Category: Spiritual, Lifestyle and Community

We share with you an invitation for those based in the UK to join a “Journey to COP26” event organized by a group of Quakers in Britain on Saturday 10^th and Sunday 11^th April. This community-based event offers an opportunity “for people of all faiths and none to join together remotely and share our belief in the sacredness of all life, ahead of the UN climate talks, COP26” by journeying to a place that is sacred to you and sharing it online.

The initiative puts awareness, understanding and action on climate change at the heart of the community response to COP26. The climate talks, which are scheduled to happen in Glasgow in November 2021, will play a crucial role in determining the global climate response over the coming decade. The organisers of the action, a small group of Quakers supported by Quaker Peace & Social Witness, write:

“This action is a way for us to strengthen our collective sense of purpose in protecting the Earth and all its inhabitants.

Your journey could be to your garden or local park, or a day long hike! If your sacred place is your own living room it could even be a spiritual or virtual journey. It could be taken as a group, perhaps with others from your meeting, or individually.

Anyone can participate in the Journey to COP26.”

If you want advice, support or ideas for what to do for your Journey to COP26, please get in touch! Email Oonagh Ryder, Activism Support Coordinator: oonaghr@quaker.org.uk

Is there something, someone or somewhere that you know and love which is endangered by environmental break-down? How does your lifestyle contribute to that threat? What could you do, or are you doing, to help reduce that threat?

The Loving Earth Project, started by Friends in the UK and now expanding internationally, invites participants to explore these three questions. The community project “celebrates people, places, creatures and other things that we love but which are threatened by growing environmental breakdown.” It offers online resources and events to help guide through this exploration and welcomes contributions to its community textile project, which encourages participants to create a visual reflection of their response.  These beautiful textile panels feature everything from wild flowers to school strikers to polar bears. The panels and accompanying texts form part of a traveling display, showcasing the many ways in which people find themselves connecting to climate crisis and the natural world. You can see some of them at https://lovingearth-project.uk/gallery/ ; they hope for a big display in Glasgow for COP 26 in November 2021 and to tour widely thereafter.

The project was initiated by members of the Quaker Arts Network in the UK, bearing in mind “the different ways in which Friends can hold spaces for the Spirit to act, including through the arts”. The Loving Earth Project is now run as a partnership involving QAN and Woodbrooke (which is focusing on offering opportunities for Quakers and Quaker groups to engage with the project), and also with a variety of other groups.  Three of the Friends taking it forward are: Maud Grainger who works at Woodbrooke to support Quakers in their engagement with the climate crisis; Linda Murgatroyd who initiated the project and is based in London; and Sue Tyldesley, based in North Lancashire, a textile artist who uses creative embroidery.

The project invites contributions from all cultures, faiths and backgrounds, and welcomes offers from volunteers as local contacts to help this project stretch across the globe. You can find more information, and contact details at lovingearth-project.uk (including an international page) , https://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/learn/climate-crisis/loving-earth/  and @LovingEarthProject. To join the e-newsletter mailing list, please contact lovingearthproject@woodbrooke.org.uk

Jonathan Sprout, a member of Fallsington Monthly Meeting in the United States, and his company Force For Good, have released their first CD, Passions. Once a month, Force For Good will premiere a short film (available for free on YouTube). The 13 initial films were made with Quaker principles in mind and deal with gender and racial equality, climate change and renewable energy, the refugee crisis, sensible gun legislation, organic farming, hope, and grace. Each film is about five minutes long, wordless, and prayer/meditation-like. These films are designed to open hearts and minds and have helped prepare people for worship.