At the Triennial we have met in 6 working groups on various themes of concern to Friends. I have been attending the Working Group talking about environmental concerns.
There are many different problems and happily many different solutions and ways forward here. We have heard from Friends in Kenya and Congo about their tree planting programmes to improve their local environment, re-foresting large areas and providing food and fuel. Friends in New Zealand have set up a fund to enable people to use renewable energy sources, e.g. loans to buy solar powered water heaters for their house, which would be too expensive otherwise.
There was no doubt among the group that the problems are urgent, we as Quakers need to get out there in the world and do something now. Many Friends talked about their Yearly Meetings considering writing an Environmental Testimony but I think this is a side issue. The time to act is now, in fact it's yesterday! Let's think about Testimonies separately.
The group continues and we hope to bring a statement to the whole Triennial to try to bring all Friends together around this concern.
Lizz Roe has inspired us in her message this morning that we can do much with God's tender hand guiding us to reduce our impact on the world's resources. But with only 400,000 Quakers this is not enough, we also must seek to change others. Our theme of finding the prophetic voice for our time seems relevant here, could this be Friends prophetic message to the world today? Should we go out to the world and say "this has to stop!"? God calls his people to act to be good stewards of the world and the plants, animals and other human beings in it. Let's take this message to the world! A message that can enrich people's lives and give hope for the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment