When I was a student sharing a house with 5 other girls, we had a pet hamster. Sadly I no longer remember the hamster’s name – but let’s call him Fred. We all loved Fred and took it in turns to feed him and clean his cage, which was kept in our dining room. One of the members of the household, particularly liked playing with and cuddling Fred. One morning we got up to find the cage empty and Fred was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t until we looked at the floor and saw a set of tiny sooty footprints leading to the back of the gas fire that we knew where he was hiding.
We may not leave real sooty footprints, but we do leave a much larger carbon footprint upon the world. Our dependence on fossil fuels, our desire to travel faster and further, and our reluctance to embrace alternative sources of energy, leaves deep and permanent footprints, ugly scars upon God’s beautiful world.
Prayer: Jesus, you came to bring freedom to the oppressed, to make the lame walk and the blind see. May we cut ourselves loose from the bondage of fossil fuels, may we embrace alternative ways to heat our houses, to get from one place to another and to see the beauty around us. Help us to make our footprints like those made by bare feet running in sand rather than heavy boots soiled from the factories and power plants that exploit the earth’s scarce resources. AMEN