anything which would affect current prosperity for the sake of a better future.

A bright light at COP24 are the children and young people who are raising their voices about their immediate future. One of them is a 15-year-old from Sweden who has a Pippy Longstockings look to her. During her time in Katowice Greta Thunberg has addressed the Secretary-General of the United Nations, spoken at a panel hosted by the World Bank, and received a standing ovation at the Action Hub, an amphitheater set up by the host for less formal discussion.

Greta ended up in Poland because for the past few months, she has left school every Friday to sit outside the Swedish parliament building in Stockholm, conducting a sometimes solitary protest against her government’s slow movement on climate change.  She was inspired by the national student walkout in the U.S. earlier this year in response to school shootings.

She isn't done. Greta has called for an international school strike today to draw attention to climate change. I have no idea if this will get any traction but it really is remarkable that this teen is able to stir international interest to what should be a subject and conference of pressing concern for the planet.

 Peaceable Kingdom Edward Hicks

Christians are fond of quoting the prophetic voice of Isaiah as a prediction of the coming of Jesus as the Promised One who comes as a child. This reading for Isaiah 11 is often part of the Advent season for that reason. We might also ask how God works through the openness and honesty of children to bring about shalom for the planet, the "peaceable kingdom" of hope, peace, joy and love for all living creatures. We need to share their prophetic vision.



Polish Student Strikers at COP24 today