Are you signed up to the Joy in Enough mailing list? If not, here’s the latest edition of our newsletter so you can see what you’d be signing up for: a selection of news items, highlights from the website, and links to relevant resources.
At the beginning of the year, everyone in the Joy in Enough team would like to wish you a peaceful, joyful and hopeful 2023.
Events
Wednesday 18 January 2023 – Joy in Enough online talk
Catholic Social Teaching – Towards a Politics of Communion
Anna Rowlands of Durham University will be talking about her new book “Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in Dark Times”. In her book she takes a fresh approach to considering the increasingly critical questions concerning the role of Catholic Social Teaching in a pluralist and post-secular context, and thinking in contemporary society about the issues of political community and democracy, migration, and integral ecology.
A date for your diaries – Hannah Rich of Theos will deliver next month’s Joy in Enough talk, Wednesday 15 February at the slightly later time of 7.30pm.
The latest on Plenty!
Plenty! facilitator training
Facilitator training on Zoom continues to be available for anyone who wants it prior to facilitating the Plenty! course. Please contact catturner@greenchristian.org.uk if you would like to book the training.
If you don’t want to be a facilitator but are interested in being a Plenty! participant, and can’t find a local group to be part of, do write to Cat (address as above). We may be able to find a group near you or put together a virtual group using Zoom.
We would love to hear about your Plenty! experiences if you are in the middle of, or have completed, the Plenty! discussion resource. Do write to Cat about them.
On the blog
There have been several great stories and articles recently on the Joy in Enough website. Do have a look at the following:
- Liesl Stewart’s piece on Eating at the service of life – Joy in Enough
- Hannah Rich of Theos’ article on The cost of living and the torn safety net. Hannah will deliver February’s Joy in Enough talk, Wednesday 15th at 7.30pm on Zoom – do join us!
- Catherine Masterman’s Why second-hand is still not first choice
- And, finally, Jeremy Williams’ poem – For everyone waiting – a poem, which, though it has particular resonance at Christmas, is for any place and any time.
Call for volunteers
We’re always looking for volunteers to help with the various Joy in Enough activities. This could be:
- writing articles for the website
- helping to disseminate information and interesting links via social media
- being part of the Joy in Enough steering group
- taking on other ad hoc admin. tasks
If you’re interested and want to help, please contact johnpayne@greenchristian.org.uk
Further reading and viewing
John Daniels offers to a not so very Happy New Year, in drawing attention to Can Civilization Survive? These Studies Might Tell Us – Post Carbon Institute.
Although it has been circulated before on Celink emails, it’s worth coming back to Prof Julian Allwood’s talk at Ely Cathedral a few months ago, which gives a very clear response to some of the pessimism in the Post-Carbon Institute’s articles – in particular, how restraint, a variant in fact of Joy in Enough, is a key way for humanity to be able to cope with a post-fossil fuel future, and he offers other links to classic Christian virtues as also being important – Professor Julian Allwood Talk on ‘Real Zero Emissions’ – YouTube. Here is also a link to his research website The Use Less Group . If you haven’t come across Prof Allwood’s talk, do have a look at it – recommended!
There’s another set of interesting blog posts on the issues around limits to growth here – Surplus Energy Economics | The home of the SEEDS economic model – Tim Morgan (wordpress.com)
Our friends and partners
Some more interesting blogs and articles from CUSP (Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity):
- CUSP has been involved with a BBC radio series – the Radio 4 Rethink Series – Green economy, money and prosperity – with Tim Jackson and others – Green economy, money and prosperity | BBC Radio 4 Rethink with Tim Jackson, Bernice Lee, Najma Mohamed and Rhian-Mari Thomas (cusp.ac.uk)
- This is a good blog article – Utopias in Hibernation | Blog by Malaika Cunningham (cusp.ac.uk)
With best wishes, John Payne and Ruth Jarman
