He has always seemed like a sensible man, and today the media brought attention to HRH Prince William saying one of the most sensible things anyone has said this week.
While it was cute to see William Shatner looking moved by his opportunity to compare the dark of outer space with the incredible beauty of the earth below, I do wonder what it will take to make it clear that the gift is the earth – our planet. Yes, the earth is being grossly mismanaged and abused, but our earth is intended to be the perfect home.
The “space-race”, although pushing science and technology, has also shown a spotlight on motives. During the advancements cold war – it seemed to be all about an effort to outdo the opposition, get there first. Nowadays, motives are even more dubious. (“Space-tourism” sounds like someone sees a lot of fat zeros on a bank balance – do you think we will need to take a covid test three days before flights?)
I have heard people say on television that “we” (I would like to be excused from that collective phrase) need to find another planet with conditions we could survive on when the earth is no longer habitable.
Therefore they think it is morally acceptable to spend millions, or billions, forgive me I am not up to date with expenditure (not to mention the carbon footprint) on hurtling ninety year old actors up through the atmosphere so they can know they feeling of weightlessness and landing them in Texas safely.
Oh – don’t get me started!
I do wonder at the presumptuousness of it all though. If you built a luxury house, breathtakingly beautiful, with every possible comfort and delight, a state-of-the-art heating and cooling system, ideally designed to enhance life and help you thrive….and then….then you let it out to tenants who came in and did not take care of it, did not appreciate it, but ruined it – what would you think of them house-hunting for another home? Would you be happy to allow them to move into another of your properties?
On the other hand, how would you feel about tenants who cared for the beautiful property you had designed and built? Tenants who were proud to call it their home.
The earth is extraordinary – I could write endlessly about the factors that make this planet exceptional – and we live on the best real estate in the known universe. It is designed for not just an existence. It is not, absolutely not, intended to be a testing ground. It is very concerning that so many religions have painted life on earth to be a temporary deciding ground for an eternal future. The scriptures state that the earth is a beautiful perfect gift – meant as a home, a home where we should be able to thrive.
Humans were given an assignment – make this entire earth thrive like the sample of paradise provided at the outset. Care for the earth and all of it’s creatures. That is our assignment. Once we have fulfilled that rewarding assignment, then perhaps we might be entrusted with the other responsibilities.
Shirking our responsibility here and thinking “we” can jet off elsewhere, it could be said that is bombastically irresponsible. But I think it would be more relevant to also point out it is also futile.
Thank you Prince William for pointing out what ought to be obvious. You always did seem fairly sensible. I truly hope that you and your family, and all those who love life on this beautiful planet are able to enjoy living on it forever, happy and healthy and rewarded in the knowledge that all of earth’s inhabitants are thriving.
I was able to work on some extraordinary projects throughout the north of England and Wales and worked with thousands of people. I became part of a core team that helped to train new volunteers. There are some very special people I want to write about in the future.
Ten years later, I left home in order to be able to work as a volunteer in a part of Southern England, where there were a stack of projects and not many volunteers (partly because the cost of living in that area is so high). Although the first year was hard, because I missed my family and friends up north so much, it did not really take me too long before I started to feel at home down south. I made many wonderful friends and fell in love with the countryside. I ended up living on the grounds of a beautiful stately home and being allowed to roam their gorgeous estate, and because they trusted me, I paid peanuts for my accommodation, which was another fortuitous factor in my volunteer career in the south of England.
I longed to become a full-time international volunteer. I had met many who were. But I was given a very realistic description of the challenges that are involved in that role. The accommodation is very basic and modest – well small, very small. There is a a strict schedule and volunteers are often required to work “over-time”. There can be challenges when sharing kitchen and bathroom areas with other volunteers who come from different backgrounds and cultures. The physical demands and difficulties in the various challenging assignments can be exhausting.
Now a special man, a friend, created an opportunity for me (I will save that story for another post!) and some time after that I received a telephone call, asking me if I would be able to travel up to London for a training day, as they would like to start using me on important projects on the site where all of the UK projects and around 25% of international projects were organized from. I was thrilled!
The night shifts were necessary because they had an infirmary for volunteers who were seriously ill. Most of the patients were well into their nineties and were now effected by dementia, although their mobility was excellent. Most of those we were caring for had sacrificed opportunities to marry or start a family of their own because they were devoted to volunteering. So now, we became their family and gave them a very special standard of nursing care, marked by love and appreciation for all they had done and how special they were to all of the people they had helped over the decades. We also had patients who were receiving palliative care as they had advanced cancer, including some young ones in their twenties. Very brave. They could have returned home, but they wanted so much to keep their hand in volunteer projects for as long as they could and be near the other volunteers who had become like a family to them.
But during the Monday night shift I worked a few days before I was due to do my first day shift, since the day I had been trained six months earlier, I found out some news. I had mixed feelings. Suzie, the girl I was working with, told me that another part-time volunteer, who was a single woman, had been invited to become a full-time volunteer. Her name was Marta and she was German. I had never worked with her. She was a psychologist.
I had lunch with Suzie and Nadine (another of the girls I worked with in the infirmary) and Nadine’s husband James. After lunch, we went back to work. Kevin asked me if I could make sure I was available in about half and hour and asked me to be at his office by 1.30pm. I made sure I had finished my tasks and was there at the time he had asked of me.
Well, I knocked on the door, and Kevin opened the door and closed it behind me once I had entered. I was surprised to find one of the directors named Rod, who managed the entire facility there.
I must have looked completely shocked. Well, I was shocked! Speechless. It had never crossed my imagination they would be able to invite both of us to become full-time volunteers. They said if you don’t believe it, here it is in writing. They handed me a long white envelope with my bame typed out on the front, and told me to take it home and think carefully about it and to let them know. But they wondered if I could give them an idea if it was likely I would accept. I was gobsmacked! “YES YES YES!” They asked me if I minded if they told the other team members, because the whole team had wanted me to become a full-time volunteer. I said “of course!”. We opened the door and all three of us left the office. Suzie was just outside the door and I remember her looking at me with a quizzical expression.
At 2pm there was a meeting for all the infirmary staff. The supervisor and the director I had been in the office ran through some important information with the whole department. They then asked if everybody knew that there was going to be a new full-time volunteer joining the team. Everyone nodded and affirmed they knew Marta was going to be joining them. Rod shook his head. He said, “haven’t you heard that we are going to have another full-time volunteer?” Everyone was surprised and asked who? Rod and Kevin pointed at me!
Within a month I was living in London, sharing a tiny flat with Marta and Suzie. Three of us sharing a bedroom. Bunk-beds and a wall-bed. We shared a tiny kitchen and bathroom and had a living room which had a two-seater sofa and and armchair and a desk. But we had French doors and a balcony that looked out onto a lovely view of a green park with a cedar tree and a luxury apartments development where footballers, popstars and people had too much money lived next door to us. I still reckon we had a better view than they did as they were looking at our much more modest block of flats!
Caramel 