It seems that concern has increased in recent years about
care for the environment, the erosion of the ozone layer, global warming, the
search for alternatives to fossil fuel, and so on. We have a Green Party MP; there will soon be
legislation to charge for plastic carrier bags; our local councils are
competing for the best recycling ratios for domestic waste – the list is
endless. Gradually we have come to see that
these matters are important, and we feel part of a worldwide anxiety, a fear
that our God-given earth may be wearing out.
But let me throw an element of attrition into the debate –
some grit into the oyster, if you will.
Consider for a moment the ageing process as it relates to human
life. A seventy-five- or eighty-year-old
cannot fulfil the same physical ambitions of a youth just out of high school;
it would be unreasonable for him to expect to do so. By that time of life, many people are
considering the implications of downsizing, and perhaps even moving to
sheltered accommodation. Compared to the
comfortable 3- or 4-bedroomed house, the family home of his middle age, a small
flat will naturally accommodate fewer personal possessions. Something will have
to go: usually quite a lot gets pruned!
However reluctantly, we regard this as an inevitable progression of
lifestyles.
Lets return to the thorny question of global decay. What has
prompted the concern that is being expressed today? Some, certainly, is founded in a worthy
desire to preserve threatened species, and specific constructions or ways of
life that face extinction or obliteration. But isn’t the primary cause simply fear of
such a phenomenal degree of change? The
effects that might be brought about by even a small rise in global sea levels
represent change of such a magnitude that is virtually incomprehensible. How can mankind survive in the face of
it?
Almost a century ago, in the midst of war, the outlook of many
embroiled in the fighting must have seemed very bleak. Yet, enormous though the casualties were, far
more survived than were killed.
Faced with the statistics presented to us in the media, we
fear the sheer uncertainty of life itself under such different circumstances. But, doesn’t our pensioner feel something of
the same foreboding about that small flat?
And yet, for the majority at least, a reasonable quality of life
continues after the removal has taken place; their basic needs are met, albeit in
a different way from before. Cannot we
trust God to provide for our absolute necessities, whatever the nature of our
surroundings?
In 1847 Henry Francis Lyte wrote a hymn that is possibly one
of the best-known; a hymn that is still sung annually at the FA Cup Final. Perhaps he expressed a deeper truth than we
normally realise when, in his final illness, he penned the words, “Change and
decay in all around I see: O thou who changest not, abide with me.”
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