Justice – Page 3 – The Green Tau

Counting on … day 139

9th September 2025

Inequalities vis a vis climate change (and many other issues) also exist between the individual and the company or industry.

It is well known that it is the emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that is causing climate change. To avoid the worsening of this crisis the obvious thing to do would be to stop producing and using the oil and gas that create this pollutant. Yet however much individuals may wish – and petition and campaign – to see that happen (wishing that the economy would transition to one based on renewable energy sources and plastic alternatives) it is the fossil fuel and plastics companies and industries that get the ear of government ministers.

“UK government ministers met with representatives from the oil and gas sector at least 343 times in 2023, according to Global Witness analysis of data collected by Transparency International UK.” (1) This equates to an average of 1.4 meetings per day. At the same time 10 of the UK’s most prominent climate and social justice organisations met with ministers only 33 times (2)

Green Tau: issue 114

2nd September 2025

The IMF and Carbon Debt

The rising temperatures we are now witnessing cone not just from the CO2 currently being emitted but also the accumulation of CO2 over the centuries. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for anywhere between 300 and 1000 years, constantly acting as a blanket keeping in the sun’s warmth. For humans and the environment that best suits us, the ideal amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is between 280 and 350 parts per million (ppm). That was the level prior to the industrial revolution when we began significantly increasing the emission of carbon dioxide beyond the Earth systems capacity to absorb the extra CO2. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere now stand at 425 ppm, reflecting the continued and increasing emission of CO2.

Countries that industrialised first have been contributing to this problem for some 175+ years. Newly industrialised countries for a shorter time span. The amount produced by countries in both scenarios varies reflecting degrees of heavy industry, levels of consumer consumption, dependency on fossil as opposed to alternative fuels etc. Each country can be judged to have a ‘climate debt’ according to how much carbon dioxide it has cumulatively contributed towards global warming since industrialisation. The debt can be costed in terms of what proportion of the negative costs of climate change – its adverse effects on health, the cost of adverse weather events, etc.

According to the IMF’s report, Settling the Climate Debt (2023) “It can be argued that each global citizen has an equal right to an environment unaffected by climate change. This implies that countries with high climate debt because of their high emissions should compensate countries that have caused less damage to the environment.” (1) And clearly if countries fail to curb their emissions, that debt will be constantly increasing.

The report also attempts to put figures to show the scale of the debt. “Climate debt can be estimated based on actual and projected emissions and the social cost of carbon, which measures the economic damage per ton of CO2 emissions. We find climate debt to be extremely large—some $59 trillion over 1959–2018 (Chart 1)—and projected to increase by another $80 trillion during 2019–35. The size of each country’s climate debt reflects both the size of its economy (which is positively correlated with emissions) and how intensively it uses fossil fuels (thus generating emissions) for every dollar of economic output. The composition of energy use (for example, heavy use of coal) has an impact as well. As of 2018, the largest contributors were the United States ($14 trillion), China ($10 trillion), and Russia ($5 trillion). Beginning in 2018, developing economies will account for a larger share of climate debt, given their relatively higher economic growth.”

These figures are large. The report notes “Climate debt is substantial relative to government debt; in G20 countries, it is about 81 percent of GDP, compared with average general government debt of 88 percent of GDP in 2020.” Perhaps for this reason, the report does not suggest ways in which this debt might realistically be repaid to those who have suffered the impact of climate change – and perhaps that was not the purpose of the report.

Rather the report goes onto explore how countries through their Nationally Determined Contributions, mandated by the Paris Agreement, are in fact reducing their emissions and thus reducing the ongoing rate at which their climate debt is accumulating. The IMF feels hesitant about asking countries both to reduce their emissions (which does come with a cost implication in the short term at least) and asking them to repay their climate debt. The report surmised that “Instead, advanced economies may need to focus on reducing emissions over a longer time period or aggressively compensating developing economies for the damage caused by climate change, including through more generous climate financing.”

However the report does conclude: “Climate debt from CO2 emissions is large and unevenly spread across the world’s economies. The size of the debt—and its disparity among countries—portends contentious discussions on countries’ fair burden in slowing climate change and the level of assistance to developing economies to compensate for these differences.

“Climate debt per capita is projected to be much higher in advanced than in developing economies, even under full implementation of NDCs by G20 countries. This implies that advanced economies may need to make additional efforts to achieve fair burden sharing in the fight against climate change.”

So whilst there is no clear strategy as to how the climate debt should be repaid – and continue to be paid as the impact of our emissions continues – at least there is the acknowledgement that the current situation between those who contributed most to the climate crisis and those who suffer the most, is unfair.

(1) https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2023/09/settling-the-climate-debt-clements-gupta-liu

Counting on … day 132

1st September 2025

Climate change adaptation and mitigation can be expensive in terms of upfront investment. Overtime that investment will protect life and well being, enabling communities and economies to survive and flourish. Such expenditure will also be far less than the costs that would be incurred if no action were taken and the climate crisis were allowed to spiral out of control.

Unless governments and international organisations take responsibility for this, the poor and most vulnerable are going to suffer the most. In the UK the poorest members of our population are typically those with poorly insulated homes, those least able to replace household equipment with low energy models, those with least access to cooling green spaces, those least able to afford food as prices accelerate etc.

Globally it is the poorest and least developed counties who are suffering the harshest impact of climate change, and they are the least able to afford the costs of mitigation and adaptation. Often these countries are heavily indebted to richer countries or institutions and spend far more of their annual budgets on interest on these loans than they can on improving living standards through public health infrastructure, eduction, and medical care.

This is why many charitable organisations are calling for both debt relief and debt cancellation for these countries and for substantial grants from the wealthier nations to enable these vulnerable countries both to adapt and mitigate vis a vis climate change and, as needed, to pay for reconstruction when extreme weather events and other climate events have inflicted disaster on these countries.

Prayers for peace

9th August 2025

Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

You Lord, are the source of all good things:

We praise you.

You bless us with a world that is good

and look to us to be peace makers and peace keepers:

May we strive to do your will.

You have made us as brothers and sisters:

May we live together in peace.

Reading Micah 4: 2- 5

  And many nations shall come and say:
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
    and the word of the Lord from his dwelling place.

He shall judge between many peoples,
    and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
    and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war any more;

but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid;
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

For all the peoples walk,
each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
for ever and ever.

We cannot read words today and not weep with distress and anger at what we have seen and heard this week in Gaza and Israel.*

Lord of mercy and healing,

be a source of comfort to all who are suffering,

all who are in pain, all who terrified and fearful,

all who feel lost and without hope.

Lord in your loving mercy, restore peace on earth.

How can humans allow relationships to sink to this level of violence, hate and revenge?

Open our hearts and minds to perceive all that eats away at peace.

Pause our snap judgments that cannot see the bigger picture.

Remove our blinkers of prejudice and hate.

Lord in your loving mercy, restore peace on earth.

How can humans created in the image of God, cause such pain and suffering on those equally created in the image of God?

Open our hearts and minds to empathise with those who suffer

Pause our urge to look away and forget

Remove our hardness of heart.

Lord in your loving mercy, restore peace on earth.

How can communities and tribes believe that they can create a better future through warfare and violence?

Open our hearts and minds – and our purses – to rebuild peace:

To build a world where all have food and homes,

Where all can work and all can rest,

Where all are loved and all are valued.

Lord in your loving mercy, restore peace on earth.

Devastated by our ignorance and impotence, we realise that we are not the wise and clever people we though we were.

Transform our urge to disparage and find fault,

Transform our urge to put focus on our interests,

Transform our lack of will.

Lord in your loving mercy, restore peace on earth.

Peace is not just the absence the war.

Peace provides clean water and sanitation.

Peace provides an ample sufficiency of healthy food.

Peace provides a loving home.

Peace provides protection from the elements.

Peace provides security from danger and freedom from fear.

Peace provides energy and resources to sustain daily occupations.

Peace provides health care.

Peace provides education.

Peace provides the freedom to worship.

Peace provides the means to listen to others and to tell your own story.

Peace encourages respect.

Peace provides the means to discuss and plan shared futures.

Peace enables fresh food to be grown and harvested.

Peace shares resources equitably.

Peace provides space to rest and time to enjoy friendship.

Peace it is a way of living that provides for the wellbeing of everyone.

Amen.

first written in October 2023

Counting on … day 127

8th August 2025

We live in a time of global shortages as well as global overconsumption, so living with enough may involve re-examining what ‘enough’ looks like.

Whilst I can get all that my family needs, such as foods, clothes, shelter, medicine etc, there are other people who cannot either access or afford these essentials. Should I reduce the amount I think I need, to make more available for others?

Isn’t that the dilemma of Earth Overshoot Day? Here in the west in consuming what we ‘need’ for our comfortable lifestyles, we are doing so at the expense of other people, often those living in the global south.

If for example, eating meat on a regular basis means we are ‘using’ agricultural land that could otherwise be used to grow food to better feed others or that could be better used to restore biodiversity and/ or store carbon, then should we not significantly reduce our consumption of meat?

Enough becomes eating less meat.

As well as meat, we might consider reducing our western levels of consumption of electronic and electrical goods which use large proportions of limited resources such as lithium and copper. These limited resources might be better used to meet the more pressing needs of others? (Or being left in the ground so as not to damage the environment).

Enough becomes consuming fewer electrical goods.

And might we also consider how much plastic we consume? Plastic use becomes yet one more reason for companies to justify extracting more carbon-emitting oil from the ground. Plastic waste causes widespread pollution damaging both our own health and the environments of others across the globe.

Enough becomes consuming less plastic – especially single use items and plastic packaging.

There are many such ways in which we can re-examine what enough looks like.

“Thy will be done”

26th July 2025

Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their sibling are liars; for those who do not love a sibling whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 1 John 4:20

You Lord, are the source of all good things:

May your name be hallowed.

You call us to love every neighbour as ourself:

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 Matthew 25: 35-40

for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,[a] you did it to me.”

Love the Lord your God with heart and soul and mind and strength.

The migrant is a figure of hate,

the asylum seeker despised;

the Jew is stereotyped,

the Muslim is vilified.

“Thy will be done”?

Have mercy on us good Lord,

that we learn to do your will.

Love your neighbour as yourself.

The homeless lie destitute on the pavement,

the lonely sit isolated in their homes,

the poor queue in food banks,

the rich are spoilt for choice.

“Thy will be done”?

Have mercy on us good Lord,

that we learn to do your will.

Do not opposes the orphan, the widowed, nor the foreigner.

The children are reduced to bones by malnutrition,

the widowed go hungry;

the stateless have no rights

and the alien is deported.

“Thy will be done”?

Have mercy on us good Lord,

that we learn to do your will.

Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty.

Food aid sits in compounds as Palestinians die on their feet;

whilst those collecting water become targets for snipers.

In the West, food banks and food waste co-exist,

whilst health service tackle obesity and malnutrition.

“Thy will be done”?

Have mercy on us good Lord,

that we learn to do your will.

Seek justice, love mercy.

Warfare grinds on in Ukraine and the Congo,

in Myanmar and Thailand, in Gaza and Yemen.

Justice falters where drug wars and gang violence,

land grabs and forced migration take precedence.

The rich and powerful have no mercy.

“Thy will be done”?

Have mercy on us good Lord,

that we learn to do your will.

Speak out for the voiceless and rescue the oppressed.

Refugees languish unreported in North Sudan and Yemen;

Afghan women wait at borders with no hope of rescue,

and trafficked workers remain hidden out of sight.

“Thy will be done”?

Have mercy on us good Lord,

that we learn to do your will.

Release the prisoner, heal the sick.

Activists are imprisoned,

political opponents jailed,

the disabled are trapped by lack of support,

the mentally ill are left in limbo for lack of care.

“Thy will be done”?

Have mercy on us good Lord,

that we learn to do your will.

Tend and protect the Earth; declare the year of the Lord’s favour.

Soils are degraded through overuse,

waters are polluted with sewage and chemical spills;

temperatures rise and glaciers melt;

industrial farming displaces forests;

wildlife diminishes.

“Thy will be done”?

Have mercy on us good Lord,

that we learn to do your will.

Lord whenever we pray as Jesus taught us,

inspire us with the vision of how things could be on Earth just as jn Heaven.

Challenge us to live according to your will.

Embolden us with strength to make the changes that are needed.

Empower us with wisdom to speak the truth to power where your will is ignored.

And enfold us in your loving compassion.

Amen.

remind us that how things are is not ‘Thy will’ help us understand that we are called to

Greentau: issue 111

Earth Overshoot Day

24th July 2025

Leviticus 25 explains that the land should have a sabbath rest every seventh year. In that year no crops would be sown and the people would live off the surplus of previous years. Farmers over the millennia have learnt that you cannot constantly expect the land to keep on producing crops year on year without fail. The land either needs to lay fallow (rest), or it needs to be sown with a restorative crop such as nitrogen fixing beans or clover, or it needs the input of artificial fertilisers (although we are now becoming aware that relying on artificial fertilisers may be a quick fix and not a long term solution), so that it may recuperate its productivity. It is a lesson we are sometimes reluctant to heed. The Dust Bowl disaster of 1930s in the USA destroyed vast acres of farm land because farming practices did not maintain the fertility of the soil.

It is not just soil that has to be maintained. Water systems too. If we drain more water out than is replenished by precipitation or the melting of glaciers (themselves replenished by winter snow) water supplies will diminish. The Aral Sea – an inland lake – was once the fourth largest area of fresh water in the world, but has now been reduced to nothing because more water has been extracted year on year – to irrigate local cotton crops – than the rate at which water flows were refilling the lake.

It’s hard to imagine, but we also need to maintain the atmosphere. The Earth’s atmosphere is a delicate mix of various gases, which in the right proportions maintain our climate at one with which we are comfortable. If we put too much of certain gases into the atmosphere it can upset that balance. Too much carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases, and the atmosphere traps more of heat within the Earth’s atmospheric envelope; global temperatures rise and the climate becomes more extreme and uncomfortable. We are experiencing this every year with floods, heat waves, wildfires and intense storms.

Ideally what we consume from the natural world – crops, timber, drinking water, clean air, energy – is balanced by the earth’s ability to regenerate. Prior to 1970 that was the case. Since then we have been using up the earth’s renewable resources at a rate faster than they are replenished. Scientists each year calculate that point when we pass from credit to deficit. This is called Earth Overshoot Day. This year the predicted date is 24th July. Seven months into the year and we have already – globally – consumed as much as the earth can replenish in one year!

Surely this state of affairs can not continue? What can we do about it and why aren’t we doing it?

Since 1970, Earth Overshoot Day has been falling earlier and earlier each year. Only in 2020 did it reverse: the reduction in world wide consumption came about because Covid gave the earth a three week reprieve. Consuming less has to be the answer which means consuming more carefully and more sustainably.

If we could do that in 2020 whilst coping with a pandemic, surely we could do it every year? What we must do is make sure that it is not the poor – who already lack a sufficiency – who are the ones who get to consume less; rather it must be the richer over consumers who need to change their lifestyles. And here is another caveat, to live more sustainably and fairly, will need a fundamental change in economic and political systems.

The Earth Overshoot website has details of various ways in which the global community could do this. https://www.overshootday.org/ Meantime we as individuals can make changes to our own lives and patterns of consumption. And we can ask or push for our churches, places of work, sports clubs, local authorities, museums, retailers, and government, to make similar reductions in consumption. We need change to happen at all levels.

24th July is 2025’s Earth Overshoot Day at the global level. That date is the average of each nation’s own Overshoot Day. The overshoot dates for individual nations in the diagram below range from 17th December for Uruguay (ie Uruguay pretty much balances its books, consuming only slightly more than it can regenerate in a year) to 6th February for Qatar. What this diagram does not show are the many poorer nations who do not even use up their equivalent of one year’s resources each year – The UK’s Overshoot Day was 20th May. We would need three United Kingdom’s to satisfy our current consumption levels; in reality we consume resources of other countries to make up the shortfall. Reducing the Earth Overshoot problem requires cooperation and understanding at a global as a well as at local levels. The Earth is a shared life-support system.

Proper 11, 5th Sunday after Trinity

20th July 2025

Reflection with readings below

In today’s reading from the prophet Amos, we hear of God’s warning to the people of the consequences of pursuing profit whilst ignoring God’s ways: vis suffering and calamity

Do not the same threats hang over our world, over our economic and social systems today?

Here in the UK, we do “trample on the poor” – think of the two child benefit cap, the reduction of benefits for the disabled, the practices that favour landlords over tenants such that rents become unaffordable, those tax breaks that benefit the rich but not the poor, the low wages that benefit the employer not the employee, those subsides that benefit fossil fuels companies not energy consumers etc. And more widely we bring ruin to the poor with international policies that place heavy debt burdens on poor nations from which we benefit, with policies that do not meet the needs of those countries suffering the impact of climate change which we have caused at their expense, with trade policies that are stacked against the smaller nations and smaller companies. Truly the rich and powerful in our world use “false balances” – ie weighing scales – that favour us and not the poor.

(NB an Ephah is a measure of weight, shekel a unit of currency).

It is not just people but the environment that we wilfully damage and we are already seeing the initial consequences of this with heatwaves and droughts, flash floods and wild fires. The Earth is a delicate ecosystem – a life support system – which is being damaged by our greed and misuse. July 24th will be 2025’s Earth Overshoot Day (last year it was 1st August). That is the day when globally we will have used up a year’s supply of the Earth’s resources. Our extraction of water will exceed the rate of renewal. Our use of the atmosphere to absorb carbon dioxide will exceed capacity (without causing further global temperature rises). Our use of the soil’s capacity to produce food will exceed the rate at which its fertility can be maintained – leading to reduced crops yields in the future. Etc etc. Do check out the Earth Overshoot website to understand more about this situation. Here in the UK, we had used up our share of the Earth’s resources by 20th May, so already our lifestyle choices are being made at the expense of poorer people across the world and future generations.

The Earth Overshoot website has one section entitled solutions. Here it says “While our planet is finite, human possibilities are not. The transformation to a sustainable, carbon-neutral world will succeed if we apply humanity’s greatest strengths: foresight, innovation, and care for each other.” (1) Here is the invitation to live differently – and for those of us who are Christians, that surely means living according to God’s commands, living according to the values of God’s kingdom. The phrase ‘care for each other’ sharply echoes last week’s gospel story of the Good Samaritan.

Today’s Gospel reminds us of the importance of spending time and attention on Jesus’s teachings. We can rush around being busy, thinking that being busy will solve the world’s problems, but unless we are following Jesus – doing God’s will – our efforts may prove fruitless. We also run the risk of burnout. Burnout diminishes our ability to love our neighbours. Jesus set us the example in his own daily life of taking time out to be be in nature, to spend time with God, to be refocus and re-energised. In today’s gospel that is Jesus’s advice for Martha – and it is good advise for us too.

Maybe the extract from the Letter to the Colossians should be a reminder to us that we are not solely responsible for saving the world (a deceit I can be guilty of). Rather it is in and through Christ that salvation is being effected. Our contribution will only ever be but a small part within the the greater whole which is the body of Christ – a fellowship that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. It will be together in Christ that we will see the salvation of life in Earth being as it is in Heaven.

https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/solutions/

Amos 8:1-12

This is what the Lord God showed me– a basket of summer fruit. He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,

“The end has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass them by.

The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,”
says the Lord God;

“the dead bodies shall be many,
cast out in every place. Be silent!”

Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,

saying, “When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;

and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?

We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,

buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:

Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who lives in it,

and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

On that day, says the Lord God,
I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in broad daylight.

I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;

I will bring sackcloth on all loins,
and baldness on every head;

I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and the end of it like a bitter day.

The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine on the land;

not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.

They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;

they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.

Psalm 52

1 You tyrant, why do you boast of wickedness *
against the godly all day long?

2 You plot ruin;
your tongue is like a sharpened razor, *
O worker of deception.

3 You love evil more than good *
and lying more than speaking the truth.

4 You love all words that hurt, *
O you deceitful tongue.

5 Oh, that God would demolish you utterly, *
topple you, and snatch you from your dwelling,
and root you out of the land of the living!

6 The righteous shall see and tremble, *
and they shall laugh at him, saying,

7 “This is the one who did not take God for a refuge, *
but trusted in great wealth
and relied upon wickedness.”

8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; *
I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.

9 I will give you thanks for what you have done *
and declare the goodness of your Name in the presence of the godly.

Colossians 1:15-28

Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers– all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him– provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel.

I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. I became its servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Luke 10:38-42

As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Magnificat reimagined

19th July 2025

Trust in the Lord and be doing good; dwell in the land and be nourished with truth.
Let your delight be in the Lord and he will give you your heart’s desire.
Psalm 37:3-4

You Lord are the bread of life;

feed us with your wisdom.

Our nourishment is to do God’s will;

guide us in all we do

Whenever we eat or drink

Let it be to the glory of the kingdom of God.

A reading from Matthew 25: 34-36 (The Message)

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’”

A canticle reimagining the Magnificat:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;
he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.

Praise to you O God, for the rich creation of this world

for which you have created humans to be under-gardeners.

From this day all generations will call me blessed;
the Almighty has done great things for me
and holy is his name.

You have blessed Earth with fruit bearing trees and plants,

ensuring food throughout the seasons.

God has mercy on those who fear him,
from generation to generation.

Your wisdom guides those who, in each generation,

have the honesty and humility to seek it.

God has shown strength with her arm
and has scattered the proud in their conceit,

May each generation see the damage

they cause when they disdain your will.

Casting down the mighty from their thrones
and lifting up the lowly.

Raise the spirits of those who work at the grassroots,

give them strength to overcome the deceits of big business.

God has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.

Bless the work of food banks and charities that feed the hunger,

and teach those with wealth to be sacrificial in their giving.

God came to the aid of his servant Jacob
to remember his promise of mercy,

Help nations and communities to work together

for justice and for peace.

God’s promise is made to our ancestors,
from Abraham and his children and for all generations to come.

May every generation to come, reap the harvest,

not of our greed, but of God’s grace .

Amen.

Trust in the Lord and be doing good; dwell in the land and be nourished with truth.
Let your delight be in the Lord and he will give you your heart’s desire.
Psalm 37:3-4

Counting on … day 94

24th June 2025

Solar Aid is a charity that aims to provide people in developing countries with access to lighting (using LEDs) to communities that a) do not have access to the grid and b) cannot afford household sized solar panels. They describe their project as follows:-

“Just as mobile phones have revolutionised communications across Africa, leapfrogging the need for landlines, picosolar lights (aka small solar lights) are now helping to bring light and power to millions of people across the continent.

“While grid electrification is not going to reach most of rural sub-Saharan Africa in our lifetimes, the solar light revolution is taking place right now, helping light up millions of homes, which would otherwise be kept in the dark.

“The concept is simple: Small solar panels, which can be as small as the palm of your hand, convert sunlight into electricity. This in turn charges small batteries, which are used to power efficient LED lights…For the first time, families can stop using dangerous, polluting kerosene lamps and candles.” (1)

That many communities cannot even afford this form of lighting, is the reason that this charity looks to people like us to provide the money.

https://solar-aid.org/bright-solutions/the-solar-light/