Looking ahead: anticipation and prudence

We are generally not very good at responding to long term threats. We are wired to focus on the immediate. Warnings that smoking or obesity might cut years off one's life all too often fall on deaf ears. Or even where the veracity of the claim is acknowledged, there remains a disconnect between this acknowledgement and remedial action.

Many ecological crises share this structure: incremental changes (often as the result of pursuing certain immediate objectives that may well be good or pleasurable in their own right) lead to unforeseen consequences “in the pipeline” that may take years, decades or longer to become fully manifest. Examples include declining biodiversity, habitat loss, soil degradation, ocean acidification and overfishing. Climate change may represent the most complex and difficult example.

The distance between the actions that cause harm and the suffering of that harm is widened in climate change to be not only temporal, but also spatial and relational, meaning that there is no immediate or proximate visibility to the consequences of actions that are only become highly problematic in a cumulative manner. Thus, there are a raft of distraction techniques that can dilute the fierce urgency of now. We can point out the relative size our tiny contribution and the inefficacy of reducing it by ourselves; we can question the consequences that are as yet only forecast; we can lower our ethical horizons to include only what is visible in my neighbourhood.

The problem is that we are used to making our ethical decisions as though we were walking, where avoiding a pothole or canine faecal incident is only a matter of looking a step or two ahead. But we are no longer walking. Our greater agency through soaring population and technological innovation means that our actions have greater consequences, affecting a wider sphere over a longer period of time. Our consumption and production don't just satisfy our immediate needs and wants but have unforeseen knock-on effects that extend much further than they used to. We are no longer walking. When you drive, you need to look further ahead, observing and anticipating events over a wider field of interactions and responding well ahead of time to possible threats. "Too late" happens surprisingly early. In driving, you need to look further ahead and further afield than when we're walking because the consequences of your actions are so much greater. A mistake while walking means bumping into a stranger and perhaps meeting a new friend. A mistake while driving could mean sending a tonne of metal travelling at superhuman speed into a brick wall, or under a fifty tonne truck coming the other way.
H/T mustakissa for suggesting this analogy.

But we are not even driving. Perhaps a more appropriate image for the scale of our agency and our consequent need to anticipate threats is flying.
Image by Ruth Brigden.

Keeping our feet on the ground

"For there is a sense in which the absence of oil only has one real effect. It will give back to us a proper sense of our creaturely limitation, as little embodied animals who can only walk a few kilometres a day. Our spatial limitations have always been what give us a sense of a ‘place’, or neighbourhood, in which we live. Oil has temporarily tricked us, making these constraints hidden in plain sight, deluding us into thinking that we can soar unencumbered like the angels just because someone can fly us to Phuket or because we can drive interstate. The absence of oil will only throw us back onto what was always the case, and what still remains the case for the majority of the world’s population: we are a people who dwell in neighbourhoods, villages and towns, making the best of interdependency with others in the same place. We cannot abstract away our createdness forever."

- Andrew Cameron, "The peak oil society".

Oil lets us fly. Good theology keeps our feet on the ground. More generally, the very spectacular success of our present industrial system has enabled the illusion of autonomy and independence. That this system is facing a series of dire threats from its own runaway achievements is an excellent chance to rediscover the goodness of our interdependence.

Dave recently reminded me of this piece by Andrew Cameron, written back in 2007 (I mentioned it back here). It is almost certainly the best thing I've read about peak oil, and indeed by extension probably the best short piece responding to all the various challenges we face. Read it.

The Word became flesh: looking again at Jesus IX

A sermon from John 1.1-14: Part IX
The Word became flesh. This conversation which we did not begin and into which we are invited, is to be conducted through a human, one like us. He is not so alien as to be unrecognisable. In fact, precisely the opposite: the danger is that he is too familiar. We think of him as just another guy. With six and half billion people around and in the middle of our busy lives, someone has to be pretty special to make it onto our “to meet” list.

Here’s what the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth says:

“Jesus Christ is not a demigod. He is not an angel. Nor is He an ideal man. He is a man as we are, equal to us as a creature, as a human individual, but also equal to us in the state and condition into which our disobedience has brought us. And in being what we are He is God’s Word. Thus as one of us, yet the one of us who is Himself God’s Word in person, He represents God to us and He represents us to God. In this way He is God’s revelation to us and our reconciliation with God.”

- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/2, 151.

God surprises us by speaking a word that is far less alien than we might have expected. And yet its very familiarity - its human face, ten fingers and forty-six chromosomes - makes it quite possible to disregard. The light of the world shines in our darkness and we – overlook it. The Word became flesh and moved into our neighbourhood and we – treat it like any other neighbour: with polite inattention. I don’t know about you, but what usually happens when someone new moves into our building is you each nod and smile, maybe introduce yourself, and then proceed to ignore each other as much as possible. If we let you get on with your life, you’ll let us get on with ours. Is this how we treat Jesus? Have learned to not be too inquisitive, to limit our hospitality to the surface so all we see is our own lives mirrored back? Perhaps we are so easily bored with ourselves that when one comes who is flesh like us, we assume he too is boring. We are content with superficial relationships and so look superficially and do not see anything but the ordinary.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X.

The Word became flesh

Reflections upon John 1.1-14

“Thus the reality of Jesus Christ is that God Himself in person is actively present in the flesh. God Himself in person is the Subject of a real human being and acting. And just because God is the Subject of it, this being and acting are real. They are genuinely and truly human and acting. Jesus Christ is not a demigod. He is not an angel. Nor is He an ideal man. He is a man as we are, equal to us as a creature, as a human individual, but also equal to us in the state and condition into which our disobedience has brought us. And in being what we are He is God’s Word. Thus as one of us, yet the one of us who is Himself God’s Word in person, He represents God to us and He represents us to God. In this way He is God’s revelation to us and our reconciliation with God.”

- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/2, 151.

God surprises us by speaking a word that is far less alien than we might have expected. And yet its very familiarity - its human face, ten fingers and forty-six chromosomes - makes it quite possible to disregard. The light of the world shines in our darkness and we overlook it. The Word became flesh and moved into our neighbourhood and we treat it like any other neighbour: with polite inattention. We have learned to not be too inquisitive, to limit our hospitality to the surface so all we see is our own lives mirrored back. We are so easily bored with ourselves that when one comes who is flesh like us, we assume he too is boring.

Have you looked again at your neighbour? Are they worth a second look? Have you written yourself off? If the light that enlightens everyone became flesh like us, can we afford to ignore one another?

If we are not to be bored with ourselves, we have to learn to look at Jesus in such a way that we can say with the Evangelist: "we have seen his glory" (John 1.14). If we open our eyes, beware, the glare may be dazzling.

Jesus said, "I have come into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind."             - John 9.39

Eight points for guessing the English city in the picture.

Jesus and climate change X

Jesus’ life: God with us
God’s passionate and loving commitment to his wonder-filled creation is seen most clearly in Jesus. Christians have always believed - and we celebrate this at Christmas - that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us: the Son of God come amongst us, as one of us. If we want to see the heart of God, if we want to see what God cares about, if we want to see God, Christians say, "look at Jesus! Come and see what God is like – you might be pleasantly surprised." In Jesus, God moved into our neighbourhood. He didn’t stand at a distance and make assurances that he cares, he came and got his hands dirty. Actually, he got his hands pierced with great ugly nails to a wooden cross. God is not cold and distant. He is like Jesus.

If you want to know the heart of God, try reading the Gospels and seeing the heart of Jesus. He is the kind of God who welcomes little children, the kind of God who hates religious hypocrisy, the kind of God who throws parties for the outsider, who opens the eyes of the blind, who feeds the hungry, heals the sick and raises the dead, who brings good news for the poor. In Jesus, we discover that God’s yoke is easy and his burden is light; he is gentle and humble in heart. He is the kind of God who, like Jesus, is easily misunderstood, but not easily ignored. He is a God who knows our suffering and temptations from the inside, who can sympathise with our weaknesses. He washes smelly feet and weeps over death. He is a God who would rather die than live without you. He is the kind of God who won’t let death stand in the way of his plans. What is God doing about climate change and all that threatens us? For a start, he is with us. We are not on our own, fending for ourselves.

But Jesus doesn’t just demonstrate that God cares for a world gone wrong, he is also the start of God’s solution.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; IX(b); X; XI; XII; XIII; XIV; XV.