BBC Wildlife Magazine and Meditation

Unbelievably chuffed to be number 27 in the top 50 power list for  conservation heroes in this month's BBC Wildlife Magazine.  Very flattered indeed.  I think this wildlife dedicated magazine is a great read these days.  It had a facelift a while ago and became far more focussed and energetic. Really interesting articles (and I'm not just saying that!)

I spent the morning giving a talk to the Bristol Christian Meditation Group, part of a worldwide movement to promote meditation from any faith or from non.  They were interested in how faith could play a part in promoting a greater awareness of our relationship with nature.  The audience were lovely, engaged and asked some searching questions.

I gave the talk a strange title - Being a Christian and a Mammal. For too long Christianity (and many other faiths) has put humanity aside from nature, regarding people as floating, spiritual beings that are removed from the nitty gritty, mess and joy of the natural world.  The common approach is that the earth is a resource that supports us, not an integral part of what we are.  I wanted to stress our mammalian nature, place us in a evolutionary context, look at what drivers shaped the way we look, act and interact with the world around us.  How we evolved an upright stance, developed forward looking vision, why we developed complex language, how we formed social groups and the consequences of that.  The tribalism, gossip, group sizes that we adopt - all driven by our evolution and the pressures we responded to in nature.  I also wanted to point out how much of the earth is hidden from our senses as we developed our complex brains.  How we miss so much of what is happening around us, the colour spectrums we can't see, the vibrations we can't feel, the electrical fields we can't detect and the sounds outside our hearing.

Is it important to think of ourselves as mammalian as well as spiritual?  Or is this intellectualising and only useful for middle England chatter?  I think it is important to look into our deep-time roots and think about our long history on earth.  Because if we regard ourselves as separate from all that out there then we will have a relationship that is based on difference, not connection. We will have an intellectual relationship.  It also leads to a kind of paternalism towards the natural world and the extraordinary creatures we live alongside.  Too often the religious approach is either utilitarian or overly sentimental.  We are told to look for God is in the beauty of a butterfly or flower, or in the majesty of a mountain.  But what about God in the ebola virus or malarial parasite?  In the Nepalese earthquake?  If God is only in the appealing things then when disaster strikes or a snake bites or a child dies of malaria, we don't know how to process it.

It was a good morning, thanks to the organisers for asking me.

Room-based Christianity

It dawned on me the other day that western Christianity can all be lived out in buildings.  There is no need to leave a room to be a Christian in the UK, or indeed anywhere.  You can administer to the poor, treat the sick, protect the vulnerable, pray and sing all inside.  Services are inside, sermons are written inside and delivered inside.  People don't even need to look out of a window.  Outside a room, -  that is the concern of the secular world.  And anyway too much interest in falling fish stocks, declining birds and reptiles, polluted rivers, acidifying oceans and so on could be considered pagan. Leave it to Greenpeace and the RSPB.

This is so wrong-headed I despair, but it seems to be the way things are.

Over the last few months we've had some shocking statistics, not least the WWF/Zoological Society report that showed the earth has lost 50% of its wildlife over the last 40 years.  We are thought to be in the middle of the 6th mass extinction event known on Planet Earth.  George Monbiot is right to call for an end to the war on nature.  In terms of weather and climate - 2014 is the warmest year on record and we have no end of extreme weather events from droughts, temperatures, floods and storms  recorded from every continent.  Surely there is no one out there that disagrees that the earth is destabilising and thinning out to an alarming degree, and we are to blame.  (Oh hang on - Cardinal George Pell and many evangelical Christians don't - but apart from them).

As E O wilson says, we saw the end of the Age of the Reptile (bye bye dinosaurs) are coming to the end the Age of the Mammals and entering the Age of Loneliness.  He calls it the Eremocene, a time when humanity will be accompanied by scavengers and generalists like cockroaches, corvids and mice/rats.  The vision is awful, a world of people and a thin sprinkling of those species that can take advantage of our wasted earth.  Many places on earth will be uninhabitable because of temperature and sea level rise. People will be squashed into temperate zones and fighting over fresh water, food and living space.  Gone for ever is most of life on earth, especially the specialist creatures, the beautiful, diverse splendour that makes this amazing planet unique and full of wonder.  But many think we will have gone the way of the Dodo before that happens, unable to thrive in a depleted and polluted world. Its all very depressing and demoralising.



Good news then Pope Francis is to write an encyclical on the environment, give an address to the UN General Assembly and call major faith leaders together to discuss religion and climate change (see recent Guardian article).  In October he said that climate change and loss of biodiversity were already bringing about cataclysmic change to the earth, causing poverty and distress to many, especially the poorer nations.  When the world's leaders meet in Paris in 2015 to finalise their commitments to reduce carbon emissions the Pope will be expected to make a major contribution. That is such good news, long overdue and very welcome.  1.2 billion people are supposedly Catholic, although I suspect far fewer actually do live and breathe the faith in a pure way.  It is undeniable however that Pope Francis is a moral compass in a lost world and is perhaps the only religious leader to be listened to in high places and able to draw crowds of thousands wherever he goes.  He is a religious superstar, a magnet for those looking for another voice that is far away from money power and fear.

What will he say I wonder? I hope he hits the right note and speaks to the heart of those who have the functioning of the Catholic Church in their hands, inspiring them to speak out with passion.  But I suspect in the UK (and most of the West) that won't happen. In many rich countries Catholic leaders are ageing, often worn out and over stretched.  Their problems are many and varied ranging from lack of vocations to falling numbers in pews to child abuse. The "environment" is an annoying addition to a very heavy workload.  Most (not all) clergy are theologians and historians by training and know little about nature/science.  As the Bible has little to say about humanity's relationship with the natural world that is easy to translate then it is not at all obvious what to do.  SO the best solution is to take an easy way out and equate "environment" with "climate change" - and as that will affect poorer nations first - just give the job to Cafod. Job done.  That is what has happened in England.

Cafod do a very good job in raising awareness of what a warming world will mean for poorer nations. In the US The Catholic Climate Covenant also does well, along with others.  None of them however have a position on biodiversity and habitat loss, so half of the equation is gone already.  Giving the job of the "environment" to Cafod in England is one good step, there are many, many more. But those steps require vision, interest and understanding. They require bishops to make clear, informed statements that relate faith to nature and that inspire others to act.  It requires a knowledge of what is happening to the oceans, to the soils, to the forests, to cities and plains and fields.  It requires religious leaders to look at the earth and ask big, far-reaching questions. It requires asking people to make changes to their lives  - what we eat and how we live day to day - and that might not be popular.  In short it requires a lot of energy and time and I don't think that is possible.

Sitting down to write this is hard because of years of indifference. There was a flurry of interest after Sound of Many Waters in Bristol in 2008 where I organised an event a month in Clifton Cathedral based on different environmental themes.  It was successful and well received.  An environmental group was set up to discuss environmental issues and advise the bishops, but was disbanded after a couple of years.  Since then there is only Cafod.  No bishop for the environment, no advisory group, no interest - no opinion.

Room-based Christianity has to come to an end, for all of our sakes.  I hope Francis urges 1.2 billion people to love the earth and wonder at it.  Marvel, be horrified, feel fear, be challenged, experience transporting joy and experience the reality of death.  Out there is as much the face of God as in a room, no matter how beautiful. Until we re-kindle those feelings and join all the dots then the "environment" will mean little, no matter how many dire warnings, awful stats and no matter how many fine words.

As an example of how far  English Catholicism has travelled from the reality of the world I remind you of a edict by the bishops of England and Wales in 2011.  They urged Catholics to re-connect with their Catholic identity and revert to eating fish on Friday's - to show the world who Catholics are. How depressing, ignorant and tunnel visioned is that? The oceans are in dire trouble.  Didn't they think about this?  Or perhaps it doesn't seem important? Don't they believe the stats or perhaps they are simply unaware?  Wouldn't it have been far, far better to ask Catholics to be vegetarian for at least one day a week - even better vegan. Now that would have been a thoughtful, contemporary response.

So will Pope Francis make a difference?  I hope so, but it is a hopeful light that doesn't feel too strong right now. Not a beacon shining out to show the way, more a tiny flicker in the gloom.  I Hope Francis has a good long look at my favourite verse from the Bible: John 10:10 "A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came so that you may have life - life in all its fulness."  Life in all its fulness  - that phrase alone is worth meditating on for a very long time.

I hope Francis brings back the passion, the care, the compassion, the sense of justice, the love of life and for all its living things.  I hope he states a refusal to accept greed and money as the drivers that are devastating our world. I hope he urges every person of faith to bang tables, shout for change, demand an end to this madness and cruelty and destruction - demand that we all live in a kinder, more caring world and have a vision of abundance not desolation.

If all religious leaders stood up to be counted and said "not in my name does this continue" then perhaps we could see change.  Perhaps.

Malta bird hunt

A quick update.  I've been in touch with Steve Micklewright from Birdlife Malta re the spring hunt of migrating birds.  He says the Catholic Church there is still "sitting on the fence" but hopes that "as the referendum approaches we hope that they will be able to make a clear statement."  He also thinks they are embarrassed by the bizarre firing of guns from the top of a church to celebrate the patron saint of hunting  - firing blanks into the sky at birds.   What an extraordinary state of affairs.  It really does echo my thoughts given in the National Justice and Peace talk recently (see previous blog for text) that the Church so often is afraid to rock the boat and can't decide what it really thinks about nature.  This is such an obvious issue to lead from the front and I really am at a loss to understand the reticence.  Keep going Birdlife Malta.

Tale of Two Women

I know two old ladies, both are in their 80s.  The first was a nurse and in her early twenties she met a man she fell deeply in love with.  She said she was crazy about him and couldn't believe it was possible to feel so strongly about anything or anyone.  She was head over heels.   As a devout Anglican she wanted her fiancee to share her faith before they married.  He tried very hard to please her.  He accompanied her to church every Sunday.  He wrote to the bishop of the area where he lived to ask if he could discuss Christianity and marriage but was turned down and told to go to the local vicar.  He did so but found a dry, unenthusiastic cleric who had little time for him, and he could not find a message he could take to heart.

This honourable man told my friend he could not become a Christian but would come to church with her every week and always support her and would help her bring up their children as Christians - perhaps one day it would make more sense to him.  Deeply upset she went to her own vicar who told her that it was wrong to marry outside her faith and quoted 2 Corinthians: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?  Or what fellowship can light have with darknesss?  My friend went home and the next day finished the relationship with the love of her life.  She told me that she cried herself to sleep every single night for a year.  The young man went onto marry someone else and when they had their first child, a boy, he wrote saying they had named him George, the name my friend and he had chosen if they were ever to have sons.  This was too much and she asked him never to contact her again as the pain was too great.  He never did.

It was not until she was 62 that my lovely friend met her husband, a delightful, gentle widower who went to the same church.  He walked her home one morning after a service and a few months later they married.  They had 15 happy years together before he died after a long and debilitating illness.  Of course they never had children together.  The lack of a family is a source of deep sorrow to this day, and from knowing her as I do I would say she would have made a wonderful mother.

We have talked about this quite a lot.  I asked her if she thought the advice from all those years ago was right.  She lowered her head and sighed.  No, she said, I think the advice I was given was wrong.  When I asked why she said that for all her married life, although she was devoted to her husband, she had felt guilty.  Why?  Because she often still dreamt about her first love and never had the heart to tell her husband.  I loved him, she said, he was a very good man and a wonderful husband, but nothing could ever compare to the passion I felt all those years ago.  I must be a terrible person, she said, because I could never confess what I really felt and dreamt about.


The second old lady is Catholic and had a child 60 years ago.  The baby had a congenital problem and died 6 weeks after birth.  A letter of condolence from a devout Catholic aunt said how sorry she was to hear about the loss of the baby but how fortunate it was the little girl was baptised in hospital before passing away, because, "it could have been so much worse."

By this I think the well-meaning aunt was referring to the teaching about limbo.  As Catholic teaching tells us only the baptised can see God, then a baby who is unbaptised can not be fully in heaven.  This is an ancient belief, not official doctrine, and the idea today is that you can believe it if you wish, but you don't have to.  Back then it was much more accepted that babies went into some kind of holding place until God decided to admit them.  I think I am grossly simplifying, but as far as I can remember that is the idea and what I was taught at school. Whatever, it is a cruel theology, quite bizarre and extremely hurtful for those who are suffering terrible grief.

Two women, two Christian denominations, two sad stories.  I don't quite know what to say about them, they seem so heartless and ridiculous.  Faith should bring love, hope and comfort and not blight people's lives with joyless dogma that heaps burning coals onto already painful wounds.  Would it happen today I wonder?

National Justice and Peace Conference Talk

Yesterday I gave a talk at the National Justice and Peace Conference, which as ever is full of people who make you realise goodness is alive and well and thriving in our community as yeast in a dough.

My talk challenged the Christian churches to speak out about the life and landscapes that share this planet.  I stress I don't expect an alliance with Greenpeace but I do expect and opinion or contribution - and I won't accept total silence on many of the big environmental issues of the day.

At the end of the talk, literally right on my last word, there was a huge clap of thunder, bright lightening and all the lights went off!

National Justice and Peace Talk by Mary Colwell

Wildflowers on Radio

Lady's Mantle or Cuckoo Flower in a wildflower meadow near Bicester

Last week I went to St Birinus church in Dorchester-on-Thames to see a group of parishioners, led by Linda Francis, plant a Mary Garden. This is a garden full of wildflowers that have a religious significance, particularly to do with Mary. Forget-me-nots are called Mary's Eye's, Lily of the Valley are known as Mary's Tears - see an earlier post and the Tablet article for more details.

Sunday on Radio 4 broadcast this interview this morning, along with an interview with Giles Strother from the Bucks, Berks and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust at a meadow near Bicester. This was a glorious wildflower meadow, one of a few on a farm they are hoping to buy next year. Its a great pity the producer cut out the main part of the interview with Giles who explained really well why wildflower meadows are so important to the UK - as a store of carbon (as much if not more than a woodland), as a source of pollen for a whole variety of insects, as a water storage to hold excess water etc.  And we have lost 98% of them since World War 2 due to high intensity farming and grazing.  All that was cut out so the piece that was broadcast was weak and didn't really make any sense! However - here are the photos of the wildflowers and St Birinus and we keep on...

Lilly of the Valley - or Mary's Tears - in St Birinus' Garden and parishioners planting the garden below

Scary TV

I watched 3 documentaries this week - one was the return visit by Louis Theroux to the American family (America's Most Hated Family) who are the Westboro Baptist Church - the strangely beguiling, utterly offensive extreme right wing "Christian" group who picket the funerals of the soldiers who have died in Afghanistan and elsewhere, saying it is God's punishment for the US army tolerating homosexuality. They walk around with banners decrying gays and thanking God for cancer. Weird and offensive yes, but dangerous? To some degree - especially their views on Islam and wanting to burn Korans. They are bright eyed, dogmatic, convinced they are right and totally strange.



I also watched My Brother the Islamist last night on BBC 3. That was much more scary. Similar in their dogmatic adherence to the God of hate rather than love, they were deeply disturbing in that they have the desire to kill all those who disagree with them and would gladly die for their beliefs. The similarities between the American family - extreme right wing Christians - and the extreme Islamists is obvious when viewed side by side. They make your blood run cold and I am more convinced than ever that evil is real, finds a home and settles in.



The 3rd documentary - 3 part series - was The Big Silence. I caught up with it at last, it was first broadcast in December last year. It was a lovely, thought provoking series following 5 people who chose to go on an 8 day silent retreat to St Beunos in N Wales. For all 5 the days of total silence (apart form the rebellious chats outside!) had a profound effect on them. God speaking through the silence to people who normally never sit quietly and listen.



I was moved the The Big Silence, disgusted by the bizarre views and offensive antics of the Phelpes family in America and scared by the evil of the extreme Islamists. I don't know where the Islamist cause will end but I hope it does and that somehow the hate will be turned to a positive energy because the thought of more and more young men - and it seems to be all men - finding purpose in hatred is a tradgedy and a terrifying prospect.

Guilford Faith and Environment Course

From Reflections of a Curlew

Tonight (12th January) I am giving the opening talk at a series on Christianity and the environment organised by St Joseph's Catholic Church in Guilford. The essence of my talk is here. This blog can be used by anyone who would like to comment on what is said tonight (and for anyone else).

The earth is held in the love of God, it reflects God’s presence into our lives everyday. Cherishing and caring for this most wondrous of planets, and celebrating this great gift is at the heart of Catholic Christianity. And never has the time been more right to bring that belief once more into the centre of our lives. Now is the time to act for our future, the future of all our children and the future of creation itself.

“We are now to the point where we have lost ½ the world’s forests, ½ of the world’s wetlands and ½ the world’s grasslands. We are systematically eradicating habitats that make up the world’s ecosystems.”

James Leape, Head of WWF International

“If the religious people of the world, who of course make up the vast majority of people, were to become interested in saving biodiversity, which is after all the creation, and make it part of religious faith then they might be able to join scientists in an alliance and actually save what is left of life on earth”

Professor E.O. Wilson, Harvard

"The fate of the creatures which share our planet lies entirely at the hand of mankind - it is within our power to protect them or watch them become extinct. Let us choose the first route."

Sir David Attenborough

"The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago, had they happened to be within reach of predatory human hands"

Havelock Ellis

Sound of Many Waters, a year long series of events held at Clifton Cathedral, was the result of a lecture I gave there in 2005 called The Pope and the Iceberg. That first talk challenged the Catholic Church to take seriously its role in protecting the earth from greed and exploitation. As a documentary Producer at the BBC’s Natural History Unit for 20 years, and a Catholic, it had become a burning issue. I want to see the Church act to protect what is an astonishing planet, but I want it to act not just because we are increasingly discovering the extent of the ecological crisis, but because it is the right thing to do – it is the honour and the duty of the Church to promote sustainable living that respects all the natural world.

To Catholics the earth is sacramental; God is revealed in creation. Catholicism is an incarnational religion that believes the creator of the universe became human and lived on earth. Catholicism is intricately bound to matter and life and therefore protection and care for the earth should be central to Catholic teaching and practice. Sound of Many Waters was therefore an attempt to show how our many and varied relationships with nature can be expressed in our faith tradition.

Yet there seems to be uncertainty about our relationship with nature. The reason I have this impression about the Church is because over the last few years I have been asking a particular question based on a personal experience. About fifteen years ago I went to the high Arctic to film a rare species of duck called a Spectacled Eider. This rather bizarre bird lives out its whole life above the Arctic Circle and even over-winters sitting in the middle of the frozen Baring Sea. It is a quite extraordinary and awe-inspiring little duck.

I stayed on a remote island and filmed a female brood her clutch of eggs and then watched the ducklings waddle off into the Arctic Ocean to begin their mysterious lives out of the way of human influence. Very few people see Spectacled Eiders and so this was a great privilege. A few years later I telephoned the man who owned the island to ask how the ducks were doing and his news was deeply shocking. The year after I left he went back again to check on the four females that regularly nest on his island. All four had been shot sitting on the nest. No one had taken the bodies for food, they hadn’t used the feathers or the eggs; they had been shot simply for being ducks in America. I put the phone down and wept, not just for the wickedness of the people who had carried out this callous act of violence but for the senseless loss of magnificent creatures.

My question to lay Catholics, religious and the Church hierarchy alike is this – If Christ had been walking over that island and found those dead ducks, would he have wept? Not just for the people who had killed animals, but for the loss of the ducks themselves? Overwhelmingly the answer to that question from the lay community is yes, but the hierarchy is split, with many saying no – the reason given is Christ wouldn’t weep over that which is not human.

This story illustrates my point that there is confusion about our relationship with nature, and as long as this remains there will be little incentive to act as a Church. Therefore it is time to decide for ourselves what the natural world really means to us, how we can put that belief into practice and how we can be visionaries for others.

How can we be agents for change in this world of consumerism? How can the Christian well spring of joy and hope be brought to the environmental table, along with the gifts of the Holy Spirit - courage, wisdom, temperateness? How can the Option for the Poor and the Common Good be what dirves the decisions we make about the future of the planet?

“Not in the midst of life’s tumult, nor in the world of pleasures round, does God show himself, but in the inspiration of nature, grace, light as a breath of fresh air, in a still small voice”

St Jerome

Psalms with a Difference

Steven Faux is an impressive composer. He writes music for TV documentaries and for Radio 4 programmes. He is also an ordained priest in the Church of England. He has recently produced a truly beautiful and moving CD called the Psalms Project, setting the first 40 Psalms to powerful music and voices. Have a listen to the short clips below taken from Psalms 1, 10, 16, 29, 40 - the CD is are available through Steven on his website.

Get your own playlist at snapdrive.net!


Get your own playlist at snapdrive.net!


Get your own playlist at snapdrive.net!


Get your own playlist at snapdrive.net!


Get your own playlist at snapdrive.net!

Some of the pieces have been put to images on YouTube

Catholic Earthcare Australia, Water and Reconciliation

Catholic Earthcare Australia is a wonderful organisation. Here Jacqui Remond (Director) and Megan Seneque talk about the importance of water to faith, their future hopes and how the process of reconciliation that took place in S Africa might be helpful to Australia. Both are hot, dry countries, both have long and turbulent histories of relationships between indigenous and whites, both can learn from the past and have a chance to incorporate traditional wisdom into their way of thinking.

I think this is a fascinating area - not many places have that opportunity and I'd love to know more about it.

Buddhism - no Bossy Bits.

My 12 year old is fascinated by Buddhism so every Tuesday I take him to an introduction to meditation meeting in Bristol. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming, the buddhist "ministers" (for want of a better word! What are they? Not monks but ordained) are lovely and respectful and treat him like an intelligent human being. He meditates on generating loving kindness for 1/2 hour and then there is a talk on some aspect of buddhism. He listens intensely and sits perfectly still. He loves it because it is "Christianity with the bossy bits taken out"

I am finding it a great experience too and am benefiting from the atmosphere and concentration on goodness. Filling the world with loving kindness is not a bad aim and it seems to work. A couple of days ago my husband ate the last walnut whip. I had being eyeing it up all day but delayed gratification until the Channel 4 News. 2 minutes to 7 I shot down to the kitchen - but gone! Outrageous. But instead of sitting on the sofa in a sulky mood I found myself trying to send vibes of kindness - not bad for a beginner.

Some of my Christian friends are worried about his exploring - I can't see why. Any desire to find out our spiritual nature has to be a good thing and Buddhism generates a beautiful and calm environment. He has stopped fretting so much about how far down his bottom he can pull his trousers and has set up a small meditation corner in his room. Wonderful.

Telling Tales

A Catholic priest friend of mine said something very interesting when we talked about how the message of Christianity has become diluted, changed, boxed in and irrelevant. He said its because we betray our heritage. We used to tell with passion the greatest stories on earth - the rights and wrongs, dos and don'ts, trials and tribulations of being a human in search of a God - now we just give out rules and statements. And that is it. Where are the stories that set the heart aflame with a desire to seek and to change? Where is the inspiration and comment on a broken world that gives hope? I go to Church most Sundays and never hear a story that sets me alight (sorry chaps!)

Telling stories is in our very genes, it is how we have always made sense of an unfathomable world. From our earliest times on earth we would have told each other great stories from simple tales to huge epics - but they all do the same job. Jesus was a master at telling tales. Listening to stories real or imagined, helps us relate and gets our inner emotions engaged, no encyclical on earth will do that for me. So - as we wait with bated breath for the Pope's new one due out on Monday, which is supposed to have environmental wisdom in it - I wonder if it will be magical interplay on words and imagination? Will it make us wonder about who and what we are and the quality of our relationships, that are often beyond the capacity of utilitarian language? Let's wait and see....