A reflection on the State of the Environment
July 25, 2022
A reflection written by Rev Alex Sangster, Advocate of the Assembly Transforming Worship Circle, following the release of the five-yearly State of the Environment report last week which found Australia's environment is deteriorating. This reflection was originally shared to the Working for Justice Circle Facebook page. Join a Circle and join the conversation.
magpie musings: random diary entries from a worker priest
The state of the environment report shows:
“a litany of environmental wreckage fuelled by climate change and years of denial and neglect”
Sarah Hansen Young.
All the way back in 1867 English poet, Matthew Arnold,
wrote of how
'the great sea of faith'
was retreating
and of how
we will be left
as on a darkling plain,
with ignorant armies, clashing by night.
I think of his poem
as I read the news today
(oh boy)
About the the death and destruction that we
are letting
happen
and of how we will soon
( if we do not rise like sleeping lions )
be left
all alone,
on an empty beach
wondering
where all our friends have gone:
the koala, the yellow bellied swift, the sea urchin all blue.
Writer E.O Wilson believes
that rather than calling this current time the Anthropocene
we should rename it the Eremocene:
the Age of Loneliness.
On the radio, a man whose job it is has been
to work on this report,
is asked how it has been,
for him.
His voice, so assured, breaks,
'it's been hard'
he falters,
grasping to not fall
apart.
The interviewer is silent in response,
she too
has no words
and for a moment
there is no more pretending
that we are all
ok.