| LIVING LIGHT |
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| Welcome! You have found the site of the CreationKeepers team (Christ Church's Eco Church Committee), which shares ideas and experiences about how we can all lighten our environmental footprint. We do this because we see our planet and its resources at a breaking point and believe in the power of personal examples. Most weeks, we will reflect on some aspect of living, working, shopping, consuming, reading, learning, etc. These are all local experiences and can easily be adopted by others in our community. Our authors (Rosie and Monika) look forward to any comments or ideas that you may also have and want to share. Send us your ideas at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. |
Blog #99: Advent - a Time for Peace! |
| December 15, 2022 Monika Weber-Fahr |
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Advent is beginning to come to its end: This coming Sunday we celebrate the fourth of the Advent Sundays, and thereafter we have only six days left to get ready for Christmas. Last year, the Living Light Blog took the opportunity of Advent to bring you ideas and tips for environmentally friendly approaches to celebrate the most joyous season of all. This year, we will take inspiration from liturgy instead, offering suggestions for honoring the respective liturgical dimension of each of the Advent Sundays through actions that celebrate, reflect on or put us more in touch with God’s creation. One of the overarching themes of Advent is time - it is a special time, a time that is there for us to get ready. And so, true to this theme, each of the blogs will all offer ideas and tips on how we might want to spend some of this very special time in light of the Anglican Fifth Mark of Mission, safeguarding the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth..
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Discerning what might be the main theme of the fourth Sunday of Advent turned out a bit difficult. In line with Epistle Roman 1:1-7, that concludes with “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ” some sources say that this Sunday is about Peace. Others point to a focus on Mary, in line with the Sunday’s Gospel: Mathew 1:17-25 speaks to her pregnancy - and it talks about an angel visiting Joseph suggesting that he stand by her, reason for others to call the fourth candle on the Advent Wreath the Angel’s candle, again a symbol of peace, reminding us of the angels' message: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”. So for this blog, I am settling on the theme of peace - it’s big enough, as it were, to stand on its own!
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 Foto: The late Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Laureate, reflected in her Nobel Prize acceptance speech in Stockholm in 2004 on the role of trees as a symbol for peace and conflict resolution, especially during ethnic conflicts in Kenya. |
| So what does peace mean - for those of us who care for how we treat our planet and its resources? How to best reflect on this? For me, personally, peace in nature is always symbolized by trees and forests; probably a very personal cultural infliction - indeed, other cultures perceive forests to be dangerous places rather than places of peace, and again others are more focused on parts of nature associated with the sea or the mountains. For me, though, finding and being at peace is all about trees. And I am not alone in associating trees with peace - it is how the Iroquois think of the White Pine Tree, it is how Wangari Maathai framed her work on the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, it is how the Greeks looked a Olive Trees. And then, of course, there are the many meanings of the Christmas Tree itself - in terms of pines, firs, cypresses and the like - including but not limited to peace. Mythological or not: Positive physical and mental health impacts of spending time close to trees have been well documented by now - in terms of lower blood pressure, lower levels of cortisol, and so on - all associated with peace. |
| Luck has it that right now - just a few steps from Christ Church in the Jauregasse, the Lower Belvedere has put on a beautiful exhibition that allows us to do just that - reflect on the theme of peace by taking trees as the starting point. The exhibition is called GROW and it takes you on a journey of how trees have featured in art, both contemporary art and art throughout history and mythology - and it includes reflections on the role of trees healing the earth from some of its carbon excesses. The pieces exhibited are quite extraordinary and well worth the visit, ranging from Blossoming Chestnut by Emilie Mediz-Pelikan to Headstanding Totem by Nilbar Güreş. Curated along themes rather than periods or artistic techniques, the visitor gets to reflect on topics such as Grow and Fade, Lose, Act, Breathe and Inspire, all the while also learning - such as about the Norse mythology’s ash tree Yggdrasil, representing the idea of a tree being “central to maintaining the equilibrium of our world”. |
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Foto: This picture is part of the exhibition GROW at the Belvedere, and while I do not remember the artist the visual stayed with me. I took these hands and feet to symbolize how we all need to contribute, with hands and feet, to help build peace with nature going forward |
| Yes, this is an art exhibition - but it also relates very much to and reflects on the current and tough political and economic struggles that threaten the peaceful coexistence of trees and humankind. Most of us will know of the central role that trees will have to play in the earth’s future recovery from our over-reliance on fossil fuels: Healthy forests are currently the most cost-effective technology for carbon removal and storage. And yet, despite the relevance of trees - in the mythical, cultural, personal health and planetary health domains: We see deforestation proceeding globally, with some five million hectares of forest land lost every year, mostly in the southern hemisphere, a theme also reflected in the exhibition. This is all very timely, of course, considering that right now - until December 19 - the Global Biodiversity Conference currently underway in Montreal is looking to define global goals that would include, similar to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, setting concrete goals such as a goal to turn 30 percent of the world’s land into protected areas. |
| So, let’s take some time this week, in celebrating the Fourth Sunday in Advent, for an environmentally inspired reflection on peace! Let’s go for a stroll underneath the mighty trees of the Prater or the Botanical Garden, visit the exhibition GROW at the Lower Belvedere or enjoy other pieces of art that include trees. Get inspired! And let’s use this precious time during Advent as a way to get ready - for Christmas, yes, but also for the practices that we will all want to adopt more of - so that, as the Anglican Church’s Fifth Mark of Mission says, we can help “safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth”. |
| Feeling inspired? Want to contribute? Remark on or question something? Please send thoughts about or suggestions for the Living Light Blog to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. |
| P.S. The exhibition at the Belvedere closes on January 8, so hurry if you'd like to still see it. |
Blog #98: Advent - a Time to Wait! |
| December 8, 2022 Monika Weber-Fahr |
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Advent is in full swing: The third Sunday is already around the corner, and 16 days are left for us to get prepared for Christmas. Last year, the Living Light Blog took the opportunity of Advent to bring you ideas and tips for environmentally friendly approaches to celebrate the most joyous season of all. This year, we will take inspiration from liturgy instead, offering suggestions for honoring the respective liturgical dimension of each of the Advent Sundays through actions that celebrate, reflect on or put us more in touch with God’s creation. One of the overarching themes of Advent is time - it is a special time, a time that is there for us to get ready. And so, true to this theme, each of the blogs will all offer ideas and tips on how we might want to spend some of this very special time in light of the Anglican Fifth Mark of Mission, safeguarding the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.
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Most of us know the third Sunday of Advent as the Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday - the one when we light a rose-coloured candle on the Advent Wreath, reminding us of the upcoming joy of Jesus’ birth as well as of the joy of having made it half-way through Advent, transitioning from the initial repentance onwards to celebrations soon to come. Well fitting this transition, the big liturgical themes on this third Sunday of Advent seem - to me - to be about patience and waiting. Reading the Epistle for the day, we see James call on us in 5:7-10 to “be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord”. And he gets practical in his examples: “The farmer waits for the precious crop form the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains, You also must be patient”.
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 Foto: Why not practice patience and waiting - pointed to by James in 5:7-10 - in an environmentally inspired way this and look to eat only in-season and locally sourced produce this week? |
| For those of us who care for how we treat our planet and its resources, James' instruction is so very meaningful! In much of today’s society, we rarely take the time to “wait for the precious crop” - instead, we look for the agricultural industry to produce for us whatever we like whenever we like it. Strawberries in December, or broccoli in June, and the list goes on: Year-round availability of produce is what consumers in rich countries of the world have come to expect. Yet, doing so creates an immense carbon footprint - because produce needs to be raised in (heated) greenhouses, stored and cooled or frozen, and often imported from far-away countries or regions. Research done - in terms of what is called Life-Cycle Assessments - of the carbon footprint of fruit and vegetables is clear: The best produce is what has been “grown outside and during their natural season without much use of additional energy and consumed in the same country or region. These have environmental benefits because they use less energy for artificial heating or lighting, for refrigeration and storage and avoid losses during storage, which generally helps to produce less GHG emissions, compared to fruit and vegetables that are grown under protection, are imported or stored”. |
| So: What about eating only seasonally and locally grown produce - just for the week starting on the third Advent Sunday? On my end, I have just begun such a week myself and wanted to invite you to join me in doing so. It’s both fun and tasty - and it will remind you of how easy environmentally conscious eating can be! December brings some of my favorite vegetables, starting with potatoes of all kinds, through carrots, cauliflower, celery, parsnips, pumpkin, turnip and so on. In fact, whether you are on the market or at Hofer’s, you find all of this there - even though, when making sure that you truly buy locally, you might be better of to check out your local Bioladen, order from one of the various Biokisterl (Local Produce Box) services available, or go to your next market. |
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Foto: One of my dishes this week - as I have vowed to practice patience, environmentally inspired - along James’ suggestion in 5:7-10 and eat only in-season and locally sourced produce. Here I had a tray of delicious and easy-to-prepare roasted pumpkins with carrots and fennel. |
| What to cook this week then - will it be a week of potatoes? Well, I started there, of course, being the potato-lover I am, but then I moved on to a delicious tray of baked pumpkin with carrots and fennel and thereafter tried my luck with a warm and tasty broccoli-and-cauliflower soup, subsequently moving on to various forms of beetroot-salads. The list of wonderful and healthy recipes that consist only of seasonal and local foods is virtually endless - at least if you enjoy googling them - but you’ll find plenty of books also in the stores. And even if you worry that purchasing in-season and local produce may be more expensive than the alternative: If you leave out the meat and focus only on the veggies, you’ll find that the price difference is bearable. Plus, of course, there is the bit health-bonus of Eating in Season: Produce that has just been harvested is higher in nutritional value simply because there are typically affected less by pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, and because they containmore anti-oxidants such as Vitamin C, folate and carotenes that would have otherwise rapidly declined when stored for longer periods of time. |
| Let's go and celebrate this year’s Third Sunday in Advent with God's creation in mind! Let’s take time for - environmentally inspired - waiting! Let’s exercise patience and look exclusively for in-season and locally harvested food this week. Let’s use this precious time during Advent as a way to get ready - for Christmas, yes, but also for the practices that we will all want to adopt more of - so that, as the Anglican Church’s Fifth Mark of Mission says, we can help “safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth". |
| Feeling inspired? Want to contribute? Remark on or question something? Please send thoughts about or suggestions for the Living Light Blog to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. |
Blog #97: Advent - a Time to Repent! |
| December 1, 2022 Monika Weber-Fahr |
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Advent is now gaining speed: It's December 1st, Advent Calendars are opening their doors, and this coming Sunday and the two subsequent ones, as well as the days between, are awaiting us, designed to help us prepare for Christmas. Last year, the Living Light Blog took the opportunity of Advent to bring you ideas and tips for environmentally friendly approaches to spend the most joyous season of all. This year, we will take inspiration from liturgy instead, offering suggestions on ways to honor the respective liturgical dimension of each of the Advent Sundays through actions that celebrate, reflect on or put us more in touch with God’s creation. One of the overarching themes of Advent is time - it is a special time, a time that is there for us to get ready. And so, true to this theme, each of the blogs will all offer ideas and tips on how we might want to spend some of this very special time in light of the Anglican Fifth Mark of Mission, "safeguarding the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth".
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The big themes that appear - to me - to shape the second Sunday in Advent are repentance, justice, and faith. These three seem an odd combination perhaps, but reading the Gospel for the day, they are coming together. Mathews in 3:1-12 tells the story of John preaching “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”, calling in particular the Pharisees to” bear fruit worthy of repentance”. John goes on, announcing full of faith that “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me”. Repentance, it seems, comes with or maybe even requires, faith in justice, faith that whomever I am asking for forgiveness will appreciate my actions. Repentance also, so it seems, requires action - beyond mere declaration. “Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire”.
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 Foto: Plastic bottles polluting the shores in Cambodia - and not just there. Global plastic pollution is something we are all part of. Advent is also a time to repent - for what we do to God's creation - and an invitation to change our ways. Foto from UNDP/Ministry of Environment Cambodia. |
| So let me invite you to celebrate this second week of Advent by spending some time reflecting on repentance - environmentally inspired! Last year, His Eminence, Archbishop Serafim of Zimbabwe, of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, explained in a sermon well worth reading what this means: He speaks of “ecological repentance from our ecological sins”, suggesting that this may lead to a “new way of life, to live without polluting our planet”. What is this about? Those of you who have followed the recent Climate Conference in Egypt will have read about something called Loss and Damage: The idea is that the countries whose industrial development - and use of fossil fuels - has historically contributed most to climate change should take responsibility for helping countries that did not cause it (as much) but instead feel the negative impacts. The help, mostly financial, should pave ways towards adapting to the new environments we will live in going forward. The underlying concept here is Climate Justice, and indeed many Anglican Bishops have spoken up for Climate Justice recently. Ecological repentance is mentioned here but goes beyond such political agreements. It is about personal repentance - personally acknowledging the damages that our ways of life cause and it is about our personal commitment to change what we can. |
| It’s a difficult topic,I find. So many of the things that shape our lifestyles - even if they are environmentally damaging - seem beyond our control. How should we think about this? Right now, here in Vienna, there is a fabulous exhibition that might help reflect on the theme of repentance. It is called Apologies and you can find it in the Jewish Museum on Dorotheengasse. It’s not a regular exhibition - but rather a 90 minute video arrangement, put together by James T. Hong, a Taiwanese-American artist. The video is a compilation of statements that acknowledge wrong-doing, in the context of atrocities, killings, mistreatment and oppression, accidental or intentional. You will see presidents and prime ministers, church leaders and military leaders, sometimes spokespeople. And as you watch them one after the other, each describing a wrongdoing - sometimes in meager and sometimes in sincere words - you can’t help but wonder: What do these apologies change? |
| One thing seems clear: Acknowledging wrongdoing is important. The Apologies video starts with Willy Brandt, then the chancellor of West Germany, kneeling at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial, in December 1970. He seemed to signal repentance sincerely and indeed this act of repentance changed the relationship between West Germany and Poland. Not everyone throughout the video seems as sincere, but just as often one can feel the authenticity of the statements through time and place. One thing struck me when watching: With some exceptions, most of the men (and a few women) who apologized throughout the video had no control themselves over the act for which they were asking for forgiveness for. They apologized for something that happened in the past or was committed by someone else. They took responsibility - because by organization, nationality or otherwise they were associated with those who had committed the wrongdoing. And their repentance was part of healing. Which makes me wonder: When we consider ecological repentance - are there similarities insofar in that we must take responsibility for something we are part of even if things are outside of our own control? |
| Either way: Let’s take time for - environmentally inspired - reflections on repentance. Let’s reflect on the wrongdoings that happen to God’s creation. Let’s pause and reflect on where we are part of these wrongdoings, directly or indirectly, and what if anything we ourselves can change. Let’s use this precious time during Advent as a way to get ready - for Christmas, yes, but also for the changes that will need to come if we want to - as the Fifth Mark of Mission says - safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth. |
| Feeling inspired? Want to contribute? Remark on or question something? Please send thoughts about or suggestions for the Living Light Blog to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. |
Blog #96: Advent - a Time to Fast |
| November 24, 2022 Monika Weber-Fahr |
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Advent is beginning this coming Sunday: Four Sundays and the days between are ahead for us, ready-made to help us prepare for Christmas. Last year, the Living Light Blog took the opportunity of Advent to bring you ideas and tips for environmentally friendly approaches to enjoying the most joyous season of all. This year, we will take inspiration from liturgy instead, offering suggestions on ways to honor the respective liturgical dimension of each of the Advent Sundays through actions that celebrate or put us more in touch with God’s creation. One of the overarching themes of Advent is time - a special time, a time that is there for us to get ready. And so, true to this theme, each of the blogs will all offer ideas and tips on how we might want to spend some of this very special time in light of the Anglican Fifth Mark of Mission that calls us to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of earth.
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The big theme of the first Sunday in Advent is preparing and fasting. Yes, fasting - not eating cookies or baking Lebkuchen! “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming”, Mathew says in 24.36-44. And In Romans 13.12, Paul asks for a change in behaviors: “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy!”.
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| So let me invite you to celebrate this first week of Advent by spending some time fasting - environmentally inspired! I don’t mean fasting as in not-eating, or at least not just - but rather mindful fasting, fasting as a way to remind ourselves of the preciousness of food, of the labor it takes to plant and to harvest and to turn produce into meals. Most fasting - when done in moderation - has reinvigorating effects on one’s health also, and also that may be a good way to make sure we are ready for whatever God has in store for us. Personally, I can recommend three fasting practices. All have emerged from the health-side of things and I use them often in order to find focus and mark moments of change. And all of them could be good to adopt for a week or so in setting a sign for yourself that you are putting on the armor of light. |
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Foto: Fasting - in various forms - can be a great way to put on the armor of light as the First Sunday of Advent liturgy suggests, leveraging fasting as a way to change habits and ways of life, including some of the ways we live that threaten our environment. |
| The first practice - intermittent fasting or 16/8 fasting - is something that many of you may know; it involves limiting the times during which one eats to an eight hour window per day. It is a practice that is easy to integrate in one’s regular life - even or in particular during the first week of Advent. Also, it is a practice that creates time that one can take to appreciate the gift of food and reflect on the preciousness of nature as a source of our food. |
| The second practice that I can recommend is called Buchinger Fasting. This is a format that is widely offered in Austria as well as in other german-speaking countries - perhaps because it was developed early in the 20th century by a German physician, Dr. Otto Buchinger - and in my 25plus years in the US, I have not encountered anyone over there who seemed to know about it. Essentially, Buchinger Fasting is a form of detoxing: You combine a very meager food intake - essentially not more than a cup of vegetable broth and a glass of thin juice each day - with taking time for walks, meditation, and resting. There is a lot more to this, of course, and if you are curious you would want to read up on it or simply join one of the many guided Fasting Sessions offered in monasteries or health centers across the country (mostly in German, but you can ask and often they have bilingual fasting coaches). I have myself practiced it many times over the years and find it a fabulous way to re-connect with God and with nature - it frees your mind and opens your frame of thinking. And indeed, this year, Advent first will find me in a monastery about an hour from Vienna, doing just that. Ask me how it went next week ;-). |
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| The third and last practice that I would recommend as a way to put on the armor of light, would be to shift to a completely plant-based diet for a week. Most of us who are neither vegetarian or vegan may think of vegetarianism as something difficult, but simply giving it a try for a week can be a great way to get to know a way of life that is fundamentally better for the environment - and for your own health (if done right). Plant-based eating is recognized in the medical community as not only nutritionally sufficient but also as a way to reduce the risk for many chronic illnesses. At the same time, plant-based diets put much less pressure on the earth’s resources - such as water, land, or CO2 and other climate-inducing gases - than diets that involve meat or animal products; they indeed may be the diets of the future. |
| Curious? Want to give it a try? Let’s take time for - environmentally inspired - fasting this year, during the first week of Advent! Let’s use this precious time as a way to get ready - for Christmas, yes, but also for the changes that are there to come if we want to keep and sustain and renew life on earth sustainably. |
| Feeling inspired? Want to contribute? Remark on or question something? Please send thoughts about or suggestions for the Living Light Blog to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. |
