Creative Communities

Last weekend I was helping to organise the Creative Communities event, a Cambridge Carbon Footprint event led by Amy Ross and supported by Kate Honey and a few other fantastic people from a range of inter-faith backgrounds. The idea of the event was to get people from different religions to get together, and talk about how our beliefs affect our engagement with issues around the environment.

The idea is that all of us have something in common - a belief in something greater than us, which could be a way to find the inspiration and resources to make the necessary changes if we are to live consistently with what needs to be done to prevent further climate disasters. Inter-faith work can be delicate though, it's easy to find the differences before you find the commonality, and find yourselves moving further apart.

Aware of that, the event focussed on unity and used games, music and prayer to promote it. We played a match-and-chat game first of all, finding one other person with the same numbered ticket as us, and finding out more about their interest in the environment. We had some beautiful singing sessions, led by Kate, including one lovely tune that she had composed for the event. And also, a lovely pair of songs by a Baha'i gentleman called Peter.

One really remarkable thing about the day was that there were lots of children, and the event really seemed to meet their need for play and colour, thanks to the forward thinking of Portia and Jessa. They ran around and played happily throughout, reminding all of us that caring for the planet is also caring for the futures of the next generation of people.