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

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....