By Charmaine Kombeo, DBTS teacher
Gabutu, Port Moresby, PNG, 1 September 2022 -- The Season of Creation was officially launched at Don Bosco Technical School, Gabutu on Wednesday 31st August 2022 at the school assembly.
The Season of Creation is the annual Christian celebration to listen and respond together to the cry of Creation: the ecumenical family around the world unites to pray and protect our common home. The Season “Celebration” begins on 1 September, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, and ends on 4 October, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology.
This year we will unite around the theme, “Listen to the Voice of Creation.”
During the Season of Creation, our common prayer and action can help us listen for the voices of those who are silenced. In prayer we think about the individuals, communities, species, and ecosystems who are lost, and those whose livelihoods are threatened by habitat loss and climate change.
Students were reminded that weekly school service at school was not only about cutting grass or cleaning rubbish, watering flowers, planting new trees but about being concerned that we are in harmony with everything and everyone around us.
There are voices of a diminishing diversity of more than-human species that surround us. It is the voice of the Earth. The 2022 Season of Creation theme raises awareness of our need to listen to the voice of all creation.
The burning bush is the Symbol for the Season of Creation 2022. This was created from the dried trees on campus. It should remind us of the devastating effects of bush fires around the world and what it has done to the most vulnerable areas of our planet. It is also a reminder of the fires that we experience due to the lack of harmony in our country, the fires of violence and hatred, of revenge and dishonesty.
Students were then encouraged to create a symbol of the burning bush for their classroom and to write down any long-term good deed they have done to Care for Creation. They then write it down and put it on the busy for others to be inspired and creatively respond in their own way.
Above all, staff and students were reminded to have a change of mindset, and to begin to care for our habitat, live in harmony and protect the ecosystem that surrounds us. Thus, we will listen to the voice of creation.
