Yogyakarta, Indonesia - A meeting was held at our home to discuss the report from the October 1-2 Youth Forum of the Interfaith Consultation on Climate Change, organized by the Asian Muslim Action Network and the Asian Resource Foundation in Bangkok, Thailand.
Four principles guided the deliberations:
- Integrity of creation: life, and all things good in life have been given unto us and we all must exercise not just appreciation, but also stewardship over what we have been blessed to receive.
- Interconnectedness: creating the need to listen to one another and to find sameness in differences; and the need to understand the linkages between poverty, climate change and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.
- Justice for all: through equitable and not just equal access to resources becoming scarce due to climate change; and through equal opportunities for all.
- Principled pragmatism: in the words of one of the participants, in all our responses to climate change we need to ask, “Is it right? Is it good? Will it work?”
Participants reflected on many religions prevalent in Asia and the Pacific, including Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and indigenous belief systems. They share a powerful common core of concepts, values and principles:
- The sacred and the profane: in nature, in creation, in all of God’s creatures. As one participant put it, “Only our sense of the sacred will save us.”
- The difference between needs, wants and greed in guiding us onto the Right Path in terms of consumption and lifestyles
- Love thy neighbor, as thyself: in a growing global neighborhood.
- The need for historical long-sightedness and not just “quick fixes”
- The need to move mercy and compassion from scripture to attitude, behavior and practice
- The need for tolerance of the other, especially in times of scarcity and in times of adversity
- The concept of the Supreme Sustainer:challenging us all to become sustainers, in all we do
- The mysteries of faith and religion: expressed in the words of one participant, “Knowing that we do not know a lot” and in the words of another participant, “I know what not to follow. I do not know what to follow”.
- The strength to be proud of both the courage of one’s convictions as well as the courage of one’s confusions
- Reasons to believe and reasons to hope
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