Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. – 1 Thessalonians 4:9

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 26, 2014): 1 Thessalonians 3 & 4

The latest round of G20 talks at the G20 Summit held in Australia has ended with an agreement on hundreds of steps that the leading economic countries on the planet need to take in order to create jobs on a global basis and to ensure an economy that continues to grow. But while the G20 concentrates on the economic realities, this G20 may be remembered more for an ecological agreement between the United Stated and China just before the summit began, and for a momentary conflict between the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a greeting session during the Summit. And there is actually a connection between these two isolated events – both are aimed at minimizing the human footprint that we leave on this planet. The whole of the ecological conversation is aimed at being able to be successful as the human race without using resources that cannot be replaced and without damaging the fragile ecosystem in which we all live. The ultimate target is to be able to come to the point where we are able to live our lives in such a way that we have neither used the irreplaceable resources of our planet nor have we damaged the environment in which we live.

The conflict between Harper and Putin was over the Russian presence in the Ukraine. Harper apparently greeted Putin with the instruction that Russia had to get out of the Ukraine. Putin’s rumored reply was that that was impossible since Russia is not in the Ukraine. Later Harper made this comment;

“We cannot have a major power in this day and age seize the sovereign territory of another country and simply move on as if nothing’s happened. My view is that that kind of action only whets the appetite which is why the world community has to respond strongly and I think it has” – Stephen Harper

At the core of Harper’s comment is the idea that we have to minimize the political imprint that the major powers have on the smaller and less powerful nations around them. It does not mean that we will not be influenced by those powers (as a Canadian I recognize the immense influence that both the United States and the United Kingdom have had on my tiny – at least with regard to population – nation), but it does mean that every nation from the United States to the smallest island nation in the South Pacific has the right to decide its own future except where that decision violates the sovereignty of another nation. Even as nations, we have the right to be all that we can be.

But that isn’t quite right either. It isn’t that we need to minimize our ecological, economic, or political footprints as we measure it in a negative way, but rather that we need to maximize our imprint in a positive way. It is too late to think in terms of not damaging our ecosystem, we have to start thinking in terms of ways that we can help it to heal. It is not that we just need the larger nations to stop having a negative impact on the neighboring countries, but rather that we need the major powers to help the smaller countries to maximize who they are – admittedly something that most nations fail at. Vladimir Putin’s human duty has never been to just get out of the Ukraine, it has been to do everything in his power to foster a positive relationship or a positive footprint between Russian and the Ukraine so that both Russia and the Ukraine excel in whatever it is that they decide to put their hearts and minds toward.

Paul writes to the Thessalonians that they have already learned the lesson from God on how to love each other. Paul is basically just saying that they have learned to maximize their positive footprint in the lives of other people with whom they are coming in contact. He is also boldly stating that this is not an option, it is the way that God has designed this world to live. And this just stresses the interconnectedness of all life. We were never intended to walk alone and no life should pass without leaving its mark. But what we do need to do is to work toward making sure that the mark that we leave is a positive footprint – and not a negative one. And the easiest way to do that, as people or as nations, is by falling in love with each other, and with the world in which we live.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5