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Radio 4,2 mins

Hannah Malcolm - 07/08/2021

Thought for the Day

Available for over a year

Good morning. In recent weeks we were once again reminded of the horrifying impact of sudden flooding: floods in Germany, Belgium, and China have claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed local communities and ecologies. As these events increase globally, fear sets in, and my own feeling of helplessness rises. A study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature indicates that, by 2030, around 50 million extra people will live at risk from flooding directly due to the impacts of climate change. One year ago, a group of 20-somethings like myself from churches across the UK established the Young Christian Climate Network, committed to living out our faith in the pursuit of climate justice. This week, the network’s pilgrimage from the G7 to COP26 sites – St Ives to Glasgow – is passing through London. Walkers gathered on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral under a banner which read ‘Same Storm, Different Boats’, highlighting the global disparity between poor and wealthy nations in facing the impacts of climate change. The pilgrims represent all ages and backgrounds, and as they travel, they‘re calling on the government to meet and exceed their own climate finance commitments, and to cancel the debts of poor countries. The relay of participants is accompanied by a boat whose sail bears fabrics from climate threatened places – pointing to the hundreds of millions of people whose lives are threatened by sea level rise, cyclones, and other climate related disasters. What can a pilgrimage offer, given the scale of these threats? In the Christian tradition, walking a pilgrimage invites participants to practise holiness through devoting slow attention to the work of God in the world. On this journey, we’re learning how we might better participate in that work. As a member of the Young Christian Climate Network, I’m waiting for the pilgrimage’s arrival in the north-east, where we’ll tread ancient pilgrim paths together. As we walk the same ground as St Bede, St Cuthbert, and St Aidan, we’ll seek, like them, to witness to God’s love for all his creatures. It might seem strange to emphasise slow attention in the face of so much urgency. But the Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama described Christians as following a three-mile-an-hour God – whose dwelling among us was paced at the average walking speed, whose love was unhurried, who was attentive to the powerless and forgotten. In this pilgrimage our hope is that many will join us in our witness to climate justice, redirecting our attention to those people and places who so easily go unheard.

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