After Copenhagen, we are all neighbours - interdependent one with another!

I am a Quaker

If the Copenhagen summit on climate change was a disappointment it was also a beginning. For the first time the leaders of all the peoples of the world were present to acknowledge the need to try and keep global warming below plus 2C. Also, for the first time, we saw two new centres of influence: the emerging countries of China and India and those who spoke for Africa, South America and the low-lying oceanic islands.

For us in the temperate North, climate change will cause much discomfort – not least in its impact on global food and water supplies – but for those in the intemperate South it will be a great catastrophe. Those least responsible for disaster will suffer most. Whilst, therefore, we in the North have to learn to live within a lower-growth low carbon economy, we must also try to find ways of “sitting beside” these our distant neighbours. We have to find ways of sharing more directly in their suffering and giving them support. In this we must learn to listen, working with local communities. If we have something to offer, we should also recognize that our old ways have failed us; why would they help them! Arrogance must give way to loving kindness.

For an example of good work go to www.gaiafoundation.org

During the latter part of last year, I began to read the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and have been studying the work of Thomas Aquinas on Natural Law. I hope to have something to share with you before long.

Please read these extracts from my most recent work and let me know what you think.

A GREAT UNEASE

One of the most disruptive characteristics of our present time is a Great Unease: an assertive sense of always having to do something; having always to be on the move; and ever having to be part of a virulent and addictive consumption. The present economic turmoil suggests that this way of being is highly unstable and damaging and, since it is certain that we cannot find a solution in the old ways that have brought us to where we are, we need to find new ways of being.

What about turning our old ways on their head? What would it be like if, instead of greed, discontent and selfishness we sought a way that was based upon unfashionable qualities such as patience, slowness, gentleness, selflessness, humility, simplicity and peacefulness? Oddly enough, I want to suggest that these are the very qualities that we need for a new economy and a new way of life that would be more sustainable and more likely to deliver well-being.

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AN ORDINARY & EVERYDAY HOLINESS

How shall we live well and in peace? I want to propose that the answer to this question lies in the nature of what I want to call an “ordinary and everyday holiness”.

I realise that to use the word “holy” is either an act of bravery or foolishness, for there will be many that will say that such a word is “out of time”. But, in truth, the word is timeless and in many ways also ordinary, a part of our common remembrance. For, as William Blake put it “…everything that lives is Holy” and to be holy is to be whole and at one with the Divine in thought, word and deed.

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Holiness in the Everyday

Holiness in the Everyday brings together for the first time a group of essays on topics such as peace, sustainability and love that have been at the heart of my writings for the last ten or so years. The essays are set within the context of Quaker testimony, that is the way in which Quakers express their faith both in their meetings for worship and in their everyday lives. Most especially, the book seeks to bring back into our lives wholeness and holiness.

Holiness in the Everyday can be ordered via Amazon.co.uk or directly from Quaker Books, Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ (020 7663 1030)

Cost: £7.00

The Roots of Sustainability

David Cadman's book The Roots of Sustainability probes beneath and beyond the conventional discussion of sustainability to reveal that upon which it depends.

The Roots of Sustainability is available from:

Ben Bolgar
The Prince's Foundation
19-22 Charlotte Road
Shoreditch
London
EC2A 3SG

Cost: £13.50 inc. p&p