With spring in the air it seems most appropriate to focus on the season of creation during the next month. This first week the focus is on forests and the creation story from Genesis 2 highlights that the original home of humanity was in a garden surrounded by trees. These trees were beautiful to look at and their fruit and seeds were useful for food. There was an easy interdependence as humanity for its part was called to care for the garden and the trees.
During this season of creation we are also being encouraged to reflect on what it might mean to enact a Jubilee for the earth, a year where crops were not planted or harvested and the earth had a rest. In some ways, the Covid19 pandemic has provided this unexpected rest for the earth as plane travel has all but stopped and car travel is greatly reduced. It’s provided an opportunity for many of us to slow down, to hear the calls of birds singing, to go for more walks and appreciate the natural beauty in our neighbourhood.
But we must also recognise that the greatest threats to our forests are human based – land clearing and climate change – and these carry on apace, unaffected by the pandemic. Unless all of us start to take these threats seriously and choose to make some changes in our own daily habits, then our beautiful and spirit restoring forests will continue to dry out, burn or be bulldozed. To learn more about what we can do, make an effort to watch or rewatch the recent series on ABC TV Fight for Planet A. We can also write an email or letter to our politicians asking them to take meaningful action on climate change.
We will be holding a Zoom worship meeting this Sunday morning from 9.45 am. I will host the meeting from my home but it will be an opportunity to hold a larger (virtual) gathering and to see each others’ faces. We will be basing our worship on the attached worship@home resource for this week, so it would be handy to have a copy present. We can send you a link to the meeting or a phone number and meeting details if you sign up by emailing the Croydon UC church office on office@croydon.unitingchurch.org.au or using the form in the sidebar.
Click here for worship@home resources The beauty and importance of forests - 6 Sep 2020