Community Garden project

The interview which I gave at the Faith and Climate Change Conference for the OU/BBC's Creative Climate project is now on their website.

In part of the interview I talk about the community garden project at St John's Seven Kings, for which we have recently gained funding through London over the Border and the Area 5 & 7 Committees.

The project aims to redevelop the garden around the east end of the church as a community garden in order to encourage local people to use the garden for rest and reflection by introducing: additional seating areas; areas of sensory and remembrance planting; artworks, and community information.

Our more detailed plans are:

1. Additional seating areas - locate benches at the north and south ends of the East Wall and a companion seat at the church end of the remembrance area.

2. Areas of sensory and remembrance planting – create sensory borders around each of the East Wall benches by: use trellis behind the benches to grow climbers such as honeysuckle and winter jasmine; and borders of low growing, scented plants (such as lavender and rosemary) alongside the benches; and create a remembrance area at the far north end of the garden (in front of the Fellowship Room) using slate chips to cover the ground, a low chain link fence to delineate the area, and planting miniature roses and French lavender (in memory of loved ones) within the area.

3. Artworks – introduce a community mosaic or mural along the middle of the East Wall. An artist would be commissioned to design and make the mosaic/mural through community art workshops involving local people (i.e. school, community groups etc.); commission a sculpture for the centre of the remembrance area; and display art posters and/or paintings on the reverse of the noticeboards.

4. Community information – replace the existing noticeboards with new noticeboards in the same or similar locations, one of which would be for community information.

5. Additional plans – remove the border along the Aldborough Road South wall and replace with grass; create a circular border around the holly tree, add a bird bath and feeders, and plant with grasses; plant choisya, hebes, dogwood, ceanothus, spirea, and osteopermum in the East Wall border below the mosaic/mural; narrow and thin the border along the St John’s Road wall and plant a Judas Tree at the corner of St John’s Road and Aldborough Road South; locate an outside tap close to the Fellowship Room porch.

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Creed - Rain.

Faith and Climate Change (6)

Creative Climate is a diary project that will record how people understand and respond to environmental change over the next decade. Through Creative Climate you are invited to start an online diary that helps to track environmental change and humanity’s responses to it.

Taken together, the diaries will grow into a huge living archive of our experiences and ideas in one of the most important decades in human history. The project will collect thoughts and stories from doorstep to workplace, from lab to garden; from international conference to community meeting – from all over the world.

Creative Climate was at the Faith and Climate Change conference held recently in London and the video story of Darran Martin, who represents one of the foundations that hosted the Conference, can be found by clicking here. In it, he talks about how collaboration between different faith groups can have a positive impact on the environment.


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Woven Hand - Kingdom of Ice.

Faith & Climate Change (5)

While at the 'Faith & Climate Change' conference I recorded an interview for the Open University's Creative Climate project telling the story of how we are responding to the challenge of climate change at St John's Seven Kings. What follows is that story pegged to key themes from the recent lecture (sponsored by the Christian environmental group Operation Noah) which the Archbishop of Canterbury gave setting out a Christian vision of how people can respond to the looming environmental crisis:

Beginning with the story of Noah and the Flood, Dr Williams highlighted the “burden of responsibility for what confronts us here and now as a serious crisis and challenge”. Our relationship with the rest of creation is intimately bound up with our relationship with God. The Bible offers “an ethical perspective based on reverence for the whole of life”. “To act so as to protect the future of the non-human world is both to accept a God-given responsibility and, appropriately, to honour the special dignity given to humanity itself.”

At St Johns we teach regularly from these, and other biblical perspectives, on the necessity of care for our environment. We do so particularly through our annual Stewardship Campaign, our Harvest Festival and our support of Christian Aid and their campaigns. We have also linked our teaching to the related theme of Peak Oil, the idea that the world’s supply of fossil fuels has peaked and that increased fuel costs in future will necessitate lifestyle changes.

Dr Williams warned against looking for a single solution to the complex environmental challenges which face us. “Instead of a desperate search to find the one great idea that will save us from ecological disaster, we are being invited to a transformation of individual and social goals that will bring us closer to the reality of interdependent life in a variegated world”. He urged action at the personal and local, as well as at the national and international, levels saying, “When we believe in transformation at the local and personal level, we are laying the surest foundations for change at the national and international level”.

At St Johns we have a Peace & Justice committee who regularly involve us in campaigns calling for global change politically, such as Christian Aid’s ‘Countdown to Copenhagen’ campaign on which theme they are currently preparing a service. As a church, we intend to install solar panels on our roof and are currently exploring how this could be done using the new arrangements for supporting the introduction of renewable sources of energy being introduced by the Government in 2010. On the individual level, during our Stewardship month we give our congregation a list of simple changes, such as sharing transport, turning heating thermostats down, saving water, switching to green energy and so on – that they can make to begin to transform their individual carbon footprint.

The Archbishop urged leaders to take bold decisions at the Copenhagen summit in December. He encouraged the taking of effective collaborative local action to reduce carbon emissions and to maintain pressure on local governments and businesses to do the same. And he encouraged the small actions which mark a break with destructive patterns of consumption and waste and help “to make us more aware of the diversity of life around us”.

At St Johns our understanding of Christian care for the environment and those in need increasingly leads us to view Western consumerism as selfish and wasteful, although we recognise that we are also implicated and need to repent of our own levels of consumption. Our initial discussions of peak oil have led us to begin to consider transition initiatives while also recognising that our love of affluence as a society currently means that the radical changes needed as individuals, communities and society are not being made as fully or rapidly as the crisis demands.

Dr Williams underlined the particular role that belief can play in recovering a sense of balance and interdependence. “What we face today is nothing less than a choice about how genuinely human we want to be; and the role of religious faith in meeting this is first and foremost in setting out a compelling picture of what humanity reconciled with both creator and creation might look like.”

In conclusion, the Archbishop emphasized that “the Christian story lays out a model of reconnection with an alienated world: it tells us of a material human life inhabited by God and raised transfigured from death; of a sharing of material food which makes us sharers in eternal life; of a community whose life together seeks to express within creation the care of the creator”. Quoting Moses in the book of Deuteronomy, he concluded “I am giving you a choice between good and evil, between life and death… choose life”.

At St Johns we are seeking to choose life but are also very aware that the global challenge needs a far greater level of change and transformation than we have yet implemented.

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Nickel Creek - When In Rome.

Faith & Climate Change (3)

Dr. Mark Collins, Director, Commonwealth Foundation

Dr. Mark Collins, Omar Faruk (Founder Director, Eco-Muslims), Baroness Uddin

Omar Faruk & Baroness Uddin

The Faith and Climate Change conference ran alongside the Young Commonwealth Climate change Summit and both shared an opening session addressed by Ransford Smith, Deputy-Secretary General of the Commonwealth and Dr Fatiha Serour, Director of the Commonwealth Youth Programme, among others.

Dr Cyrus Rustomjee, Director of the Commonwealth Economic Affairs Division, argued that the ideas and innovation of young people was needed to break the current deadlock in global negotiations on climate change. Dr Mark Collins, Director of the Commonwealth Foundation said that partnerships were required for a more equitable and sustainable future and so it was a powerful act to bring young people and faith communities together at the beginning of their respective events. Dr Farah Faizal, High Commissioner of the Maldives, spoke of countries such as the Maldives being in the frontline of the battle against climate change and suggested that the frontline is a good source of intelligence for the battle. She spoke of the involvement of young people in the 350 campaign and argued that the key to change was the move from plight to potential in the switch from old energy sources to renewables.

In response, youth delegates from India, Canada, Sierra Leone, Singapore, and the Caribbean Region spoke of difficulties in motivating their governments to engage with the issues and laid down a challenge to rich countries to pay the price for the pollution which has caused the crisis and which predominantly affects poorer countries. In a Youth Programme film, young people said that they would not remain silent while their future is threatened.

Delegates at the Faith and Climate Change conference then heard from a panel of faith leaders (including myself - my contribution will be a separate post) who spoke about their faith tradition and its response to the environment. Jeffrey Newman described the central teaching of Judaism as hearing, listening to, and understanding all people who struggle with God as being or existence, the wonder of what is. Ranchor Prime and Dr Atul Shah both emphasised the significance of ahimsa (the concept of non-violence to all living creatures) are fundamental to Hinduism and Jainism respectively. Dr Shah argued that the Abrahamic faiths had placed human beings at the centre of the universe but that Jainism did not do this. Barney Leith spoke of the Baha'i's teaching that the human heart cannot be segregated from the environment; that the two are interdependent and act one upon the other. The Venerable Amaranatha spoke of the simplicity of a Buddhist monk's life and suggested that as we make ourselves peaceful, the environment will be peaceful.

The conference's keynote address was given by Dr Mark Collins who began by highlighting the tendency among Commonwealth Head of Government to be reticent on faith issues due to the complex patterns of religious belief across the Commonwealth. The annual service at Westminster Abbey on the Commonwealth theme was one example of good practice in engaging with faith communities however and in 2008 had enabled faith leaders to address the theme of 'The Environment - Our Future'.

A more positive engagement with faith communities was now emerging through the need for partnerships to address climate change and helped by the Commonwealth Foundation report 'Engaging with Faith'. Faith groups are the cornerstone of civil society, forge networks of trust and united by beliefs in the human responsibility to respect one another and the earth. National partnerships, such as Stop Climate Chaos, were effective in influencing national governments but were less effective in international forums. Faith groups however can mobilise people across national boundaries and interests.

This conference was then an opportunity to send a strong message to Commonwealth Head of Government about the contribution of faith communities to the climate change crisis. This was vital because it is no longer acceptable for governments to squabble over narrow national interests when emergency plans are already in place for evacuations of islands in the Commonwealth threatened with inundation through rising sea levels.

The conference was supported by two Muslim peers (Lord Sheikh and Baroness Uddin) and was organised partly by a Muslim-led multi-faith organisation in Faith Regen Foundation, whose CEO Dr Husna Ahmad spoke on 'Faith and Community Development'. The conference was therefore a demonstration of the engagement of British Muslims with mainstream political processes and issues. This was highlighted by Omar Faruk who, in speaking of the philosophy of EcoMuslim, thanked Lord Sheikh and Baroness Uddin for their personal support and encouragement and spoke of British Muslims as a bridge between East and West.

Prior to the conference focus groups had been held with local communities in Bangladesh, Brazil, Gambia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, and the UK. The finding from these groups were summarised and highlighted significantly different patterns of climate change around the globe leading to very different approaches to the issue by governments, ranging from a lack of awareness to significant action. Often there was a lack of awareness at grassroots level and faith communities were viewed positively in terms of their knowledge and enthusiasm on the relationship between faith and climate change. There was a need to further educate faith leaders on the issue and to institutionalise the faith contribution in political and educational processes but faith communities were seen as: providing support and hope in crises; a source of unity between peoples; having perspectives on the environment; and fuelling action.

Conference delegates also heard about initiatives such as the Earth Charter (which has recently been adopted by the Episcopal Church) and Faiths' Long Term Commitments for a Living Planet, an Alliance of Religions and Conservation and United Nations initiative. Delegates were also offered the opportunity to begin contributing diaries on personal approaches to climate change to the Creative Climate project being run by The Open University and the BBC.

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Mohammed Yahya & Poetic Pilgrimage - Earth Cry.