vigil – The Green Tau

day 10 No Faith in Fossil Fuels’ Vigil

23rd February 2024

The day was crisp and dry as I walked over Westminster Bridge. Even at 6.30 it was already light. The night shift looked warm and cheerful – Ben has the technique of keeping in warm inside the depths of a sleeping bag down to a fine art!

It looks like it will be a beautiful day. The sky is turning blue and the sun is gilding the pale stone of the buildings opposite. Today Brethren Seagull are less focused on feeding and rather more on gliding effortlessly on their perfectly arched wings. Perhaps they too are relish the sunlight.

Maybe it’s the lack of rain but there are more birds around. Several crows fly past, black fingered wings against the blue sky. Then my eye is caught by flashes of white and three magpies swoop round and settle themselves – diplomatically – on top of the Foreign Office.

The pigeons too are favouring the dry weather. One with a very distinctive white ruff I have definitely seen earlier in the week. They peck at microscopic crumbs with which the pavement is apparently littered.

Today is a day for praising God for the beauty of creation.

As the morning passes so the growing patch of sunlight progresses across the Square. St Margaret’s church has a sundial on one side and a clock on another, yet bizarrely the sundial seems to be half an hour slow!

Today I feel like a tourist – or maybe a flaneur – someone with time to spend just watching. I’m enjoying watching the different people walk past. Those going to work, students, holiday makers, police officers and runners: these make up the normal stock in trade. But then there are others – delightful dogs and those walking dogs, runners of different speeds, and – today -lots of Scout leaders! They come thick and fast, with different coloured scarves neatly rolled and fastened round their necks, as well as different coloured lanyards. Often they are wearing a collection of lanyards – much as soldier might wear campaign medals. Some have come from north of the Border and proudly swing past in their kilts. I think there is a service for them in Westminster Abbey.

Maybe it’s the sunshine or maybe because we have been here for so many days, but several staff members and police offices give us a cheery ‘Good Morning’ as they go in or out of the Parliamentary gates.

Today is a day for praising God for the kindness of human.

8pm and I’m back for a final hour. For the first time during the vigil the train is late – about 5 minutes . The Square is in evening mode. Cars chase round the circuit, effortlessly outnumbering buses and taxies. People are walking past in two or threes, chatting and laughing. No longer are they head down forging past on their way to work.

I’m only there for an hour but overlap with four others. The comradeship of the vigil has been special. People have come from far and wide – Bristol and Cheltenham, Liverpool and Sheffield, Scotland and all points of London – and from different groups: Christian Aid and Cafod, Green Christian and Laudate Si, from Just Money and Tearfund, from local churches and of course from CCA.

Today is a day for praising God for friends.

Day six of the No Faith in Fossil Fuels’ Vigil

19th February 2024

As I walk over Westminster Bridge just before seven, I see twelve cormorants swoop and swerve and land in the buoyant waters of the Thames.

I’ve come to relieve the night shift who all looked amazingly bright and alert! Maybe being outside for the occasional night is good for us – a bit like the tradition of putting babies outside to sleep in their prams.

Monday morning and these are the going to work hours. The flow of pedestrians (from right to left) comes in rushes as, presumably, the pedestrian crossing upstream turns green. So many people pass by. A few do give a nod or a smile but hundreds don’t. Do they notice us? Or are we blanked out along with so much else that we ignore in order to manage our hectic pace of life? But I notice two passers-by whom I had seen earlier in the week – one who slated us about the futility of prayer; the other who had prayed with us. So maybe it is distraction not disinterest.

From across the street a man shouts an inaudible greeting that could be positive or negative. He weaves his way through the traffic and lands in front of us.

‘Do we want a cigarette? No? Well can he sit down – he’s tired.’

There’s an empty chair so we say yes. He half talks to us and half talks to passers-by shouting out greetings with a ribald feel.

We’re praying we explain. We’re not ignoring him but praying is what we’re doing here.

After a few more minutes he lurches to his feet, leaves and then swings back to give us a final piece of advice.

We continue to pray. Across the Square the trees stand clear and upright but less shiny than they were in the rain.

A smart business man, briefcase in hand, pauses to read the sign. He’s the business side of what we’re doing. Money is the solution to the climate crisis. His company redirects the massive sums of finance needed to boost renewable energy. He advises other companies, knows the people one needs to know. He’s on first name terms with the head of the Church of England’s investment board.

I venture that CCA has been active in encouraging charities and dioceses to switch from Barclays. ‘Why ever so? They have just announced they will not be funding new oil and gas.’

‘Is it that clear cut? They’re still providing a lot of funds for the oil and gas industries.’

‘XR don’t understand. We need oil and gas to keep people supplied with cheap energy in the interim. We can’t just stop investing in oil and gas – you need to invest to continue to the extraction from developing wells. Here, take my business card.’

Earlier the bells at Westminster Abbey chimed in anticipation of the 8 o’ clock prayers. Now they sound for the 10 o’ clock prayers. After I have gone, they will ring again for the noonday service. There are, I think, more services on a week day than a Sunday.

I welcome Michelle who is taking the next hour, gather myself up and walk back over Westminster Bridge now heaving with tourists.

8.00pm for the evening shift. The departing crew are numerous including four from one church -I’m impressed: I’m the only one from my church and I’m a given.

I settle into place tucking my feet under my prayer stool and my hands into my gloves. The banner and thus our place of gathering has shifted. Now I’m facing a tall lamppost. At the top is a round bright line that suggests the moon brightly glowing. But I look up into the clear sky above and there is the genuine thing – serene and surreal, nothing can match her beauty!

On the banner before me are two nightlights their flames gently flickering in jam jars. I’m alone for the first hour – they keep me company, whilst across the Square my other faithful companions remain resolute in their isolation.

Your kingdom come – what were Mandela and Gandhi and Fawcett trying to establish? The right of self determination for the poor and marginalised. For their freedom to live as equally and as comfortably as those with power. For justice.

Evening is the hour of the car. No construction vehicles and work trucks now. Instead fast and expensive cars glide effortlessly around the Square, their sleek outlines contrasting with the workaday shapes of the double decker bus and the London cabs.

We have created a kingdom where the car rules supreme – the pinnacle of a achievement. A luxury self contained capsule where in quiet and ease we can travel oblivious to the troubled lives of others.

Hot of foot Daniel joins me. He is soon drawn down into the other world of the vigil. Here in the edge of the Square we’re not part of the stream of human life that trickles and flows through the Square. We’re not part of the traffic that flows in, and round, and out. We’re part of the infrastructure – living stones – of the Square.

Evening is the hour of entertainment. Those walking by do so with a leisurely gait – hand in hand or laughing. Night tour buses and rickshaw bicycles bedecked with lights loop the Square. One bus is a travelling restaurant serving haute cuisine.

Not everyone’s entertainment has been so refined. Roy is certainly under the influence of something other than fines wine. His clothes too are street weary. He wants to talk, to express his support for what we are doing. His body can’t keep still and his words won’t come out straight. Swear words slip in unbidden – he knows they will but he’s also apologetic. He tries to divert his conversation to the police on gate duty but the wrong words come out – expressions of pent up feelings. He pulses his body together and his feet waver off down the street.

Your kingdom come – what would that look like for Roy? A place where is respected and valued, where his needs are fully furnished not approximated, where he can be free of addiction.

Gentle quiet Esther joins us. The vigil accentuates calmness in those who participate, but some people have it with them always.

The news is full of fighting and the threat of fighting. Your kingdom come – what would it look like in Gaza? In Israel?

Evening is the end of the working day in Parliament. They exit in ones or twos – slightly weary, heading home – or as small groups full of cheer and camaraderie – a good meeting or meal, a successful day! These are mostly young things – political interns or policy makers?

For other Parliamentarians (the more senior ones?) journey home is motorised: the police open and close the heavy metal inner and outer gates that guard the driveway, allowing these solid heavyweight vehicles to slip quietly out before powering off down the street. Others come out wheeling their bikes. Then swinging over a leg, they pedal off into the night.

The night shift arrives equipped with sleeping bags and warm clothes! It’s time for me to move, to unbend my legs, flatten my feet and stretch out my toes.

Day five of the No Faith in Fossil Fuels’ Vigil

18th February 2024

It has rained all night and I hope those outside have stayed warm and reasonably dry

5.40 I dress and pack last things in my bag. Bike lights on. Waterproofs secure. Go. The road is empty and sparkling with the combination of street lights and rain.

Like everywhere else, Parliament Square is sodden but the overnight vigilers are positive! We perform a tricky dance as we swop places, adjust rain clothes, fold and unfold umbrellas. With my ponchos spread like a tent I sit on a small camping stool. Inside a foggy warmth builds up – it keeps me warm if not dry. Waterproofs have a tendency to be less so as the wet persists!

Calm returns and Jonathan and I settle into the composure of vigil.

Jonathan reads a passage by Thomas Merton about rain in which he talks about rhythm and sound of rain. Parliament Square has its own sounds for a wet Sunday morning. There is the swish of car wheels against water. The gentle slap of running shoes – running on a Sunday morning is clearly popular come rain or shine. The illusive sound of wetness that seems to hang in the air.

There are few people walking by. Sunday is not a working day for many. There are no construction vehicles wheeling past, and few delivery vehicles either. Even the police presence is diminished.

The Square has both a daily rhythm and a weekly rhythm and even a yearly rhythm. Sit here long enough and you’ll become part of it.

On the far side of the expanse of flat green grass that fills the Square, a row of London plane trees provides a lacy edge to the sky, whilst in the rain their patterned trunks stand out proudly. In between at head height, way-farer palms trees look oddly out of place in a rain soaked London.

On the grass seagulls stab for food – maybe worms brought up by the rain. Picking up on yesterday’s thoughts, I greet Brother Seagull with a silent “Good morning”. His reply comes back, “Awk….awk…awk!”

The gulls are joined by a pair of Egyptian geese, their feathers glossy in the rain-washed light. “Good morning Mr and Mrs Goose!” Egyptian geese are known for their fidelity.

There are few tourists this morning. Sight seeing is a fair weather pursuit and only a few resilient Japanese walk past following their tour guide.

The rain which has blown both heavier and lighter, dwindles and fades away. Faint patches of blue appear in the sky and ten flags unwrap themselves from their flagpoles.

Wetter weather may well be a consequence of increasing temperatures: warmer air can hold more water. Adapting to wetter winters and drier summers is something we will have to embrace.

A pavement cleaner stops to talk. He’s seen our signs and is from personal experience deeply aware of the effects of the climate crisis and equally convinced that it is unlikely we will make changes to turn the situation around. He is 73 and comes from Bangladesh. Rivers that used to teem with fish – the key part of their diet and a source of income – are lifeless, the waters polluted with pollution from factories and cities. Children can no longer swim there – nor too do the dolphins. He despairs that it will never change – yet he tells us that whilst simply to pray will not achieve anything, to pray and act is a different matter altogether. And he prays all day – and as to working, his name, Abdullah, means slave of Allah. He left us feeling greatly uplifted. Somehow despite the odds, he radiated hope.

Green Tau extra

13th February 2024

Today is Shrove Tuesday – this is a piece I wrote last year: https://greentau.org/2023/02/21/green-tau-issue-64/

and the follow on piece for Ash Wednesday: https://greentau.org/2023/02/22/green-tau-issue-64b/

in which I wrote “Maybe our penance – the penance for those who see the harm we have as humans have caused – is raise the cry, to sound the alarm, to be prophetic, so that others too can be called to account.”

This year Christian Climate Action, and other faith based and ecological groups, have organised a ten day – and night – vigil outside Parliament. Hour by hour, people will sit, stand or kneel, in prayer and reflection for the well being of the earth, for justice, for the preservation of life in all its forms, for human repentance for the harm we have done in driving both the 6th mass extinction of species and the acceleration climate crisis. If you are in the area, do come and join in; if not do nevertheless keep this focus as part of your Lenten discipline.

Join the No Faith in Fossil Fuels Lent Vigil

Counting on …. Day 1.199

23rd October 2023

“Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But, the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels.” So said the UN Secretary-General António Guterres last year at the launch of the third IPCC report.

Last week the Intercontinental Hotel in Park Lane hosted the Energy Intelligence Forum – an international gathering of influential figures from the oil and financial industries – formerly known as the Oil and Money Conference. These people hold great power with very little reference to either democratic decision making or alternative view points. The decisions they make, and the strategies they plan, will have a big impact on what happens in the world, on the future of wellbeing of people, the environment and the climate.

In opposition to this Fossil Free London and other groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace and Christian Climate Action, organised protests outside the hotel and at selected headquarters of oil and financial institutions across London. With our future at stake, it was imperative right to call out the injustice of what was happening. The IPPC and IEA have both presented the world with the scientific evidence that carbon emissions are causing the climate crisis, and that the urgent response must be cutting back now on fossil fuels extraction and use, as we all transition to net zero. And yet, regardless of this, the oil industry is continuing to expand its operations, and the financial world is continuing to invest in and to insure these projects – using what is ultimately our money.

On the Monday evening, the eve of the conference, Christian Climate Action held an act of worship out on the street opposite the hotel’s main entrance. Using words from the most recent papal encyclical, Laudate Deum (Praise God). It is so called, because the Pope says that when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies. In the worship we bore witness to the injury and injustice that the oil industry is causing in the world, and in between prayerful silences we sang praises to God using the Taize chant ‘Laudate omens gentes’.

Tuesday CCA again gathered in the street opposite the hotel with a series of photographs – a mobile art exhibition – each an illustration of the effects of wild fire on the environment and people’s lives. Fossil Free London and others blockaded the hotel entrance – the hotel had erected high fences along the whole area restricting the entrance to a meter wide gate way which was easily blocked by protestors preventing guests from entering or leaving. A samba band played, people sang and chanted, and speeches were delivered – the key speaker was Greta Thunberg. Mid morning a group from Greenpeace abseiled down from a top floor window, unfurling a banner down the front of the hotel. The conference delegates could not have gone unaware of the opposition to their plans for an oil fuelled future. Indeed the CEO of Shell had to make his speech by equivalent of zoom. By the early afternoon the police had imposed a section 14 notice on the street, authorising them to remove all protestors from the site.

The Christian Climate Action group set off on a pilgrimage around Mayfair stopping to pray at the offices of a number of ‘Earth Wreckers’ – companies involved in financing, supporting or exploiting fossil fuels and thereby directly or indirectly polluting the world with carbon emissions. (For more information about Earth Wreckers visit – http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/wreckers-of-the-earth-2021_409815#12/51.5222/-0.1234)

On Wednesday action was taken further afield to the City of London. Ten companies associated with the West Cumbrian Coal Mine and the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline were targeted, to protest against their involvement in funding these highly polluting projects. Christian Climate Action together with representatives of other faiths and a group from XR Scientists, peacefully entered and sat down in the foyer of 52 Lime Street – a modern glass and steel tower block that houses Chaucer, the UK subsidiary of China Re and a potential insurer of EACOP. Sat together in the middle of the space – allowing office workers to continue in and out of the building – we sang Buddhist and faith songs and shared an agape of bread and ‘good’ olive oil.

Within half an hour the police arrived and stood round us, watching. Then with such joy and hope, we saw the XR procession, that was marching between each of the sites, arrive with hundreds of supporters, flags and banners, and a samba band. They waved to us through the plate glass windows and cheered, and we sang and waved back. When they marched on, a contingent from CCA stayed on outside both protesting and praying. The building’s security staff obviously wished us to leave, but the police having taken advice from the CPS, took the view that as our protest was peaceful, they had no grounds for arresting us. After some discussion within the group, we agreed that we would stay until 3 o’ clock. So at 3 o’ clock we stood up, tidied up our banners and picnic lunch and still singing, walked out. We had made our point.

Despite the rain, we returned to the Intercontinental Hotel that evening for a further act of worship, this time led by various representatives of the Faith Bridge -Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Quaker and Christian.

Christian Climate Action continued with its support of other groups on the Thursday, targeting amongst others, the offices of J P Morgan. I meanwhile held my weekly hour long vigil outside Shell’s headquarters.

For information about Christian Climate Action visit – https://christianclimateaction.org/