Looking for action 2015

We have been reading various posts on social media about how younger people today with a religious outlook firstly won't commit long-term to anything and secondly are looking for signs that churches and religious groups are doing something meaningful to change the world, rather than just voicing their concerns.

When you are a very small group it is hard to discern the actions to take that will make a difference around you.  In Ringwood we think we have spotted one.  We are forming a group of all sorts of people who next January will do something new for Ringwood.  This group will be standing up in the street on a cold winter's day saying that we here in Ringwood remember the millions of people killed in the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.  We honour the survivors of these regimes of hatred and challenge ourselves to use the lessons of their experience to inform our lives today.

27 January marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, and is now designated as Holocaust Memorial Day.  HMD is a time when we seek to learn the lessons of the past and to recognise that genocide does not just take place on its own.  Genocide is a steady process which can begin if discrimination, racism and hatred are not checked and prevented. We’re fortunate here in the UK; we are not at risk of genocide. However, discrimination has not ended, nor has the use of the language of hatred or exclusion. There is still much to do to create a safer future.

Perhaps the group of people in Ringwood who will stand together on 27 January will succeed only in reminding others about the ghastly possibilities in humanity - let's face it, we won't be able to mend it.  But the biblical story in the book of Genesis - the story of Adam, Eve and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - though a legend, reminds us that once you know about right and wrong, it changes everything for you.  We know now about the Holocaust, and others may be reminded about it through us.  So that will change something in the world.

If you want to join us in Ringwood in January email us at lucyunbox.ringwood@btinternet.com

The Pope shares a prayer with everyone with faith in God the Creator

ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

Pope Francis, of the Roman Catholic faith community, invites and urges everyone - individuals, families, local communities, nations and the international community - to an "ecological conversion"; to change direction by taking on the beauty and responsibility of the task of caring for our common home.

In his letter given in Rome at Saint Peter’s on 24 May 2015, he reflects as follows:

"Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live......If everything is related then the health of a society's institutions affects the environment and the quality of human life.....Human ecology is inseparable from the notion of the common good.....injustices abound and growing numbers of people are deprived of basic human rights and considered expendable....The acceptance of our bodies as God's gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation."

Pope Francis offers this prayer that we can share with people of all faiths who believe in God who is the all-powerful Creator.

A prayer for our earth

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe
and in the smallest of your creatures.

 You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty.

 Fill us with peace, that we may live
as brothers and sisters, harming no one.
O God of the poor,
help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth,
so precious in your eyes.

 Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

 Touch the hearts
of those who look only for gain
at the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.

 We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle
for justice, love and peace.

(Ringwood Unitarians are grateful to Ringwood and Fordingbridge Catholics at Sacred Heart and St Therese of Lisieux, Ringwood for their precis "map" of the Pope's Encyclical.  Their website can be found at  https://www.shandolos.org.uk/drupal/ )