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I've got no more space in my head...


I’ve got no more space in my head….



Today there has been unprecedented public demonstrations in every time zone starting in the east Pacific and still unfolding now ( late in the evening here in the UK)on the western edge of the Americas.    I can’t remember a globally coordinated action like this ever before.  I took no part in it, and yet it was about the future of our planet…the global climate strike.

There was simply too much in the forefront of my mind that took up my attention and time; all activities related to helping others, encouraging spiritual growth, pastoral visiting and care.   Like (nearly) everyone else I know the Climate Emergency is way past serious.  Yet I can’t quite bring myself to actually give a few hours of my time to protest in ways that many of my friends (and some fellow clergy) have done today.  I hadn’t thought of putting it in my diary ahead of time…to be honest I hadn’t really clocked it was happening until yesterday and yet I check the BBC New website for updates during the day.  How had I missed such a major event??     

My time is one of my most valued gifts to offer, which is why my family gets the bulk of my ‘free’ time and I like to think I use the rest of it reasonably well.  As I dig down into this I realise I only accept the seriousness of the situation in a very limited way.  It is sort of sorted and filed under one of the following:   

·         Scary things to think about one day.  

·         They will sort it when they really, really need to.

·         I can’t make much difference (so there’s no point sacrificing time, energy, life style)

·         Global issue that religious leaders need to be seen to engage with

As I write these words I’m still pushing back against having my life and headspace majorly disrupted by allowing the severity of the crisis to get inside my command deck.   This is the operational bit of my brain that determine (often sub consciously) what I see as priorities and it guides my choices and behaviour.  There are already some fairly significant things in there and I’m troubled about the disruption this newcomer will bring.    Normal rules may not apply anymore.    Yet there are only so many things I can be passionate about.   This is why I am left with doing a bit here and there for climate awareness, a bit like seeing an elderly relative when you’re a child.  You know it is the right thing to be doing and the visits fit in the time that is left over from the other things that take up the day.  I do enough not to be seen as a heartless Pratt but haven’t really go my heart in it.  

The list keeps growing though:  asylum seekers from war torn countries, modern slavery, our mental health crisis, the epidemic of loneliness, an alienation from God, a flattening of ordinary life…the list goes on and on.   I have got Ross Greer, Green MSP and our local XR group coming for an evening on the Climate Emergency.     Isn’t that something??!    Do we pick what we can manage and we will all have slightly different priorities on this.  And yet a never-before-seen global wave of protest took place today that unites us in ways that anti-nuclear protesting or the Jubilee 2000 movement never did.   This unsettles and inspires me and I’m left with the feeling that today I was certainly way behind the curve of what God is doing in this world.   Of course I’m not claiming that all these activists were religious, that’s actually beside the point.  It simply that from my perspective good stuff is God stuff whether it is named that way or not.   Maybe I’ll be able to face the ‘scary thing that I will think about one day’ when I realise that God will not abandon his world and that these millions of people are a sign of hope.  This isn’t whistling in the dark but hearing the prophets in the most unlikeliest of voices.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RqdveifbuEVYvKc-iaAHeV12yXUPTglH/view?usp=drivesdk

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