Earth Hour 2009

Today, at 8:30pm GMT, people and organisations all over the world are being asked to Turn Off The Lights for one whole hour. It is called Earth Hour.

The idea is that the absence of light in homes and buildings will draw attention to the worldwide demand for reduction in Carbon Emissions. Climate Change is visible all around us, but even yet some die-hard sceptics continue to campaign against changing the way we live.

It will not be the wealthy nations who suffer the most. Island nations like the Maldives and Fiji are at risk of disappearing altogether. River delta nations like Bangladesh, Thailand, and Myanmar, are likely to lose a huge percentage of their most fertile land to the rising oceans.

Yet even wealthy nations will have problems. The Thames Barrier is being used more and more often to stop London being flooded. One day the North Sea will go over the top. Large parts of the East Coast of England are only just above, or even below, sea level. The Netherlands are another low-lying European country.

Many major cities throughout the world are located at river mouths, New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, Mumbai, Calcutta, etc.

Millions, if not billions, of people are likely to lose their living places to the sea, forcing them to move to higher ground, maybe even to other countries. Migration will become a significant factor in the global society.

Yet politicians are still playing on their 5-year game plan. Such major issues cannot be solved in a few years, and the major problems won't appear for a few years yet. So let's leave it to someone else to solve. We'll just do the minimum we can get away with.

Is that your attitude too? Have you changed your commuting pattern - switched to bus, or train, or car-sharing yet? What about your holidays - still travelling by air, or holidaying more locally, perhaps by bus or train?

Let's make a mark this evening by turning out all our lights, and as much power as possible, between 8:30pm and 9:30pm. The power companies will be watching. And the politicians too.

Are you serious about tackling Climate Change?

Busy Eleven Days

I said yesterday that I had been busy for the past couple of weeks so here's a bit of a run down on what I've been up to.

My supervising minister has been away during that time and therefore I have been fulfilling the role of Parish Minister - at least temporarily!

Even before Scott went away we knew that I would have three funerals to take before he came back. Fortunately they were well spaced out, on Friday, then Tuesday and Thursday. Each of them was different, taking place in different venues, with differing periods of involvement with the church, but they were all similar in that there were not large numbers of people present.

I was leading worship at Kingscavil and Winchburgh Churches last weekend, and at Abercorn Church this weekend. All went well with good feedback from some of the congregation.

On Monday morning I had a meeting to attend in Glasgow and it was not helped by First Scotrail cancelling my intended train, making me 30 minutes late. I was late back to the car park, but fortunately escaped a £60 fine! That evening I enjoyed a prayer and encouragement meeting in support of the Try Praying initiative running in Edinburgh at the moment.

On Tuesday evening we had a Stewardship Team meeting at Winchburgh and on Wednesday I was making class visits to nine of the classes at Winchburgh and Bridgend Primary Schools. On these visits we lead each class for 20 minutes on some topic related to Christianity or Church. This week I was talking about Lent, when many Christians think about building our understanding of God and building our local communities. My starting point was that Jesus was a builder, and the children got to have fun building towers with play bricks. It's hard work to prepare and tailor the material for classes from P1 to P7!

On Wednesday evening I was giving the talk at our Exploring Prayer group, this time on whether asking God to do things for us achieves anything, and how do we cope when God doesn't do what we want him to do.

The funeral on Thursday was special, for the lady who had died was the daughter of Winchburgh Church's second minister. His name was Hugh Armstrong and he served the congregation from 1897 until he died in 1930. Behind the Communion Table at the front of Winchburgh Church there is a splendid stained-glass window in memory of Mr. Armstrong.

None of the present family had seen the Armstrong window and I was glad to host a visit on Friday morning from Mr. Armstrong's grandchildren who had all travelled up from the Kent area. It was a poignant moment for them to visit the church where their grandfather had been minister for so long, and where their mother had grown up. I hope you enjoying looking at the window above, and reading the explanatory text below, and the context photo too.


After Thursday's funeral I had to get stuck in to the preparations for Sunday worship. Not that I hadn't been thinking about it already - but not much got written down until those three funerals were undertaken.

And on Friday evening, it was almost time off when my wife and I attended a concert by the Livingston Fiddlers at Winchburgh Church, in aid of Church Funds. It was a splendid evening and everyone enjoyed the wide variety of music - and for some of us, and ice cream at half-time!

So after all that activity I've been glad to get some time for family and home this weekend. Tomorrow the Boss is back on duty and I'll have four school events to participate in. Stand by for another busy week!

Lovely Lorikeets

Sorry it's been such a long time since I last wrote. It's been a busy fortnight and I hope I'll get some time soon to tell you what I've been up to. All's well though!

Today my loving daughter invited me to come to the Edinburgh Zoo with her. We saw lots of beautiful animals but these Lorikeeets were the most colourful! You can buy little pots of nectar and the birds which are hungry come down and sit on your hand and sip up the sweet stuff. Perhaps one day I'll manage to capture the whole sequence!

Spring Snowshowers

Although we are now one week into the season of Spring, if you accept March 1st as the start of Spring, this morning I was surprised to look through my curtains and see a blizzard outside! As you can see above, it was quite spectacular.

And then later in the day, when I looked out the window, I saw a couple of Oystercatchers, plodding about in the puddles and sleet. I was pleased to see them, because we were at the Tulliallan Police College, and their crest contains two Oystercatchers!

Winchburgh Water

One of the features I like about Winchburgh is the water. The Edinburgh-Falkirk canal runs through the village, and there are several burns that run down beside the houses.

Last week I finally managed to get a good view of the biggest water feature in the village. It's the old clay pit, as you can see above.

The clay was used to make bricks, and hundreds of thousands of bricks used to be shipped out to the growing towns in the Forth-Clyde valley along the canal, which runs nearby. The old railway station lies close to the far side of the water, but I don't think the bricks were ever shipped by rail.

In England many of the clay pits have been turned into water sports centres, or into wildlife reserves. The Winchburgh clay pit seems to be lying abandoned. It's a pity, because it could be a great attraction for the village.

In it's current condition, the flooded clay pit is rather a dangerous place, with steep drops into the deep water, and only a few small sloping edges where someone could get themselves out of the water. I'm surprised there are no warning signs or safety barriers. Perhaps there haven't been enough serious accidents for these to be erected.

But for the careful onlooker, it's a very peaceful, quiet, patch of water, with ducks, moorhens, and coots, paddling about. There's a coot in the photo above, if you look hard!

I'll be back in the summer to enjoy the view when the sun is shining. In the meantime, I hope you like the two photos here.