If you’re my age, you’ll remember the Flat Earth Society. It was a New Zealand off-shoot of a group in England that sincerely believed the earth was flat because the Bible said so. They had many scriptural references, including sayings of Jesus, and they considered the notion of a round planet to be the work Read more
When we were children we thought of God as being somewhere “up there” looking down on us. As we grew in faith and life experience, God seemed closer, closer, until we recognised God within us. This was not something we were told. We could actually feel it and there were no words to describe it. Then Read more
Awful fact: by 2030, half a billion people will be practicing open defecation. That’s an improvement. The current numbers are staggering: 2.5 billion people lack adequate sanitary facilities; 849 million practice open defecation. In Southeast Asia, that means 38 percent of the population; in sub-Saharan Africa, 25 percent meet their needs without safety and privacy. Read more
From where I’m standing, the city-sized Baogang Steel and Rare Earth complex dominates the horizon, its endless cooling towers and chimneys reaching up into grey, washed-out sky. Between it and me, stretching into the distance, lies an artificial lake filled with a black, barely-liquid, toxic sludge. Dozens of pipes line the shore, churning out a Read more