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Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year message: God "doesn't do waste"
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The Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year Message was broadcast on Monday 31 December 2007 on 91Èȱ¬ Two at 8.30pm.
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This is the full text of Archbishop Rowan Williams' message:
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"By this stage of the holiday season, I imagine you might be looking with
dismay at your overflowing rubbish bin, or the mountain of debris piling up
outside your back door.ÌýFood, drink, presents – they all come with more
and more packaging.ÌýEven the most eco-conscious of us is likely to have a
bit of a bad conscience after Christmas.
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"Despite constant talk about recycling and thinking 'green', we're still a
society that produces fantastic quantities of waste.ÌýFrom the big issues
around toxic industrial and nuclear waste to the domestic questions of
managing day-to-day waste and the build-up of stuff around us that can't be
recycled, it's not something we can ignore.ÌýLook at the number of plastic
bags flapping around by the roadside, in town and country alike – and you
see what I mean.
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"What I wonder is – how much this influences attitudes in other parts of our
lives?
In a society where we think of so many things as disposable; where we
expect to be constantly discarding last year's gadget and replacing it with
this year's model – do we end up tempted to think of people and
relationships as disposable? Are we so fixated on keeping up with change
that we lose any sense of our need for stability?
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"One of the buzzwords of recent years has been 'sustainability' – and, like
all buzzwords, it tends to be used annoyingly all over the place, often for
things it doesn't really fit.ÌýBut what the word points to is the sense of
obligation that most of us share at some deep level – the obligation to
hand on to our children and grandchildren a legacy that helps them live and
flourish.ÌýBuilding to last is something we all understand.
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"And if we live in a context where we construct everything from computers to
buildings to relationships on the assumption that they'll need to be
replaced before long – what have we lost?
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"Christians, like Jews and many other religious people too, talk a lot about
God as 'faithful'.ÌýGod is involved in 'building to last', in creating a
sustainable world and sustainable relationships with us human beings.ÌýHe
doesn't give up on the material of human lives. He doesn't throw it all
away and start again. And he asks us to approach one another and our
physical world with the same commitment.ÌýThe life of Jesus, the life in
which God identifies completely with our flesh and blood is the supreme
sign of that commitment.
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"God doesn't do waste.
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"He doesn't regard anyone as a 'waste of space', as not worth his time –
from the very beginnings of life to its end, whether they are successful,
articulate, productive or not.ÌýÌý And so a life that communicates a bit of
what God is like, is a life that doesn't give up – that doesn't settle down
with a culture of waste and disposability – whether with people, or with
things.
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"Perhaps a good resolution for the New Year would be to keep asking what
world we want to pass on to the next generation – indeed, to ask whether we
have a real and vivid sense of that next generation.
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"A lot of the time, we just don't let ourselves think about the future with
realism. A culture of vast material waste and emotional short-termism is a
culture that is a lot more fragile than it knows.Ìý How much investment are
we going to put in towards a safer and more balanced future?
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"A big question. But too big to avoid.
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"And if we feel a bit paralysed by just how big it is – well, we can at
least start by a visit this week to the nearest recycling bins.
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"God bless you all in this New Year; may you have patience for the long view – confident that God takes the long view of you and isn't going to give up.
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"Happy New Year."
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Notes to Editors
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The message is broadcast on 91Èȱ¬ Two at 8.30pm on New Year's Eve and again on
91Èȱ¬ One at midday on New Year's Day.
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It will become the first New Year
Message to be subsequently available on YouTube, being posted on Wednesday
morning. A link will also posted on the Archbishop's
website. Ìý
LG
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