Thought for the Week

Creation is the first Bible and it existed for 13.7 billion years before the second Bible was written.

Natural things like animals, plants, rocks and clouds give glory to God just by being themselves, just what God created them to be. It is only we humans who have been given the free will to choose not to be what God created us to be.

Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben finds hope in this unique freedom. He writes: ‘The most curious of all lives are the human ones because we can destroy, but also because we can decide not to destroy.

‘The turtle does what she does and magnificently. She can’t not do it, though, any more than the beaver can decide to take a break from building dams or the bee from making honey. But if the bird’s special gift is flight, ours is the possibility of restraint.

‘We’re the only creature who can decide not to do something we’re capable of doing. That’s our superpower, even if we exercise it too rarely.’

So, yes, we can wreck the earth as we’ve known it, killing vast numbers of ourselves and wiping out entire swaths of other life. We’re doing that right now. But we can also not do that.

As we look across our planet, especially at the hatred fuelled by the ugly face of racism in America, surely we can decide not to behave like this. Surely we are better than that. Surely we must realise we are one human family with nothing to divide us, neither race, nor colour, nor gender, nor sexuality, nor intellectual ability.

COVID has taught us, as if we needed reminding, that we are all one.