Laudato Si Week 2024

This Laudato Si' Week and Pentecost, we are invited to gather in community to contemplate and nurture seeds of hope for our "suffering planet" (LD 2).

In our broken and divided world where ecocide flourishes seeds of hope are desperately needed. Such seeds are found within Sarah Augustine and Sheri Hostetler's new book, So We and Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis.

Their collaborative analysis, whilst mainly situated in the context of North America, has a global perspective and is powerfully rooted in their faith traditions: Sarah as a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant and Mennonite, and Sheri as a descendant of Swiss Amish Mennonite farmers.

In their analysis of the signs of the times they present the lived experience of two contrasting systems of thought: 'systems of life ("Reality" with a capital R), which acknowledge that we live in a closed system of mutual dependence; and systems of death (or what is considered reality in our dominant culture), which are based on extractive logic'.

Understanding the full implications of extractive logic, which is entrenched in a colonising mindset, is crucial because many 'Green Growth' renewable energy industries advocate such a practice. They remain devotees of a global economic system that demands perpetual growth. From such a perspective we can see that the climate crisis is the symptom, not the source of the problem.

As disciples of Jesus, Sarah and Sheri dare to imagine a different way forward, a way that has at its core ecological justice and right relationships with God, all of humanity and all living beings on this planet. It is challenging, as there is no five-step plan: "We must co-imagine and co-build something that does not yet exist."

Walter Brueggemann reminds us of the essence of our task: '"The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing."

These are critical times, what are we to do So We and Our Children May Live? Sarah and Sheri give a clear answer: "It's time to choose, and today is the day we need to decide. The choices are limited, even simple: We can imagine and choose a life-sustaining, just civilization, or we can continue business as usual. Life and death. What's good and what's wrong. That is our choice."

To share on how we can co-imagine and co-build a life-sustaining, just civilisation the Laudato Si' Animators - Scotland warmly invite you to participate in Imagining a Christian Response to the Climate Crisis with Sarah Augustine.

Thursday 23rd May - online 7 - 8.30pm

Our session is co-badged with Eco-Congregation Scotland, Justice and Peace Scotland, Open House, Pax Christi Scotland, SCIAF and the Scottish Laity Network

LINK

Registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUscOugpz0sGNw0EGFoebny2Sv_vvLyWdwb