The Angligreen discussion groups every 2 months are developing into high-quality meetings of minds and hearts.
Ann Ellis the state president of Angligreen is a member of All Saints Church and so we are very fortunate to have these discussion centred right here in our valley.
At present it looks like the discussions will develop into producing a learning tool of topic notes and discussion starter questions to send out to all Anglican churches in the state to use if they want to start a climate/population discussion group in their own parish.
The topics are so huge it helps to have a focus point.
What we are finding is a deep overlap between the facts and science of what is happening with climate and population growth; and ethics and morality and faith and prayer. There are whole slabs of dealing wtih climate change and population growth that come right home to our human guilt pain loss and how we look after each other and the choices we make in our own lives. It is deeply linked to our meaning systems (whether we get our sense of identity from high consumption or from processes such as helping each other and building deep belonging in our community). It is about recognising that we are all at different stages along a difficult journey in coming to terms with very challenging ‘stuff’ to do with climate change and population growth and it won’t help anyone to be pushed or abused or disrespected as they struggle to process what they are dealing with. There are the deep virtues issues of prudence and justice and the sheer destructiveness of greed.