More reflections from Sr. Joan Brown.
Find out more about the faith community’s involvement in the UN Climate Change Conference.
Joan was also featured in yesterday’s USA Today article, “Religious groups active in climate debate,” about faith leaders in Copenhagen!
Blessings from Copenhagen!
I have arrived in commuter heaven. Travel by train, bus and metro is so easy and timely. After getting off the train and climbing the steps to street level, What to my wondering eyes should appear? No not reindeer, but hundreds of happy bicycles awaiting their owners return in the evening. Bikers greet me everywhere. Copenhagen has the third highest bike ridership per capita in the world.
My host family Mia and Michael are lovely and have made me feel welcome in their home for the duration of the meeting. Nourished by homemade bread, soup and tea, I am ready for the conference.
Waiting in the long line to register at Bella Center, I find myself with people from all over the world, including a woman from Oxfam Africa. My thoughts went to Jim French doing such wonderful work on the Senate climate and clean energy bill and other work for Oxfam in Kansas.
I am able to connect with Sr. Odile Coirier, who is the leader of the Franciscan´s International Delegation, of which I am a part. I also connect with Maryknoll friends Kathy McNeely and Sr. Ann Braudis who are very engaged with linking ecology, economic reform and the climate change issue.
By late afternoon I am walking around Bella Center taking in the vast engagements of those from around the planet. I attend an afternoon session and am very moved by the thousands of people from around the world attending this, the largest ever UN gathering. We truly are one planet with many people of various cultures, races, and religions bound together by one climate and one future.
Several lines from one of the Advent lines from Isaiah 42 walk with me this day. “…until you establish justice on earth; the coastlands will wait for your teaching”. The people whose faces of many colors clothe the Climate Change Conference and the creatures and earth of the coastlands that are flooding wait for justice from this conference.
A 7 hour time change makes bed my next calling. May we pray, do acts of kindness and love one another.
Peace and good,
Your sister,
Joan Brown
