School Fair and Churches Count on Nature

Last Friday was St John's school summer fair and we again ran an EcoChurch stall. 

This time we had plants for sale, courtesy of Lawrence (plus some extra sunflowers that had germinated in the pots children's church planted. Richard C re-potted these for me while I made a mad return cycle ride home at 3.30 on discovering I was missing all the prizes. Had I been in a car I would never have made it back in time through the school pick-up traffic!). We also had two games - one downloaded from the Climate Stewards' website which was a real eye-opener; and one involving a bran tub of jenga bricks with names of plants and animals on - the children had to draw one and then match it to a Wild Cards image in order to win a sticker (appropriately themed with wildflowers or eco messages). We had a lot of takers for the games which was great.

This Sunday I took the children out for our first ever 'Churches Count on Nature' - inevitably it was pretty small scale (and I'll add a few extra creatures spotted during the previous couple of weeks). The duck was of course our star find and there were some lovely damselflies. We also ended up picking a good bowl of strawberries.

Environment Sunday

Today was both Trinity Sunday and Environment Sunday and our focus was on the former, but we were outside in the glorious sunshine and the sermon slot talk - which involved a scavenger hunt and much flag waving - made frequent reference to God as Creator as well as to our blue planet. So it felt very apt for Environment Sunday nonetheless. The EcoChurch team had invited Tricia Marcouse of Reading Climate Action Network to give us a talk over coffee - for those who missed it or couldn't hear well, my notes on the talk are at the bottom of this post.

Afterwards we enjoyed a delicious lunch which (with a few tiny fishy exceptions) was vegetarian - a range of quiches, tarts and pizzas with salads plus puddings galore. The proceeds from the lunch will be going to Ripple Effect (previously Send A Cow) to "twin" our garden with one in rural Kenya. 

Throughout lunch we took it in turns to check on Jemima - the crazy duck who has decided to nest in our courtyard even though she won't be able to get her ducklings to water from there. Nikki, who keeps ducks, has ordered us some appropriate food and a proper water container for her to drink from while she's nesting (she's had to make do with a plant tray of water and bird seeds since I found her on Wednesday) and we're probably going to have to install a temporary pond.

As we were cycling home, I made a last minute decision to cycle left instead of right to join the Wildlife and Conservation group of the Friends of Reading Old Cemetery - they meet on the first Sunday of the month at 2pm, and to be honest my introvert brain is usually so fried after a church lunch that I've been putting off going since I found out about them last year. Realising it was 1.55, and knowing they'd advertised a Love Your Burial Ground week event, this felt like the moment to fight off the urge to slide into the hammock with an icecream at home and find out what was going on. It was not the biodiversity survey I had been expecting, but a working party building up habitat piles from the many fallen branches (I was very poorly dressed for the job), but it was such a lovely couple of hours. Wonderfully friendly people, tea provided half way through, plenty of scope for quietly getting on with the job or chatting to others as suited - we were working in the shade and kept catching sight of speckled wood butterflies in the dappled sunshine. Three of us were new and were given a tour of the cemetery part way through (caught sight of lots of holly blue butterflies there, as well as damsel flies, and the telltale remains of a sparrowhawk meal) - just a tiny glimpse of its fascinating history. I can see that finding out more about it could get quite addictive and am looking forward to going back soon.

Notes from Reading CAN talk:

Tricia began by explaining that Reading Climate Action Network consists of the same people as Reading Climate Change Partnership – ranging across many sectors of Reading including the hospital, council and university. While some of the sector leads, eg transport, do so as part of their paid work, others, such as herself heading up nature, are volunteers. Their budget is very small.

She began with an introduction to draughtbusters who help people in fuel poverty, referred to them from various routes. If we know of anyone in this situation, she recommends referring them either to the Council’s Winter Watch programme or the Citizens Advice Bureau. They are also keen to train up more volunteers if anyone is interested – she assured us it is “remarkably not complicated” and suggested we could host a workshop in our community to advise local people what can be done. They are trying to link up with housing associations to train them, but so far have only been linked with one in Oxfordshire, and they have started 8 other groups doing the same work.

Then she moved on to talk about protecting and promoting biodiversity in Reading. There are lots of little voluntary groups around town looking after plots of land belonging to council to increase biodiversity and carbon storage along with its existing use (our nearest is probably Newtown Community Garden).

They are also trying to future proof Reading for a future hotter climate – more shade will be needed in public open spaces so we need to plant now for the future. One plot they have worked on is Shinfield Road Recreation Ground. She showed us posters from this of children’s designs for nature projects for home and school. So far all the trees  they planted there are ok, but a portable BBQ had melted the plastic seats chosen to avoid them rotting. She recommended cycling over to Clayfield Copse where the bank of wildflowers they have planted looks magnificent.

In Reading at present there are a lot of problems with people trying to have tree preservation orders overturned. We really need legislation that in principle you cannot cut down trees.But good things are being achievedShe mentioned that the biggest single thing we can do is have a wildlife pond in our garden and she is happy to help provide suitable plants since they multiply easily yet cost a fortune in the garden centres.

She concluded by urging us to join the climate festival events, this starts with the Water Fest where she will have stall where there will be the opportunity to handle slow worms.

In the questions afterwards, as well as making suggestions for dealing with the duck nesting in our courtyard, she mentioned events for children happening at Holy Brook Nook in the triangle between the railway lines in Coley.

Harvest Festival

 Yesterday's service was our Harvest Festival, followed by a shared lunch to raise money for Christian Aid's Harvest Appeal for the East Africa Hunger Crisis. As the final service in Creation Season it was the appropriate time to mention TakeTheJump's biggest challenge:

The suggestions they offer include:

Changing to a green energy supplier 

Changing your pension to a green investor

Using ethical and green banks 

Using your energy at home efficiently, or install energy efficiency measures (this can be expensive so not everyone is able to do so easily).

If you feel comfortable and able to, you could consider pushing for change through activism or peaceful protest. For example, write to your political representative with the change you want to see.

A good place to start with campaigning is Christian Aid's own new Loss and Damage campaign to help vulnerable communities already damaged by Climate Change despite being those who contribute least to the greenhouse gas emissions.

Several of our congregation were also in a meeting last week to build support for the Climate and Ecology Bill. This would bring in legislation to stop and try to reverse both elements of the environmental crisis while engaging a people's assembly to help ensure fair action. If you'd like to know more - do ask Jo Laynesmith.

Taking the Jump in Creationtide

 

As usual we are marking Creation Tide through September and the first weekend in October. We've decided to encourage the actions suggested by takethejump.org in the notices each week, not least because many of them also involve actions that save money as well as carbon emissions and it feels more optimistic to be taking actions that will positively make the world fairer than just because the cost of living crisis is forcing us into them! For this week I mentioned the value of a plant based diet since the UN reckon that livestock accounts for 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions. This is hard to believe until you realise that, of the total mass of mammals on this planet, 60% is livestock, 36% humans and only 4% wild animals.  The JUMP's suggestions and justifications are here. Elsewhere I've seen a suggestion of the equivalent of three chicken breasts a week as a maximum appropriate.

Of course meat and dairy aren't the only high emissions foods - chocolate can be awful if rainforests have been cut down to grow the cocoa, which is why it's essential to look for the Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade symbols. Deciding what is appropriate is made more complicated by the fact that the same products grown in different ways can have different impacts. I've always been encouraged to read that beef from cattle that graze in organic pasture land is better than that from crowded sheds. Unfortunately George Monbiot has observed that some 26% of land is grazed in this way and that if this land was allowed to grow wild it would actually be very much better both for the climate and biodiversity - not everyone has been persuaded, as these comments show. All in all it seems beef ought still to be a very rare luxury.

Luckily being vegetarian or vegan has never been easier with an amazing array of alternatives available in supermarkets so it's a great deal easier to do it healthily. Some of the alternatives aren't always that much cheaper than the meat of course, but with the right recipe books it can be very economical - my favourite vegetarian recipe book is one I've had since I was a student: Cheap and Easy by Rose Elliot.

Last Sunday I was also able to recruit a good team to start looking after the courtyard garden and added some more plants which have been wonderfully well-watered by the rains at last in the days since.

First Sunday in Lent

Despite being the first Sunday of Lent, today's All Age Communion felt a particularly joyous service. It was a beautiful morning to walk in, with daffodils greeting us at the edge of the forecourt. Hamish singing 100 billion times, a gorgeous Creation song, was certainly one of its highlights.
Our shared lunch was vegetarian and mostly vegan - soups and no puddings because it is Lent, but delicious and satisfying nonetheless. The proceeds from the collection for that are going to Yeldall Manor.

Christian Aid Week

We started our preparations for Christian Aid Week early this year. Sunday 5th May was our Christian Aid service led by the children with Richard and Abi, picking up on what they'd been doing in Children's Praise the week before and sharing the story of the Good Samaritan. This was followed by a delicious vegetarian lunch and profits from the donations for this will, of course, be added to our contribution to Christian Aid this year.

More Lenten challenges

The church meal on the first Sunday of April, because it falls during Lent is always a bread and soup lunch (always billed as 'simple' but with sumptuous soups and lovely homemade bread). On this occasion we filled the time between the service and the meal with a lighthearted quiz about what we've done as an EcoChurch, and why, and answers were given before the grace so everyone knew the facts by the end of it - the winners were Jeremy and Don. We also challenged people to suggest some next steps, including action on the tiny open space between the school and the church which most of us had always assumed was the school's land - lots of suggestions were forthcoming, including some ambitious designs from some of the children, pictured:

Bottle Top Voting

St John and St Stephen's have long made it our policy to give away 22% of our general income to a variety of projects (eg A Rocha, Christian Aid, Readifood, for more details see here). This Sunday the Community Partnership Committee asked the congregation to vote on who should receive a share of some extra funds that were available. It was a great opportunity to remind people who the different organisations are that we support. Voting was done, as in a supermarket, with bottle tops put into jars - and this doubled as a reminder that we recycle bottle tops for charity in church!

Dazzled in Creation Season

This Creation Season began with a wonderful new initiative - Dazzle - a St  John's festival in conversation with the Festival of the Dark. Many elements were very relevant to our EcoChurch journey, including Kate Raworth's inspiring talk on Doughnut Ecomonics, two theatrical pieces (sadly I couldn't make it to these - there'll no doubt be write-ups in Newt), community gardening and many of the talks at the day symposium with which we finished. This was a real variety of information, leaving those of us who stayed all day reeling slightly from the information processing! Gary and Vincent offered us some fascinating theology and striking poetry, Dave Richards inspired us with a call to dig for a different kind of victory, Kester Brewin invited us to rethink attitudes to education, Alison Webster embraced boundary-crossing, Colin Heber-Percy examined what humanity means and Helen Bilton enthused about outdoor learning. There were also information stalls -  the most challenging for many of us to think on were the Vegan society.

Captain Fantastic

I finally made it to the last instalment of this year's Lent film festival - Captain Fantastic - about a family brought up in and idealistic wilderness, coping with the outside world. Much more light hearted than probably most of the films over the years, but still food for a lot of discussion afterwards - so many dilemmas in parenting. As Harper lectured Ben about whether it was appropriate to talk to the children about their mother's depression and suicide the scene cut suddenly to a violent video game and it felt a bit like being punched in the stomach. Online lists of film quotes include the lines "What's cola?" "Poison water", but not the follow up which I wish I could remember properly, to the effect that they were leaving the roadside cafe because it didn't sell actual food.

Lent Resolutions

Since Lent started on a 'first Sunday of the month' this year, it was a particularly convenient day for an EcoChurch activity between the service and our Lenten bread and soup lunch. We invited people to write up green lifestyle tips that they are already practising and hang them on this tree. The plan is to draw green tips from the service sheet from these in future. We also put out 'lifestyle audits' for people to complete, with the suggestion that through Lent they might want to use these to make their lifestyle a bit greener.

The following week Jennifer Leach from Ourider Anthems came to talk to us about their Festival of the Dark. It feels a bit strange at first for Christians to talk about joining a festival of the dark, but this is about reconnecting with a sense of the changing seasons of our world, using the festivals that for centuries drew us together as communities. She was particularly advertising today's 'The Night Breathes us In' event - it sounds beautiful although many of us were concerned that the cost of producing such an innovative and adventurous event is reflected in a ticket price that does make it rather exclusive. We are hoping the church might be able to be involved in future more accessible events that would also be open to children.

Meal profits to Operation Noah

Our treasurer has just forwarded an email of thanks from Operation Noah - we were able to send them £130 from the donations provided after Dominic and Miriam's vegan lunch.

Preparing for the climate talks - upcoming events

the events advertised at yesterday morning's service were: 

Reading People’s March - on Saturday 28th November – see ‘Route’ tab on website:http://readingpeoplesmarch.org – a march from Christchurch to a rally in the ‘3Bs’ in the Town Hall. 

They are also running a coach to London for the People's March for Climate, Justice and Jobs on Sunday 29th November – to book see http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2466956 or join Richard and Rosemary catching a train straight after our Advent Sunday Service.

Reading Climate Day on Saturday 5th December at Reading Minster

10 am - 2pm Green Christmas - ethical gift and food fair

4 pm 'Cafe Theologique' - Professor John Mitchell, Principal Research Fellow at the Met Office will talk about his work on climate change

7 pm - Climate Mass with the bishop presiding and Ruth Valerio preaching

All day - exhibitions and prayer stations

Also - Hamish invited us to contact Global Justice Now (who used to be the World Development Movement) about WTO plans to debar low-income countries from buying farmers' crops and distributing them to those too poor to afford food at market price. The email address to ask for a campaign card is offleyroad@globaljustice.org.uk.

Updating, and glimpsing the Kingdom

We've put our action plan for EcoCongregation on hold for the moment, awaiting the launch of Eco Church next year. But we've still been doing Eco stuff. For September's Godly Play I brought in piles of leaves, conkers, pine cones, twigs etc for the children to use for their craft session and especially encouraged them to make musical items with them (some coffee tins and re-used plastic cups helped here).
As usual Creation Season lasted through September and October and was marked chiefly by the use of liturgy that draws on Creation-related images (our Creation Season service booklets have appropriate images inside and at the back is St Francis's Canticle of the Sun). We're now into Kingdom Season but are using a new Eucharistic Prayer this year which again draws heavily on Creation imagery.

On All Saints Day Dominic and Miriam cooked everyone a fabulous vegan lunch - I glanced in on the cooking part way through the service in case they needed help: there was something incredibly beautiful about the calm production of all that wonderful smelling food and Miriam was cooking with her gorgeous three-month-old strapped to her back, smiling and watching.

The meal was a mixed bean chilli with cashew cream, rice, corn bread and salad. Before we started Miriam explained the three reasons for a vegan lunch
1. At the climate conference in Warsaw in November 2013, Philippine delegate Yeb Sano fasted throughout the conference following a pledge not to eat unless progress was made to stop climate madness. Since then across the world climate campaigners have been fasting on the first day of each month in solidarity and prayer.
2. Meat and dairy products are an inefficient use of resources and farming them is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions
3. Very often farm animals are not well-treated, their capacity for suffering ignored.

The money left over after donations to cover ingredients will be going to Operation Noah.

Preparing for the mass lobby on Climate Change

Last Sunday we had a great family service and the lunch was in aid of Readifood. Alison gave us a brief talk about the food parcel service before the meal. We also used the time between the service ending and the meal beginning to do some preparation for the mass lobby on Climate Change on 17th June. Christian Aid have asked us to make bunting along the theme speaking up for the love of things we care about - so here is the bunting that Richard B will be taking to the lobby.

Acting on Climate Change (and feasting)

For once our family arrived in time to get cycle racks for our bikes this morning (Mark was leading the service so it was necessary to arrive before the first hymn!).

Quite unprompted by the EcoCongregation planners, the notice section this morning turned out to be a climate change marathon - Hamish P has digested a couple of Michael Northcott's books into accessible papers to help us all get at the salient facts easily and he gave an impassioned summary to encourage us all to read them and to start taking meaningful action. Abi announced her planned bus to the climate change march on March 7th. Finally, a Reading University student who is researching electricity use among the over 65s asked for volunteers so that he can set up monitors in their homes - thanks everyone who agreed to get involved with that: 11 volunteers means St John's are providing just over a quarter of the homes he needs.

Liz and Rosemary provided a very delicious lunch, with a small amount of fish and no meat. The puddings were especially fabulous today as Pathfinders had a social yesterday during which they made ginger ice cream, baklava, trifles and cheesecakes. All money raised after the lunch ingredients are paid for this month will go to the LAMB hospital in Bangladesh.

Bread, mustard seeds and rendering unto Caesar

It was a nice surprise to see this blog advertised on the overhead projector notices on Sunday morning and so a reminder to put something in this week! Some of the congregation may have noticed the link between the different parables the children were looking at this week - they were all meant to be on a theme of growing crops and harvest. For pathfinders that included baking bread - for anyone wondering where the bread was afterwards, it turned out that the church oven is in serious need of attention so the children took their part baked creations home with instructions for finishing them.
Meanwhile in the course of his sermon Richard mentioned Christian Aid's tax justice campaign, more details of which can be found here.
 

Harvests

Once again we have reached that time of year for sharing harvests - I'm very much looking forward to sampling Diana's apple, marrow and ginger chutney purchased today (all money going to Tearfund), and have several plans for the damsons from Hugh and Judy - thank you.
As the Season of Creation approaches once more I'm hoping we can start planning to move forward in our 'EcoCongregation journey'- all ideas welcome over coffee in the refectory after the service on 14th September (or email me).
The front of our church is currently extra-colourful thanks to the wonderful rainbow picture (above) produced by children at the holiday club last week, based on Desmond Tutu's book, God's Dream.

Summer

Over the summer there were several events organised by members of the congregation to encourage people to enjoy our beautiful world together - a picnic, a walk and a cycle ride. My family were away all summer but I understand the walk was particularly successful. We came back to that wonderful season when people bring in their excess crops to share and benefited from pears, damsons and grapes - thank you!

INF meal at Candlemas

After today's excellent Candlemas Worship Together we had a delicious vegetarian meal. Following the Food Matters meeting, I was determined not to end up buying a pudding from the Co-op on the way to church but I think I'll need to practice the Chocolate and Pear Tatin I made (Green & Black's Ultimate Chocolate Recipe Book) to improve the appearance (although it tasted much as one would hope with that much Divine chocolate in it). The money raised from the meal will be given to INF and so Ali (back from Nepal but returning shortly) showed us a very moving film about their work after the meal.
Less positively from a green perspective, it was again really warm in church today and the figures for the end of year confirm that our gas use (school and church combined) has actually gone up signficantly this year.