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On the occasion of the upcoming World Interfaith Harmony Week 2023, which is observed annually from 1-7 February at the United Nations, my thought goes to the urgent call for biodiversity protection from the COP15 held in Montreal, from 7-19 December 2022.

"You can look into the sky and see the Seven Sisters still today. They are in the stars reminding us to be strong. We are always looking to the future and this story is remembering."

“Peace especially attracts the Spirit of God, for peace is the mother of love and the hallmark of sanctity.” So said Alcuin of York. Although he lived and died over 1,200 years ago he remains one of the greatest Christian scholars this country has ever produced, and even though he is not so well remembered today, his influence upon the church in Europe was profound and long-lasting.

On his visit to Japan last November, Pope Francis defined nuclear weapons as a “crime”. Two crimes, actually, folded into one. He named “the dignity of human beings” and “any possible future for our common home”. The pope added a critical qualifier in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The crime is committed not only by using nuclear weapons; it is also committed by having nuclear weapons.

Last September I visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the first time as part of my sabbatical year. How does one encounter these two places that are such containers of pain, suffering and for me, as an American, complicity? To be a tourist feels wrong and I ended up contemplating the World Council of Churches (WCC) model of pilgrimages of justice and peace as a way to be in a space of suffering, and as a way to practice accompaniment, commitment and perhaps even hopefulness.

Fifty years after the French tests in Moruroa and Fangataufa, 540 cases of people suffering from cancer are reported every year among our population of 280,000 inhabitants, and so many stillborn infants and deformed children. Isn’t that proof enough that the French nuclear tests were not as clean as the state claims?

On 7 July 2020, the 3rd anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Fiji became a State party to the treaty following the unanimous approval of the Fijian Parliament in May.

In July 2014, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee adopted a statement entitled "Towards a Nuclear-free World." In the same year, on 4 August, on behalf of the world's 500 million Christians, WCC Asia president Dr Chang Sang visited Japan, and delivered this statement in person to the chief cabinet secretary of the Japanese government, Yoshihide Suga. The churches in Japan, which experienced Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were greatly encouraged by these WCC actions.

I will never forget those August days in 2015: Together with an ecumenical pilgrimage group, I came to Hiroshima to listen to the survivors of the atomic bombing 70 years before.

Water is a key resource both to provide drinking water and to generate food and energy for a growing world population. A fifth of the global population lives in regions affected by water stress - in regions where more water is used than can naturally be recharged.

Off-again/on-again Trump-Kim summit cannot derail the peace train!

First event in the Nobel Peace Prize weekend? A seminar at the Norwegian Red Cross on what a nuclear weapon could do to Oslo. The dark winter clouds hanging over the city are a backdrop for careful assessments of nuclear disasters and the inadequacy of a feasible response. But partners and supporters of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, fill the room. A sense of excitement and shared resolve is evident. The same is true among ICAN partners arriving in Oslo and the wide civil society network including churches gathering on-line around the world to celebrate the collaboration and commitment that led to the Nobel Prize.

The children were brought to Jesus in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. They were brought with hearts filled with hope and confidence. “Do not stop them” Jesus said. Today, on World Children’s Day, let us think about the 28 million refugee children who are driven from their homes by conflict, migrating in the hope of finding a safer life.

27 May 2016 – Today a US president finally came to Hiroshima to pay respects and acknowledge what happened there in the atomic bombings of 1945. The visit was a mixture of high politics and transcendent human concerns.

As we get off the train in Hiroshima, we are welcomed by sign boards with origami cranes. Immediately, our thoughts are fixed on the girl Sadako Sasaki, who was two years old when the bomb hit Hiroshima.

Nagasaki, 9 August 2015 — Why did “it” have to happen again? Why was Nagasaki also bombed in August 1945? Why was a weapon, which can kill an entire city, used against a second city?

Hours ahead, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is already packed. Special seats have been set apart for survivors (hibakusha) and the bereaved. Prime Minister Abe, ambassadors from around the world, thousands of Japanese, guests from abroad are gathering together.

Hiroshima, 6 August 2015 - What sights and sounds told this city’s story today? A graveside scream at dawn? The penetrating gong that sounded to mark the moment the atomic bomb exploded 70 years ago? Candle lanterns floating toward the sea on the evening tide? Or a young pastor’s confession, “I feel guilty”, because his family was spared 70 years ago by a last-minute twist of fate?