Summer greetings for July and August!

There’s no getting away from the fact that we live increasingly in what we might call a “screen culture”.  The number of hours many of us spend in front of television, lap-top, tablet or mobile phone display screen is huge (even larger if one includes vehicle windscreens).  In each case we absorb information, ideas, emotions, debates, data-images, even beliefs, through a filter. Modern myths – stories that give us a purpose – are held constantly before us in the form of distant soap operas, computer games and info-programmes.

Our instant access to so much knowledge is mind-blowing and brings with it enormous educational advantage. Research has been transformed by the global Internet. We can travel in space through Google maps and across time through history channels. We can be entertained through our technologies for every minute of every day.

However, the implications of this are many and varied. Living through screens is easy and convenient. It is also persuasively addictive and therefore insatiable. Our relationships cease to be less direct and are mediated through machines. Reality can be reduced to a screened stimulation to which we make predicable responses.  We are discouraged from thinking beyond the obviously visible, so looking at causes and deeper questioning is avoided.  Instead we move on to the next programme or App..

There are also concerns about our inability to experience the subtle, sensitive, beautiful moments of life – sights and scents, temperature changes, body movements, silence, serendipity, gracious touches or smiles.  We take lifestyle so much for granted that we are readily shocked when there are disruptions to supplies, which previous generations lived with on a regular basis. Are we so comforting ourselves with escapism that when we do encounter the very raw and abrasive aspects of life, we find them impossible to cope with?

Faith, on the other hand, has to do with beliefs that are encouraging and participative.  It is not nurtured by passive observance, but grows in meeting one another, encountering Nature and, for some, discovering a sense of the divine.  That is why community and a sense of belonging – to place, rhythms, seasons, family, interest-groups – is so fundamental.  In the end we are not individuals – we are “persons in relationships” and our very being is determined by how we join in with others (or not).  In Hebrew there is no word for relating to oneself.  That is why community life is central both to a life of Faith but also underpin sustainable living.  We can never do anything alone but together we can achieve so much. 

No body consists of a single entity but of myriads of interconnections.  So if the “screen culture”  expects us to behave well as single agents of consumerism, there are ways in which the glass and the illusions can be shattered to reveal something of a greater potential underneath.  This is not to deny that communications technology has a role to play in society today, but to point out that direct contact and involvement in loving relations are not easily substituted.  Surely the search for encounter, inclusion and community underlies the quest for sustainability!

Enjoy the direct sunshine…

Green Action news for July and August:

1. Globalised Energy system.  Many of us are not aware of the international dimension to our energy supplies and how this affects us in the region. In this short attached article Merlin Hyman form ReGen South West looks at some of these issues.

2. Tackling poverty in the face of Climate Change. CAFOD campaign launch at Newman House,Exeter on 11^th July, 6pm. (see details)

3. Gardening Against The Odds Awards celebrate those gardeners who make their own and others’ lives brighter, better and more fun through their efforts. See details.

4. Psalm 82 ‘green’ meditation (see attached)

5. Inside China Today. Global Book Club Plymouth at Plymouth University 24^th July, 6.30pm (see attached)

6. Skill Sharing Day in conjunction with Transition Exeter, at Exeter Meeting House (Quakers) Saturday 19^th July. 10:30 till 16:00. There will be demonstrations of sewing (alterations/upstyling), knitting, quilting/patchwork, bike mending, bread making, making jam/chutney, and possibly also spinning/weaving. Entry will be free - but donations will be welcome. For further information please contact chrissy_allotthotmail [dot] com ()

7. Faith in Foodbanks Videos. We have recently released three short videos to support the Faith in Foodbanks? resource pack. The videos, ideal for use in worship or in presentations, are available to watch and download for free here.

8. SUSTAINABILITY, SOCIETY AND YOU course and follow-up meeting in Plymouth. Starting 28^th July. Please see details from Alan Ramage attached.

9. Exeter Green Fair. Exeter Cathedral Green. Saturday 30^th August from 10.00am to 4.00pm. Look out for the Devon Churches Green Action stall with its displays on earthworms!!

Final Quotes:

It is a kind of theological folly to suppose that God has made the entire world just for human beings, or to suppose that God is interested in only one of the millions of species that inherit God’s good earth

-       Desmond Tutu

Without the Earth there is no Christianity, no Church and no Bible

with all best wishes: Martyn Goss