Pointing the finger but ...

… three are pointing back at ourselves!

The problem, as I see it, as that we always see ourselves as so virtuous, so very angelic, so very right. We always see ourselves as God’s gift to humanity, as our way of life as being so good and our political system so perfect it must be forced on the pagans in their darkness and unbelief.

Our culture, based for many centuries on the Bible and Judeo/Christian values must prevail throughout the world.  It alone is true and every other faith and way of doing things is plain false or, at least, less than the best.

And, then, when the Lord says go into all the world to make disciples of every nation, this gives us further reason to get every other tribe and nation to renounce/repent of their false faith and their incorrect way of doing things and to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ and democracy and education for girls.

Knowing this, it is hardly surprising that the Christians see Islam as another false faith and regard godless Communism as also evil - both to be defeated by a belief that the ends justify the means.  Therefore, as that born again believer, GW Bush said when President in 2001, in the wake of 9/11, the righteous West must conduct "a crusade" against the forces of darkness that is all things Muslim and Islamic.

First, it was thoroughly nasty Nazism that came out of a democratic and Christian nation; then Communism that came out of a totalitarian and oppressive loving nation; now, it is vicious Islam that speaks of violence and of killing as many unbelievers as they have time for (or, so we mistakenly think!).

Yet, what is our track record like when it comes to being ever onward Christian soldiers marching as to war and, far too often, actually to war?  Absolutely abysmal … !

Humanity is such a disgrace on the face of this poor planet that the sooner the ecocide madness we are indulging in is concluded the better!  The planet will go merrily on its way without the burden of 7 billion people all fighting each other for supremacy and domination of the other, for the remaining resources, water and fertile land.

"Jesus wants to save Christians" - book review

"JESUS WANTS TO SAVE CHRISTIANS" - FROM BEING EXILED by Rob Bell

To be like Jesus is a tall order but not so impossible if Rob Bell could have been a little more outspoken about us all renouncing the attacks, the occupations, the aggressions, the sheer violence of our descendants and, now, ourselves - on other nations.  The Church in exile is the church wrapped in the devil's arms of violence; it should be noted for its non-violence.

Jesus wants to save Christians to be more like Him in the way He renounced empire building in His first temptation.  Rob omits to remind his readers that the Christian West has been at the forefront of taking and taking over countries to be all their own - called colonialism.  Now the religious, God fearing, USA is the largest empire on earth.  The Church in exile is the church in unholy empire of being on the take; of being in domination.  Not quite what Jesus intended!

"Man shall not live by bread alone".  Yet, the Church has done just that in grabbing what and who it can while the going was good.  Not just land and fossil fuels but slaves to make us rich beyond what humanity has ever seen before.  We are now turning, transforming, the stones of rare minerals and a host of other finite resources to live it up to bring today's comfort and riches.  But bread for the poor and future generations is overlooked, ignored, forgotten.  Including the stones of fossil fuels and all finite raw materials.

Is this not what Jesus also wants to save Christians from in order to be more like the Man God who rejected what we never, ever reject?

Rob - You have more to include in the next edition, please!

Letter to sister Jude

Dear Jude

What on earth was she (the petition organiser) doing bringing four children into the world at a time of living on the environmental knife edge (She wrote, "We are currently living on an environmental knife edge and this backward step will be damaging to our future.")  We have rising populations, decreasing/depleting sources of energy and renewables even being opposed by many that, anyway, will never be sufficient to meet an ever rising demand for elecy.  The UK's energy gap is an uncomfortable reality, as we now have to scrabble on world markets for depleting gas reserves.

People in Halesowen are still buying 150 watt incandescent bulbs in our local Smiths electrical shop!  The well lagged with clothing shop owner, right now, is pouring out electricity from fan heaters with his doors open wide with a bitterly cold east wind blowing in.  I got nowhere in a brief conversation, even when he knew people should not be buying very wasteful 'E' energy rated bulbs.  He refuses to no longer stock them to stop them buying the things.  He refuses to close his doors to boost his profits - insanity.  We live in a mad, mad world!  What on earth was our perfect God doing when he knew we humans would turn out so imperfectly - and all made in his image, too?!

I despair of the future and I am only too glad I am no younger than I am!

Scrappage scheme for planet Earth!

We can scrap, use and waste resources until we are blue in the face. We humans are the king pins on this planet and we can do what the hell we like because we are in control. We can rip through our remaining oil and gas and coal reserves, regardless 'cos we must have unlimited growth and expansion to allow for our love of living way beyond our means, our limits and our boundaries.

We are entitled to have as many babies as we like and to consume just as much as we like, with no holds barred. How dare these greens tell us that living infinitely on a finite planet is not a good idea. Of course we are not part of nature or part of the web of life, as these greens tell us. We are the top dogs on the planet and what we say goes. We can live unnaturally on a natural earth. Our science and technology and new inventions will save us from our excesses.

Carry on regardless, scrapping perfectly good cars. Waste is what we do. Unstoppable growth of people and the products they want is what we do and nothing can possibly stop us. Over-consumption and over-population does not matter and, anyway, is none of my responsibility. I'm going to continue to live it up today and to hell with tomorrow. Scrap the lot of 'em - ten years or ten months old - build in obsolescence and, build bigger, newer and faster - and, ever more humans on planet earth, for good measure. It won't run out of precious resources or habitable land - will it?!

We're not disrupting life-support systems. Are we?

We're not scrapping life on earth. Are we? Only cars, after all.

This I Believe

Faith is very much part of the problem when even Bible-believing Christians insist that when the Lord comes again He will make a new heaven and a new earth and all will be well. It leads to complacency and a carry on regardless mindset when our lifestyles - our numbers and our activities - are putting the planet's life support systems under such strain.

For them, catastrophic climate change already affecting the poor nations, together with the fast melting of the Arctic ice and, resource depletion just does not impinge upon the far greater issue of an eternity with the Lord. Everything else - even ecocide - pales into insignificance when compared with making disciples, of saving souls, winning all who are to be saved for the Kingdom in the end days. However, this is no longer an adequate response, in my opinion.

Not adequate because our extravagant lifestyles - and warfare, for that matter (Armageddon in the Middle East is biblical and essential and fully supported by the righteous of the Lord, who do so like to help things along!) - is seen as much amongst the Lord's faithful as it is amongst everyone else. There is no difference. Complacency - and scepticism that we need to change our behaviours - is as prevalent amongst the Lord's saved as it is amongst the rest. In fact, for the Lord's people, the certainty of His return takes away any urgency to do anything about over-filling the earth with humans and subduing it to leave less and less in the way of essential resources and habitable land.

Open letter on living it up for ever and a day!

WARNING! This is my green propaganda, green economics coming out as I
munch my lunch!

Thanks for the thoughts, Colin, from Newsnight.

I have not heard that speculators and the work of OPEC are responsible for
the 12p/litre price difference between petrol and diesel. I have heard
that it is due to the greater demand for diesel than petrol and greater
difficulties in processing diesel compared with petrol. As regards oil in
general, experts on Radio 4 news programmes have mentioned speculators as
being partly to blame, as well as supply/demand problems.

Far safer to take home the message of rising prices that the more we
conserve the stuff through keeping to speed limits, cycling and
driving/flying less, the more we will keep prices down and preserve the
planet's wealth.

Far more sensible to assume that we may be approaching peak oil plateau and
take the green message that money and energy do not grow on trees, more
seriously. The problem is that none of us want to change our lifestyles
and patterns of behaviour until we are forced to! I certainly don't want
to give up my Scottish car camping holidays in Scotland in April and May
every year. But, as you so rightly put it at Llanrug, fuel rationing must
be introduced for the good of all of us and future generations.

I am now writing about fuel rationing being more important than congestion
charging and, rationing as an essential part of making all life last that
little bit longer.

All the best

Tim

PS The first law of capitalism and of conventional economic wisdom is that
we must rip into all finite resources as if they are infinite.
The second law is that you live only for the present and pay no regard over
our future prospects.
The third law is that you don't cost in anything like the full or complete
or external costs of our exploitation of our one off cornucopia of
resources.

It is a live now pay later economics where the message of ever rising
prices for food, fuel and everything else has no bearing on our over
consumption, over population, over reaching of ourselves. We just carry on
over doing it without any acknowledgement that the complacent and careless, "You've never
had it so good" bonanza may have something to do with it!

Our leaders and the people are all in denial, I think!

Pure, unadulterated genius!

My compliment to the person who chose such a simply brave but meaningful and short title for a major Roman Catholic conference in Manchester. "LIVESIMPLY!" was the title to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the papal encyclical 'Populorum Progressio' (On the Development of Peoples).

The challenge to livesimply "is this generation's response to the document and the values it embodied", according to the event booklet. That 1967 document commands: - sharing the earth's resources with all; there is more to progress than economic growth; free trade can only work well between two equal partners; justice and the removal of the over-rich and the over-poor must be the basis of peace with justice; a duty to be of service to all, especially generations to come; dialogue between the wealthy and those in need; and, education to feed the mind.

This conference summarised the document for today as live simply, live sustainably and live in solidarity with the poor. For me, living simply is the perfect summary for living sustainably and, for standing alongside the poor. To live simply, you have to live sustainability and in solidarity with the poor. 'Sustainable' is now hopelessly overused with the word, but not the deed, being incorporated into so much. We now have sustainable development instead of economic development. It has long been hijacked by the concrete, brick and tarmac brigade of expansion come what may. Yet, this kind of sustainability is no way like the Green Party's unique 'Manifesto for a Sustainable Society' that is a blueprint for making human life - and all life - last indefinitely on earth.

It was the best conference I have ever been to with the most outstanding speakers, first rate drama and children signing reflections. Throughout, excellent organisation and timekeeping, too. However, where were the clergy? Few were in evidence in this 600 strong gathering of only the laity! Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor really should have been there. The Rt Rev Vincent Nichols was.

Livesimply means simply smaller - smaller families, smaller cars, smaller homes. However, the Catholic emphasis on the sanctity of life and the outlawing of even abortion brought within the law, and contraception, does make me think that that sanctity is jeopardising all life on earth as we relentlessly press on with more wanted babies and more unwanted babies. And the babies of us lot - the over-rich - are living ever longer to have an increasing impact on climate change, peak oil and resource depletion, with their attendant famines, floods and droughts. Our babies are more of a problem than the teeming billions in the poor South. Yet, it is their population growth that worries us; not our own smaller growth in the UK that has a much bigger impact on deteriorating life support systems! Hypocritical? I think so.

Marking 60 years over six days!

It was brilliant to have my friends from the Stourbridge Green Network at my home in Halesowen for one of our meetings on the eve of my birthday. We ate and drunk well and had a discussion on the extent to which science should be the final arbiter. Our guest for the night was an academic who soon got stuck into the cakes; next, required a cheese sandwich and who left the hot tap in the bathroom running full on - twice! And, this, at a super-energy conscious, green meeting, too!

Day two was a fabulous meal at Halesowen College at their training restaurant. It was more tipsy than either of us was expecting because it was a Robbie Burns night celebration rather than mine! We were served with an alcoholic punch on arrival; we ordered a glass of wine each, only to find that a second glass was thrown in for free; the haggis had to be toasted with a glass of whisky and, finally, more alcohol in the liquer with the coffee! A genuine looking Scotsman serenaded us, twice with a bagpipe full of Scottish tunes over the course of the evening. Just as well we had walked from home!

Day three demanded a bus ride with Deryn's magnificent birthday cake for the team at work. Such was my consumption of food and alcohol, I needed no breakfast and I certainly wasn't going to take the car! On the bus I was still under the influence and, to such an extent, that to avoid being sick on the bus, I had to get out a mile early and walk the rest of the way! What a wimp I am!

Day four, Friday marked the journey, after work to Esgair Wen, a beautiful white Welsh cottage in the back of beyond in the great expanse of rarely visited hills between Devil's Bridge and Rhayader. Becky gave us a lovely meal in Aberystwyth where we also met Jon, who had come from Manchester by train.

Day five was a wonderful 8 hour walk with Becky, Tim and Jon whose presence made, for me, easily the best present from these three youngsters. They loyally followed me up hill and down - and just about kept up with me! We explored the hills, the wind farm, the forest and the streams and rivers at the back of Esgair Wen; and even jogged along one green track that was downhill on our way to the stunning deep gorge of the Afon Rheidol at Parson's Bridge. The last 1.75 hrs and six miles from Devil's Bridge was a character-building road walk back to the cottage when we found we couldn't get a signal to summon up a car to come and get us! However, it was under the stars - and some clouds.

Linda's fabulous meal was one of my favourites - shepherd's pie - and a once in a blue moon discussion on population, resources and the future of humanity. Phrases used were, 'Necessity is the mother of invention' (when the oil tap runs dry); the young are hypocrites in knowing the facts but behaving like everyone else; and, only the good Lord can sort this one out (my paraphrases!) I was in a minority of precisely one. Let's all hope I am wrong!

Will Hay in 'Oh Mr Porter' rounded off the evening that was not as funny as when I first saw it - and, now I have a box of the films!

Day six photos are on the blog of our sedate walk through Coed Hafod and the final narrow footbridges of the two days; footbridges over roaring rivers and ravines. I counted five notable footbridges yesterday and two more were in this wood. Linda and I had a quick meal at 'The Clive', north of Ludlow, on the way back. Esgair Wen sleeps seven and is of a very high standard. Strongly recommended. All electric and warm and comfortable.