Living God

where there is waste, let us bring recycling,

where there is recycling, let us bring re-use,

where there is re-use, let us bring sustainability,

where there is sustainability, let us bring justice

where there is justice, let us bring love.

John Polhill

Today is Global Recycling Day, the word ‘global’ emphasising that the way in which we deal with our rubbish can have far-reaching consequences. We see in the photo above an image of paradise lost: plastic from many thousands of miles away polluting a Caribbean idyll, its impact deadly upon marine and coastal biodiversity.

In today’s prayer, we hear strong echoes of another more familiar prayer. John Polhill has himself done a bit of re-cycling, re-using the patterns and rhythms of the Prayer of St Francis which includes lines such as “where there is hatred let me bring love…where there is despair let me bring hope.” How apt that the influence of St Francis, of all people, lies behind this prayer, he whom Pope John Paul II, in 1979, declared the patron saint of ecologists.

A recognition that action is vital also lies behind this prayer. It implicitly acknowledges that, in Isaiah’s words, “The earth lies polluted by its inhabitants, who have broken its laws and disrupted its order” (24.5). And then it invites God to direct our daily behaviours for the good of all creation. When we are hasty about waste and thoughtless about throwaways; when we are careless about consumption and choose convenience over compassion, Polhill’s prayer urges us to adopt a chain of globe-healing actions… ‘Waste’ is transformed into ‘love’ in the short space of five lines.