REFLECTION FOR NOVEMBER 2009

REFLECTION FOR NOVEMBER 2009
November is the first month of the winter season, a time when the earth seems to want to close down. Brown and grey are the predominant colours as the last of the summer flowers sink back into the ground. Perhaps it’s a good time to renew our efforts to heighten our concern for the survival of the planet as we know it, now that it’s just a little more than a month until the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Will our national delegates courageously take the necessary steps, even if it means legislating in favour of a simpler life-style, especially for us in the wealthy areas of the world? Only if we, the people, keep insisting on it! In the end we have to re-learn reverence for the earth which is our only life-support system, and embark on a spiritual journey to appreciate its giftedness to us. Climate change created by the greenhouses gasses we generate has already forced many to migrate northwards from poorer parts of the globe. The UN projects that 150 million people will lose their homes and become climate-related refugees or Internally Displaced Persons by the year 2050.

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.”

^{Wendell Berry}