Prayer of the Grey Long Eared Bat

As COP 24 approaches its last day on 14 December, Canon Robin Gibbons sends this 11th hour plea, from one small species on behalf all living beings who cannot speak for themselves but trust humans to do this for them!

Pope Francis to us all through Laudato si' -

'It is not enough, however, to think of different species merely as potential "resources" to be exploited, while overlooking the fact that they have value in themselves. Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost for ever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.' (9:33)

David Attenborough to the UN -

'They want you, the decision makers, to act now. They are behind you, along with civil society represented here today. Supporting you in making tough decisions but also willing to make sacrifices in their daily lives". Sir David Attenborough COP24, Katowice, Poland 3rd December 2018

The Prayer of the Grey Long Eared Bat

By Canon Robin Gibbons b. 1953

Am I the last full stop on the long sentence written in the sky, no more to hear the click and chirp of others flying in the dusk?
Our echo locators silenced in the Sussex night!
Or am I a simple comma, to be surprised at finding others not so very far away,
In Hampshire, Surrey or the Dorset Coastland,
My distant family undiscovered, waiting to unite again?
I am not sure, it seems I may be one of a kind.
The semi colon changed to colon, now full stop.
All done by the human hand of messy, unthinking, interventions!
A last Sussex Grey Long Eared Bat!

My prayer could be as long as the ages I have lived.
My Ancestors were there in Eden, long before the human stepped out across the earth.
Now that was a day, a new chapter for us all; but not, alas for all, a happy ending! It is a strangeness of the human to call other living creatures names and some not good.
What right have they to place themselves above our interests?
How can they name and know and claim dominion over us?
They cannot fly by themselves in the dusk light,
nor echo sound their way across the landscape of this place.
Kinship they claim with each other, as we do, but spend much of their time destructively breaking bonds, hurting, wounding killing us and each other.
But unlike them,
We have never gone to war!

Before I go to meet my ancestors in the roost of the Hall of Heaven,
I need you to right a wrong.
Too long have humans taken a darker road with us, calling us devil's beasts, Harbingers of evils we know nothing of, creatures of the bad things.
Why are we who fly in the air of God, called names of Satan?
There are subtle discriminations, worse for their unthinking silliness:
'Blind-as-a-bat', 'bat-ears', 'silly-bat' or 'batty'.
Statements from the void:
Non-echo soundings from ignorant and superstitious minds!

This is sad, unthinking, for we enrich you, even get rid of the beetles and moths that can devour your clothes or cause you consternation.
Far from being dirty we are clean:
Thinking people harvest our droppings,
To enrich their soil and plentify their crops!

Our roosts are in the hidden places of cave and tree space,
But also in the stone and brick of human enterprise.
My prayer is only that you would understand,
And let us live in symbiotic connection with your human family.
All destined to be whole chapters in the story of life!

RPPG Oct 2018

LINK

BBC - One in five British mammals at risk of extinction, by Claire Marshall BBC Environment and Rural Affairs Correspondent -
13 June 2018

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44461150