Thinking Anew: The magnolia tree at home is budding for the third time this year. With all the talk of global warming it's hardly a surprise to see roses, marigolds and even a few early snowdrops lately.
Time and time again we hear people affirming or denying that the climate is changing but surely a billion centrally heated homes and workplaces must have some effect on the temperature outside! Of course climate has changed, everything changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but always changing.
Some changes are welcome, others are not. We should surely be delighted that mainstream churches no longer preach hatred of each other but maybe not so pleased with the breakdown of traditional social structures. We should welcome the march towards equality between men and women but might be saddened by the deepening abyss between rich and poor. We might relish the thought of travel but get disappointed when we arrive in some far-flung exotic place and find a familiar burger bar as soon as we leave the airport! As Job once said: if we take happiness from the hands of the Lord must we not take sorrow too? Just as some changes are good, others are bad - our villages, homes and communities have changed and we have changed with them, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. Whether good or bad, change is a reality and adapting to change is something we must do.
Change is not something that we all embrace easily. There is a comfort zone that lies uneasily between the adage of the good old days and the aphorism, better the devil you know etc, that makes many of us resist change. But change is not something that we should fear; it is something that we should be confident to embrace and move with it.
The climate of the planet has always been in a state of flux and evolution, we are led to believe, has adapted to that. Where is the authority that declares that the magnolia must not bud in November? The world has changed and the plant kingdom has accepted it, so too have the insects and birds - our acceptance still seems a long way off, but maybe it too will come. In all the debating and researching there are many of us who do not get too worried about the way our world is changing. Maybe centuries of believing that light-coloured skin is superior to darker tones, that Christianity is truer than other faiths and that natural disasters are problems of faraway lands left us with the smoker's false sense of invincibility: cancer and emphysema only happen to others but not to me! Back in the time of Noah (Gilgamesh, third millennium BC?) there appears to have been a similar problem. Marine archaeologists claimed some years back to have found the remnants of coastal cities nine miles into the Indian Ocean. If this is true it gives some authority to the Biblical tale but more than that there is the tale of Noah's peers ridiculing him for believing that climate change was possible. Noah was right; he made changes and was saved yet his companions did not.
For many years Christian theologians have used Noah's boat as a metaphor for the church. This interpretation links the Hebrew Scriptures to our own in a manner that stretches the tale beyond its natural elasticity, (somewhat similar to Jonah spending three days in the fish being paralleled to Christ in the tomb).
Isn't the story much simpler than that? The stewards of creation treated it badly, the world began to change, they ridiculed the one who announced it, believed that nothing could happen to them and now their homes lie submerged nine miles off Pakistan. Things may change in the world but there's also the cliché about history repeating itself to contend with!
FMacE