Judith Russenberger

Counting on … day 84

4th August 2026

Resilience is about being able to cope with emergencies. Having a first kit is part of that. Ditto knowing how to administer first aid. The British Red Cross and St John’s Ambulance both run first aid training courses. They also have a downloadable handbook. Not included in a first aid kit, but nevertheless useful are essentials such as paracetamol and other such standard medications depending on what you would normally use.

As well as a first aid kit, it is sensible to have in hand spare medication if you have to take some regularly.

The British Red Cross has a useful emergency first aid app – https://www.redcross.org.uk/get-help/prepare-for-emergencies/free-emergency-apps

Counting on … day 83

3rd August 2026

As well as knowing where the stopcock is, a bucket could be another useful asset in the case of emergencies.

Another handy item would be at least one torch and some spare batteries – or a rechargeable torch that you do keep fully charged. In the past we would have said have some candles but from a safety point of view a camping style lantern that runs on a battery would be better.

Equally useful in a different way would be a head torch – handy for washing up or cooking in the dark.

Proper 13, 9th Sunday after Trinity

2nd August 2026

Reflection with readings below

It is God’s desire to feed and meet the needs of all that lives. That is the recurring message of the prophets and the gospels. It seems so obvious and logical that God, having created such a diversity of life – plants, creatures, humans – would wish to ensure that they all were fed, cared for and nourished. It is certainly true that parents desire the best for their children, that gardeners aim to create the best environment for their plants, that pet owners seek the best for their cats, dogs, goldfish etc.

Why then do governments not do the same for their citizens? Here in the UK and across the world we see many going un- or underfed. We see people inadequately houses, afforded insufficient health care and mediocre education. We see people ill-provided with access to green spaces and recreational facilities. We see people who are marginalised because of inadequate public transport. We even see bus and train drivers lacking access to toilet facilities!!

And yet at the same time we see governments supporting the rich, whether they are individuals or corporations. We see governments creating rules and sustaining systems that perpetuate inequality and injustice. We see governments watching, with complacency, the rich consuming at the expense of the poor, manipulating systems to meet their needs, and polluting the environment with no comeback.

The gospel message, and therefore the Christian calling, is to challenge systems and traditions, governments and vested interests, that fail to care for everyone – including every living thing – fairly. We should be challenging the assumption that the markets will ensure fair play and a fair distribution of resources to meet needs. We should be challenging the focus on profits, on unending growth, on the diversion of resources into the control of a minority.

This week Shell revealed that their profits for the last quarter have more than doubled to £10billion for the second quarter. Wael Sawan, the CEO, cannot be unaware of the crises facing so many people. Indeed he commented “These are difficult times, undoubtedly, and I think the government, from everything we pick up publicly, is trying to do what it can to be able to support. And [the] UK is our headquarters, is our home, and we will offer any support that we can to the government as they try to navigate these difficult waters” BUT at the same time urging for greater support for drilling in the North Sea – an activity that only fuels extreme temperatures and wildfires – and doing everything to avoid further taxation of their profits.

God has created an amazing world with the capacity to feed and sustain all its inhabitants – but only if we don’t abuse the various ecosystems and seek only our own wellbeing. In today’s gospel we often highlight the amazing generosity that means everyone is fed, but do not so readily focus on the fact that no one is greedy, no one tries to hang onto the excess for their own profit. In the parallel story in Exodus, the generous gift of mana comes with the warning that the people should only gather what they need for that day; greed is punished by mould and maggots. We need take only what we need and only what is sustainable. We need to normalise a culture that expects resources to be shared and used according to need and not gain or greed.

Last Thursday was Earth Overshoot Day, the day on which we have collectively consumed a whole year’s worth of the Earth’s renewable good and services. We cannot go on burning oil and gas and expecting the Earth to absorb the excess. We cannot go on extracting more and more water from rivers and aquifers and expect them to refill at a faster and faster rate. We cannot going on eating meat whilst expect nature to squeeze into an ever smaller margin of the land. We cannot throw away more and more plastic and expect the oceans to simply absorb the waste. We cannot continue to indulge our consumerist society and expect the poor and vulnerable to simply cope better on less and less. A good life is not measured by how much you earn or how much you spend, but by how you love your neighbour.

Loving our neighbour is not always about baking them a cake or paying their medical bills. More often it is about us changing our lifestyle so that we don’t damage their chance of a healthy, happy life. Loving our neighbour is very much about reducing not just our carbon footprint but our environmental footprint. Loving our neighbour is about flying less, about switching from a gas boiler to a heat pump, about opting for active travel, eating substantially less meat and dairy, making things last rather than frequently upgrading and replacing. Loving our neighbour is also about pressing for system change whether by our local authority – to plant more trees, retrofit homes, improve public transport and cycling infrastructure. Whether by our government – to phase out fossil fuels, invest in grid infrastructure, mandate prioritisation of nature, promote uptake of and access to healthier diets. Whether by businesses and institutions – do they know what you, the consumer, actually wants as opposed to what they want you to want?

Loving our neighbour – and showing our love for God – is about living within the sustainable limits of the world’s ecosystems, and ensuring a just sharing of and access to resources. Looking again at today’s story of the feeding of the five thousand, we see how team work and cooperation are key in the success of the event.

Isaiah 55:1-5

Thus says the Lord:

“Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;

and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.

I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.

See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.

See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,

because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.”

Psalm 145: 8-9, 15-22

8 The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, *
slow to anger and of great kindness.

9 The Lord is loving to everyone *
and his compassion is over all his works.

15 The Lord upholds all those who fall; *
he lifts up those who are bowed down.

16 The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, *
and you give them their food in due season.

17 You open wide your hand *
and satisfy the needs of every living creature.

18 The Lord is righteous in all his ways *
and loving in all his works.

19 The Lord is near to those who call upon him, *
to all who call upon him faithfully.

20 He fulfils the desire of those who fear him; *
he hears their cry and helps them.

21 The Lord preserves all those who love him, *
but he destroys all the wicked.

22 My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord; *
let all flesh bless his holy Name for ever and ever.

Romans 9:1-5

I am speaking the truth in Christ– I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit– I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Matthew 14:13-21

Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Taste and see – God is good!

1st August 2026

O taste and see that the Lord is good Psalm 34:8a

You Lord, are the source of all good things:

We praise you.

You call us to tend and care for your creation:

May we strive to do your will.

You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives:

May we live together in peace.

A reading from Isaiah 55:1-3 (The Message translation)

Hey there! All who are thirsty,
    come to the water!
Are you penniless?
    Come anyway—buy and eat!
Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk.
    Buy without money—everything’s free!
Why do you spend your money on junk food,
    your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?
Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best,
    fill yourself with only the finest.
Pay attention, come close now,
    listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.
I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you,
    the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.

A response:

Listen; attune your ears – what do you hear?

The excited chatter of children,

and the chatter of jackdaws,

wind rustling the leaves,

and feet tapping the road.

Or the drone of cars – too much!

Or the whine of planes – too many!

Look; focus your vision – what do you see?

a lacework of branches against the sky,

and curvaceous clouds,

tawny shades of fallen leaves,

and the tight curl of a snail shell.

Or traffic crawling bumper to bumper – too much

Or discarded tatters of plastic – too many!

Stretch; bare your skin – what do you feel?

The warm caress of the sun,

the chilly nip of the breeze,

the prickle of grass,

the textured bark of a tree

Or the rasp of exhaust in your throat – too much!

Or the scratch of particulates in your eyes – too many!

Sniff; breathe deeply – what do you smell?

The aroma of fresh coffee,

and the zest of orange juice,

the fragrance of the last rose,

and the warmth of ground spices.

Or the reek of petrol – too much!

Or the sting of pesticides – too many!

Savour; let it linger on your tongue – what do you taste?

The fresh acidity of an apple,

and the earthy satisfaction of bread,

the squashy sweetness of banana,

and the melting delight of chocolate.

Or the fake sweetness of green wash – too much!

Or the gall of climate injustice- too many !

Merciful God,

bring us to our senses.

Help us rebuild a world

of right experiences.

Amen.

Counting on … day 82

31st July 2026

Knowing where the stop cock for your water supply and the off switch for your electricity and gas supplies is sensible. In the event of a flood all three should be switched off.

The other sensible thing is to make sure they are working. We recently had a dripping tap. When we tried to turn off the water, we discovered the stopcock was not working. When we tried to turn off the water in the street we found that that too was not working! So first we had to get Thames Water to fix the stopcock in the street, and then a plumber to fit a new stopcock inside before we could tackle the tap!!!

Counting on … day 81

30th July 2026

As well as keeping a supply of water to hand, we also keep a supply of food – against a situation where we can’t get to the shops for 3-7 days (which could have been the situation during COVID, but could cover a situation where say power cuts/ internet outages/ floods might disrupt food supplies).

These supplies include dry goods like beans, flour, cereals; tinned foods; preserves such as bottled fruit, jam, chutneys; non perishables such as sugar etc. Having established enough for 3-5 days minimum, now when we use anything, we replace it so maintaining the supplies.

We also keep a 7 day supply of cat food which Hilda (our cat) says is absolutely essential!

Counting on … day 80

29th July 2026

Saving or conserving water is good at any time – emergency or not.

Some eco houses have proper grey water systems that collect waste water. We have a basin in each wash basin, and a jug on the floor. Water from hand washing is collected and is used to flush the toilet of poured in the jug for later toilet flushing. The toilet flush is used when a good flush is needed.

Counting on … day 79

28th July 2026

With a few to having a degree of resilience should a crisis cut off our supply of water, we keep stored about 12 -14 litres of water (for a household of three). Rather than opting for a stock of plastic bottled water, we use a mixture of glass bottles and Demi johns, refilling each as we empty them, and rotating them so that they don’t have water more than about a day old.

We use the water for drinking, cooking and washing up. If the water supply was cut, we would use this bottled water purely for drinking and rely on the water in the header tank in the roof space for washing up etc.

Counting on … day 78

27th July 2026

Collecting washing machine water for the garden.

Over the next few days I plan to share a few ways in which our household is trying to be more resilient in the face of the climate – and other associated -crises.

Last week Thames Water introduced a hosepipe ban which didn’t come as a surprise given a) how hot it has been and b) how little rain we have had these past few months.

Routinely we try to minimise our use of water – water is a scarce and valuable resource. But now that our several water buts have run dry, we have moved one but so that we can use it to collect the water from the washing machine – 50 litres (5 buckets) per wash. At the same time we switched from us in a laundry liquid to an eco egg which produces less soapy water. This water is then used on plants in the garden – fruit bushes, squash plants, rhubarb etc.

Green tau restoring biodiversity as part of the bigger picture

27th July 2026

“According to the Natural History Museum’s Biodiversity Intactness Index, the UK ranks 189th out of 240 countries and territories for how intact its nature and biodiversity remain. Just 53% of the UK’s original nature is left intact – far below the Index’s safe limit of 90% and the global average of 79%. Each of the four UK nations sits near the bottom of this ranking, with England at 47%, Northern Ireland at 50%, Wales at 51%, and Scotland at 56%.” (1)

Worryingly the government’s State of Nature Report suggests this decline is still ongoing: “…more indicators are deteriorating or showing no change than improving, over both the long and short term.” And: “No indicators which are deteriorating in the long term, are showing improvement in the short term.” (2)

19% Across the UK species studied have declined on average by 19% since 1970.

16% Nearly one in six species are threatened with extinction from Great Britain

151 of 10,008 species assessed have already become extinct since 1500 (3)

Scientists warn that if we don’t reverse this decline imminently – the Kunming Montreal framework target is protect 30% 2030 – it will become near impossible to reverse.

https://www.robeco.com/en-uk/insights/2024/07/bending-the-curve-investing-in-biodiversity-as-an-economic-necessity

Conversely if we don’t manage to turn the tide by 2030, the prospects for improving biodiversity are good.

To make a bit of a leap, I’m going to interpret increasing biodiversity as meaning restoring nature. But this too may not be clear cut. To restore nature could mean:

https://research.senedd.wales/media/z4alhnt5/biodiversity-fig-2-en.png

“In simple terms, restoration means bringing more nature and biodiversity back across different ecosystems, from forests, peatlands and agricultural land, to freshwater, marine and urban ecosystems.

Restoration is a process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed. This could be through rewetting wetlands and peatlands, improving degraded soil and agricultural land by adding natural features such as hedgerows and trees, recreating lost natural forests, removing invasive species, planting native vegetation, removing obsolete barriers from rivers, increasing tree coverage in cities, and much more.” (4)

It could mean restoring landscapes to their wild, pre-human state:-

“At Rewilding Britain, we define rewilding as the large-scale restoration of ecosystems to the point where nature is allowed to take care of itself. Rewilding seeks to reinstate natural processes and, where appropriate, missing species – allowing them to shape the landscape and the habitats within. It’s focused firmly on the future although we can learn from the past.

“Rewilding encourages a balance between people and the rest of nature so that we thrive together. It can provide opportunities for communities to diversify and create nature-based economies; for living systems to provide the ecological functions on which we all depend; and for people to reconnect with wild nature.

“Our vision is at least 5% of Britain rewilding, with 25% returned to broader mosaics of nature-friendly land and marine uses — including farming, forestry and fishing. We see this expansion reversing biodiversity loss and enabling nature to bounce back, helping us adapt to climate change as our complex ecosystems find their own answers.” (5)

Or it could be a pragmatic approach:-

Restore nature now – the Government must honour its commitment to manage 30% of land for nature by 2030. That means designating more space for nature and paying our farmers properly to help nature thrive.
Defend nature and wildlife – stop weakening the laws that protect them. Introduce a strong Water Reform Bill to clean up our rivers, streams and seas, and make polluters pay.
Build places to be proud of – demand that neighbourhoods are rich in nature and end unfair access to green space, starting by publishing the Government’s long-promised action plan by the end of the year. (6)

However what I want to suggest is that however we set about restoring nature and reversing biodiversity loss, we cannot address this issue in isolation. If we consider why biodiversity has been in such sharp decline, why it is that we have lost to so much of our natural environments, we will see that these losses are linked to:-

Expansion of the built environment where buildings, roads and other transport links, mines and quarries, have encroached on land where nature previously existed. Many species are in decline because their habitats are disappearing.
Pollution from smoke (causing acid rain), from vehicles exhaust pipes, from industrial processes, and the run off from farms of slurry, fertilisers etc.
From intensive farming where large fields have resulted in the loss of trees and hedgerows that once provided essential habitats for many species, and the proliferation of monocultures which do not support a diversity of other life forms.
Replacing mixed broadleaf woodlands with monocultures of coniferous plantations.
Overgrazing of uplands and the replacement of meadows with grass monocultures suited purely for grazing cattle – again reducing habitats for other species.
Increasing use of pesticides and herbicides that do what it says in the tin – kills insects and plants.
Intensive cultivation of the soil destroying its natural structures and resident populations of insects, grubs, fungi and micro-organisms – and requiring their substitution with fertilisers to maintain the fertility of the soil.
Climate change which is human-induced and which has depleted native species who have been unable to adapt or to adapt fast enough to the increasing heat/ floods/ droughts and wildfires.

Unless we can address these issues to, no amount of planting native trees, or sowing wildflower meadows, or reintroducing lost species, is going to work. Restoring nature and improving biodiversity has to involve us in reviewing and reforming our whole way of living.

For example, we need to review the way we farm and therefore what we eat. Our current agricultural system is designed to produce increasing amounts of meat and dairy, with the parallel need to produce – or import – more animal feed, which necessitates the intensive farming methods that are widespread. If we wish to reduce that scale and intensity of livestock production we need to eat less meat and dairy products and instead adopt diets that are rich in tasty, diverse UK grown fruits, vegetables, nuts and beans.

We may want to look at how land is farmed. Would it be better for nature – and for us as communities – if we had more smaller farm units, employing more people and less heavy equipment? Would it be better to have more hedgerows, more ponds and pockets of woodland? Would it be better to have more publicly accessible green spaces?

Yes there would be a cost – food prices would go up – and that might mean reducing the lower rates of taxation, but that cost would surely be less than the costs of the continued loss of biodiversity and the resulting negative impact on climate change, on floods and droughts, on the fertility of the soil, on clean air and clean waterways, and of the loss of essential pollinators leading to depleted harvests.

These are all serious issues that we need to consider as a society and which we need to address collectively.

https://policy.friendsoftheearth.uk/insight/how-britain-became-one-most-nature-depleted-countries-world

(2) ditto

(3) https://stateofnature.org.uk/

(4) https://www.restorenature.eu/en/faq-on-nature-restoration#What is nature restoration

(5) https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/why-rewild/what-is-rewilding/an-introduction-to-rewilding/defining-rewilding

(6) https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/our-cause/nature-climate/nature-conservation/nature-is-our-future