Rod Oram’s presentation to the
Care of Creation Series, All Saints
Palmerston North, November 12th, 2012
Agenda
•  World
•  Civil Society
Reinventing Paradise
•  Revolution
•  New Zealand
Economy for a sustainable world
Kiwiki on Facebook / Twitter @RodOramNZ
[email protected] / +64 21 444 839
(The beginning of)
The End
Weep, Harp, the end of that exquisite Place
That every circling Planet did outface;
Mother of Streams and Mountains, Vales and Trees,
And every Prospect that the Lens could please:
Cradle of Man, and his sustaining Nurse,
Whether for better or, in this case, worse.
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Long time that Orb turned tranquilly and bright,
Blue-shining like a Marble in the Night
Long time all hunky-doryish appeared,
But Man was greedier than had been feared:
Flatt’ning the Forests, and, with grasping Hand
Pumping out oil from every Desert Land.
Then anxious Greens announced that Doom was nigh,
Tho’ all the rest, uncaring, wondered: “Why?”
And to consumerism blithely turn’d,
Tapping their iPhones while the Planet burn’d;
Checking each Bleep of instantaneous Chat
Until they hardly knew where they were at.
And so, o’erheated and in quite a Tangle,
Poor Earth was now beset from every Angle.
Ann Wroe, obituaries editor, The Economist
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Rio 1992 – main outcomes
•  t
•  Governments agreed on 27 sustainability principles
•  Breakthrough…bringing sharp focus to humankind’s unsustainable course
•  These have helped shape some government policies…
•  …and personal and community responses, and corporate strategies
•  Led to the UN’s framework convention on climate change…
•  …and progress in other areas such as biodiversity and Law of the Sea
•  But in the 20 years since:
•  Very hard to keep up momentum, shift behaviour, implement big changes
•  Natural resource use has increased by 40% in past 20 years, UN says
•  We are changing climate, ecosystems far faster than we ever imagined
•  Injustices are accelerating
•  Our lack of sustainability is now utterly critical
Rio 2012 – main official outcomes
1. Nonbinding document, "The Future We Want," a 49 page work paper. In it, the
heads of state of the 192 governments in attendance renewed their political
commitment to sustainable development and declared their commitment to the
promotion of a sustainable future. The document largely reaffirms previous action
plans like Agenda 21
2. Text includes language supporting the development of Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), a set of measurable targets aimed at promoting sustainable
development globally. It is thought that the SDGs will pick up where the Millennium
Development Goals leave off and address criticism that the original Goals fail to
address the role of the in development.”
3. Attempt to shore up the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in order to make it
the “leading global environmental authority” by setting forth eight key
recommendations including, strengthening its governance through universal
membership, increasing its financial resources and strengthening its engagement in
key UN coordination bodies
Rio 2012 – main official outcomes
4. Nations agreed to explore alternatives to GDP as a measure of wealth that take
environmental and social factors into account in an effort to assess and pay for
‘environmental services’ provided by nature, such as carbon sequestration and habitat
protection
5. Recognition that "fundamental changes in the way societies consume and produce
are indispensable for achieving global sustainable development.” EU officials suggest
it could lead to a shift of taxes so workers pay less and polluters and landfill operators
pay more
6. The document calls the need to return ocean stocks to sustainable levels “urgent”
and calls on countries to develop and implement science based management plans
7. All nations reaffirmed commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies
8. In addition to the outcome text, there were over 400 voluntary commitments for
sustainable development made by Member States
2
Rio 2012 – Two views
t
•  “The fact that we have a consensus outcome document at all,
and the 283 statements within it,
is truly testament to the abilities and goodwill of everyone who attended.”
•  Environment Minister Amy Adams, Aug 6, 2102
•  At the Environmental Defence Society conference “Growing Green”
•  t
•  What the text actually contained:
•  The 283 paragraphs cruelly exposed governments’ lack of ambition & commitment
•  99 times – “we support”
•  50 times – “we encourage”
•  5 times - “we will”
•  3 times – “we must”
•  “The longest suicide note in history”
•  Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International’s executive director
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t
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…(the middle of) The End
•  t
This the wise Maya long ago foresaw:
That in the Age of tricky Seven Macaw
(Or, to put Finger firmly onto Fact,
In twenty-twelve, Dec. 21st exact)
History’s great Wheel would tumble to eclipse
Quicker than e-mail thro’ the Aether zips;
For fiery Sun with Milky Way align’d
Would make a pretty Mess of things combin’d.
The Poles would flip, and old terrestrial
Time Fade out within Eternity’s vast clime;
The law of Gravitation, grown effete,
Would scarce secure an Infant in his Seat;
And all that normal seem’d, the Day before,
Would now essay the Air, or hit the Floor.
Then monumental Panick spread abroad,
Skins to preserve, and Groceries to hoard,
For tho’ the Mathematicks seem’d obscure,
No Body’s Fate might be consider’d sure;
So Petroglyphs of Rockets upside-down
Were scrutinised in every part of Town.
4
Agenda
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•  World
•  Civil Society
•  Revolution
•  New Zealand
t
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5
Voluntary action
Sustainability - Local governments lead
•  US Natural Resource
Defense Council’s
Cloud of Commitments
•  http://
www.cloudofcommitments
.org
The rise of civil society
•  At Rio:
•  More than 700 formal commitments by organizations and companies
were registered
•  They pledged more than US$500bn to sustainable development actions,
many were addressed specifically to fighting climate change.
•  Examples
•  The 1,800 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange
committed to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions
•  Mayors from 58 megacities, meeting as part of the C40 Cities
Climate Leadership Group, agreed to actions which could reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by over a billion tons by 2030
The rise of civil society…
•  …birth of a new democracy:
•  People-led
•  Not politician-led
• 
Locally-driven
•  Not centrally controlled
• 
Interactive
•  Not authoritarian
• 
Creative
•  Not restrictive
• 
Networked
•  Not hierarchical
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Learning
•  Not stagnating
6
The future of public participation
Community
•  Issues are increasingly global….
•  …solutions are increasingly local
•  Solutions require very strong, learning communities
•  Essential attributes:
•  Common sense
•  Common purpose
•  Common wealth
•  Places where individuals are valued, helped, encouraged
•  …in return, they participate, change
Agenda
Scarcity of resource
• 
• 
All water: 1,390 km diameter (All fresh surface water: 62 km)
All air: 1,999 km across; Source: Dr Adam Nieman www.adamnieman.co.uk
•  World
•  Civil Society
•  Revolution
•  New Zealand
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People, planet
•  Vision 2050
•  A very challenging roadmap
for corporate development by
World Business Council for
Sustainable Development
•  …NZ version October 2012
Finite resources
w
•  q
8
LIBOR – dark heart of finance
LIBOR –biggest scandal yet
•  London Inter-Bank Offered Rate
•  10 currencies; 15 maturities
•  Global benchmark for US$800 trillion of financial products
•  NZ$1 million billion
•  1 million seconds = 12 days
•  1 billion seconds = 32 years
•  1,000 billion seconds = 32,000 years
•  1 million billion seconds = 32m years
The pre-crisis banking model “was already looking
tawdry; now, in the wake of the LIBOR scandal, it
looks even more tattered.
•  Barclays fined £290m (NZ$570m) for
filing false reports to LIBOR-setting panel
•  Acted to hide its financial weakness
•  And favour its derivatives positions
•  20+ other major banks under investigation
•  Criminal and political inquiries underway in UK, US
•  Customers, e.g. US cities and other borrowers, preparing
massive damage suits
“The harsh lesson is that banks cannot be
trusted to perform any public function if it
conflicts with their own interests.
“Barclays staff rigged an interest rate used to price
the financial products they sold to customers with
a view to ensuring their own derivative bets paid
off.
“It is hard to think of anything more corrosive
of trust in finance – and indeed
in capitalism itself.”
Financial Times, July 3, 2012, Editorial
•  Scandal greatly heightens probability US & UK banks will
be split into separate commercial & investment institutions
World Economic Forum:
Global risks
WEF:
Risk map
•  To ensure human needs are met, we
need radical new technologies
•  We need to develop and deploy them
on a scale and at a speed like never
before
•  …and with much greater complexity
and risk
•  …and with a need for public
understanding and support
•  …and ways to respond far better
when things go wrong
•  This is a fundamental shift in
risk and risk management
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WEF:
Risk relationships
WEF: seeds of dystopia
•  …e.g. is The Occupy Movement an anomaly?
•  Or a harbinger of social unrest?
•  ...the latter, it concluded
…(the end of) The End
And some to Bugarach in France repair’d,
Where, it was said, their Lives would all be spar’d
By Alien Beings in a Cave confin’d;
But “Bugaroff” declar’d that Mayor, unkind.
.
A few were saved. For such Escapes must be,
As shewn forth on Reality TV,
Where jabbing Digit points towards the Door,
But some survive into Round twenty-four;
And so the Wise soared up to Realms of Dreams,
Bathed by Galactic Synchronisation Beams.
The rest, when pulling on their morning Socks,
Ask’d what the Hell was wrong with all the Clocks,
And why each Mug would from the Table rise,
Floating about before their bleary Eyes
And why their Phones no Signal would receive
Save the implicit one that they should leave.
Craz’d, then, the uninform’d or unprepar’d
Rushed to the Street, and round them wildly star’d,
Seeing approach an overwhelming Snow
Before they had worked out which way to go;
And they were buried deep, the Ice beneath,
With crumbs of Croissant still between their teeth.
As Will says…
Hamlet:
“What a piece of work is man,
How noble in reason,
How infinite in faculties,
In form and and moving how express and admirable,
In action how like an angel,
In apprehension how like a god!
The beauty of the world,
The paragon of animals…”
But Hamlet is deeply depressed about humankind…so he goes on to say…
“…and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Man delights not me -- nor woman neither”
If we lose our faith in humankind, we’re doomed
But if we believe in humankind…we can reinvent Paradise
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Companies
When they’re good…
•  Have been around a long time
•  The oldest, surviving company was founded in Japan in 578 AD
•  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies
•  …they are very beneficial, enabling people to come together to generate:
• 
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Enterprise
Economic activity
Progress
Knowledge accumulation and transfer
Wealth creation and management
Community benefit
•  Creation of limited liability status was, arguably, the most crucial innovation ever...
…allowing owners to take bigger (hopefully reasonable) risks
•  Unlimited liability would very severely limit enterprise and progress
•  15th century -- English law awarded limited liability to monastic communities and
trade guilds with commonly held property
•  17th century -- joint stock charters were awarded by the crown to monopolies such
as the East India Company.
•  1811 – New York State – 1st modern limited liability law enacted
•  1844 – UK’s Joint Stock Companies Act made incorporation much easier
•  1855 – UK’s Limited Liability Act 1855 gave outside investors limited liability
Father of
accounting
•  Fra Luca Pacioli
•  …Venetian monk, polymath,
friend of the clever, creative, rich
and famous
•  …including Leonardo da Vinci
•  Published in 1494
Summa de arithmetica
•  …which included the first full,
public description of the
secret double-entry book-keeping
system used by Venetian
merchants
•  Basically, we’ve been
double-entry book-keeping
(assets/ liabilities; credits/debits
etc) ever since
•  Financial accounting…
•  …brilliant but limited, thus flawed
When they’re bad…
•  …they are immensely damaging, enabling people to come together to:
• 
• 
• 
Exert enormous power and influence
Exploit people, technology and resources
Destroy people, communities, eco-systems
•  There are many causes of such destructive behaviour
•  But the biggest by far is the severing of ownership from control…e.g.
•  An individual within…from colleagues
•  A team within…from management
•  Management…from board
•  Board…from owners
•  Owners…from external investors
•  External investors…from society
•  Society…from business
•  Religion and faith are not full-proof antidotes
•  …e.g. Many Enron directors & senior executives were leaders of their churches
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What must go right
The next 10 years
•  People who own and run businesses must be:
•  Finance and capital conditions
•  Finance more expensive and less available
•  Market and regulatory constraints
• 
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• 
• 
• 
Aware…of the communities which give them license to operate
Responsible…to those communities
Controlled…self-control and external control
Sustainable…for the natural life of the enterprise…it could be short or forever
Ethical
•  …in other words…it’s about right relationships
•  There are a lot of relationships to set right
•  Less benign economic conditions
•  Higher economic volatility; Increased risk
•  Low carbon-economy
•  New disciplines & technology
•  Far greater resource efficiency
•  Technology change accelerating
•  Public losing trust in business
•  Scepticism over Anglo-Saxon model
•  More government intervention
•  Social and demographic change
•  New responses to retirement, pensions
•  New business & government solutions
•  E.g. more flexible working practices
“The Shape of Business”
Confederation of
British Industry
www.cbi.org.uk
Integrated Reporting
•  The next big initiative by corporates
and accounting bodies
•  Seeking to make financial,
environmental and social
measures…
•  …much easier,
more accessible and
more useful to corporates,
investors and the public
•  www.theiirc.org
Ray Anderson
•  Founded Interface in 1973
•  …15 years later world’s largest maker of carpet tiles
•  His “mid-course correction” came in 1994, when he was 60
•  2020 goal: take nothing from the earth that could not be rapidly replenished,
produce no greenhouse-gas emissions, and no waste
•  By 2007 Interface was about halfway up “Mount Sustainability”
•  Greenhouse-gas emissions by absolute tonnage were down 92%
•  Water usage down 75%
•  74,000 tonnes of used carpet recovered from landfills
•  Savings of $400m each year from no scrap and no off-quality tiles more than
paid for the R&D and process changes
•  As much as 25% of the company's new material from “post-consumer recycling”
•  Sales had risen by two-thirds and profits had doubled
•  Ray Anderson’s Economist obituary www.economist.com/node/21528583
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Cradle to Cradle
•  One product gives rise to the next
•  …waste, by-products and recycling of one, become materials for the next
•  …emulating nature’s cycles
Re-conceiving…footprints
•  Positive footprints
•  …the insight of Michael Braungart
•  www.braungart.com
•  If we change our technology so our
resource use benefits the ecosystem
•  Then the more we consume…
…the richer the environment
•  Waste = food
McDonough
& Braungart
•  Founders of Cradle to
Cradle systems
Re-conceiving…biomimicry
•  Imitating nature
•  …the technology discipline
pioneered by Janine Benyus
•  www.biomimicry.net
•  Fans, propellers like nautilus shells
•  Wire ropes as strong as spider webs…
•  …made in cold biochemical processes
•  Four positive footprints:
•  Fabric of Airbus aircraft seats becomes compost for growing food
•  Formway’s bio-plastic chair
•  Carbon positive farming
•  Ants vs. Humans
•  Positive role in ecosystem vs.negative…how do we make it positive?
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Revolution
Leader of the revolution
•  Radical new technologies are
inverting old dynamics…e.g.
•  Additive manufacturing
overturns mass production
•  New materials overturn
commodity constraints
•  Iterative design overturns
linear product development
•  The Centre for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
•  Led by Prof. Neil Gershenfeld, www.cba.mit.edu
…when information meets atoms
More corporate diversity
•  Prof Neil Gershenfeld, MIT…TED talk http://bit.ly/MI7Eur
•  The first Fab Lab…machines making machines
•  Science & technology road map to micron-Lego assembly…
…dis-assembly of products
•  Competing corporate vehicles
•  1/3 of US tax-reporting businesses are
now partnerships
•  Limited Liability Partnerships
•  Publicly Traded Partnerships
•  Real Estate Investment Trusts
•  State owned enterprises
•  E.g. 13 largest oil companies
•  Family-controlled companies
•  E.g. ½ of Asia-Pacific listed ones
•  Private equity vehicles
•  French SCA’s with general and limited
partners
•  Public-private hybrids
•  US: ‘B Corporations’ subordinating profits
to social benefits
•  UK: Community Interest Companies
•  From The Economist, May 19, 2012
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Voluntary action
•  Business commitments
to UN Global Compact:
•  http://
www.uncsd2012.org/
voluntarycommitments.
html
Business action
•  Business Action for
Sustainable
Development
•  http://
basd2012.org/
Business action
•  World Business Council for Sustainable Development…member commitments
•  http://www.wbcsd.org/rio-20/membercommitments.aspx
Natural Capital
•  Many global corporates committed to it at the UN’s 2012 sustainability summit in Rio
•  www.naturalcapitalproject.org
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B Corporations
•  B = Benefit
•  A form of incorporation that
allows a company to subordinate
profit to other definable benefits
•  …e.g. social and community
•  …with profit
•  …not a not-for-profit, or NGO
•  Biggest converts so far:
•  Ben & Jerry’s ice cream
•  Patagonia sports clothes
•  Ben & Jerry notable…owned by
a major multinational – Unilever
•  …Unilever a sustainability leader
B Corps
•  Began in US in mid-2000s
•  Spreading to South America
•  …next Europe
•  Main certifier B-Lab of US
•  … http://benefitcorp.net/
•  Maryland first state legislation
in 2010…B Corps:
•  “…shall create general public
benefit
•  “…shall have right to name
specific public benefit
purposes (e.g. 50% profits to
charity, carbon neutral, 100%
local sourcing, beneficial
product to customers in
poverty)”
•  Must measure, report benefits
B Corps
•  So far…
• 
• 
• 
• 
643 B Corporations
US$4.2bn in revenues
60 industries
15 countries
2nd US
version
•  L3Cs…
•  Low-profit
Limited
Liability
companies
•  Fist state
legislation
Vermont in 2008
•  http://
www.americansf
orcommunitydev
elopment.org
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…UK version
Support
•  Community
Interest
Companies
•  Large
community
developing
•  Likewise, a new form of
legal entity for companies
•  http://
www.cicassoci
ation.org.uk
•  Law passed in 2005
•  http://www.bis.gov.uk/
cicregulator/
Innovation
•  …e.g. in new forms
of finance for them
•  …such as bond
issues
Case
studies
•  Large body of
experience
developing
•  http://
www.bis.gov.
uk/
cicregulator/
case-studies
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Agenda
•  World
•  Civil Society
•  Revolution
•  New Zealand
Slowth
•  We’re still recovering slowly …
…helped by rebuild of
Christchurch
•  Growth in year to March 2012
was 1.7%...
..could peak at 3% next year
•  But will then sink back to its
long-run slow growth average
of around 2%
•  Why can’t we grow faster,
longer by earning
a bigger living in the
world economy?
Wall
•  We’re very efficient at producing low value goods and services
•  But…we’ve hit the wall, economically, socially and environmentally
The NZ version
•  …by a group of young leaders…
•  …under the NZ Business
Council for Sustainable
Development…
•  …which morphed into the
•  Sustainable Business Council
•  Download at:
•  http://bit.ly/PxiG1B
•  NZ site coming soon at:
•  http://www.vision2050nz.co.nz
•  Vision 2050 Global report at:
•  ‪http://bit.ly/Ox0HsK
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LanzaTech…clean tech leader
•  Signed commercialisation agreements at the
Expo with:
•  Chinese Academy of Sciences
•  Baosteel; next pilot plant in China
•  Makes biofuel from industrial waste gases
•  Turns greenhouse gas liability into profit
•  World pioneer of the science
•  Auckland-based; NZ Steel pilot plant
•  Big venture capital backing
•  More than US$100m so far
•  NZ: Stephen Tindall
•  US: Vinod Khosla
•  China, Taiwan and Malaysia
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Zespri
YikeBike: radical reinvention
•  Grant Ryan’s radical re-think of the bike
•  All-electric; no pedals; 10kg; 20 km/h; 10 km range;
ABS brakes; regenerative braking; 45-minute recharge
•  Folds in 15 seconds; Guinness Book of Records
China produced
22m electric bikes
in 2010
• 
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Established brand
Built marketing
Innovated – gold
Innovated – orchards
Innovated – intellectual property
Clever, 12-month supply chain
40% - 100% premium in EU
1/3 world supply…
…but captures 2/3 of value
…and lots more science yet
From exporter to global leader…
…decommoditising a commodity
Zespri
•  April 2009: Published its carbon life cycle analysis:
•  Orchard operations make up 17% of total emissions for EU exports
•  Packhouse & coolstore processes account for 11% of total emissions
•  Shipping accounts for 41% of total emissions
•  Repacking and retailer emissions amount to 9% of total emissions
•  Consumer consumption & disposal comprises 22% of total emissions
• 
• 
Bottom line: resource efficiency builds a more profitable, resilient business
E.G. Kite-assisted ships save 22% of their fuel bills on average
Urban New Zealand
•  As a nation, we largely define ourselves by our rural and wild parts
•  …and we believe rural business underpins the national economy
•  Yet, we’re one of the most urbanised populations in the world
•  …87% of us live in towns and cities
•  …most people earn livings far removed from the rural economy
•  Our urban places are in trouble….
•  …their built environments are increasingly unsustainable
•  …their economies anemic, inward looking
•  Christchurch pre-earthquake had a lot of marginal businesses, buildings
•  Auckland mainly serves only its own population
•  Wellington’s tourism & events strategy earns little; public sector shrinking
•  Dunedin is slipping away
•  …and every smaller town has its own story to tell, positives & negatives
•  Challenge:
•  Reinvent, reinvigorate our urban communities and economies
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Hope
•  Big expression of
public ideas and
interest…
•  …much of it is
incorporated in the
recovery plan
Yes…
…but
•  Distinctive?
•  No
•  Radical?
•  No
•  Zero energy?
•  No
•  Growth?
•  No
•  Sustainable?
•  No
•  21st Century city?
•  No
…how about creating global centres of excellence in:
- dairy nutrigenomics
-aearthquake prediction, rescue & recovery
st
- 21
•  a century city systems
Wellington 2040
•  www.wellington2040.co.nz; Submissions close August 15
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Cities
Corporate New Zealand
vs.
Government
•  What our cities want
•  What we will get
•  Compact form
•  Urban sprawl
•  Public transport
•  Roads
•  Quality urban design
•  Urban guidelines
•  Wide choices in housing
•  Narrow choice in housing
•  Power to decide, act
•  Strong central control
•  Enough investment
•  Limited investment
•  New economy
•  Old economy
•  Sustainability
•  Economy-Environment “balance”
•  Local democracy
•  Central intervention
Sustainable Business Network
•  Ugly:
•  1980s stock market corporate raiders
•  1990s multinationals’ ineptitude
•  2000s finance company deception and theft
•  Bad:
•  Unsustainable use of resources
•  Lack of awareness and ambition
•  Shirking of strategic responses
•  Good:
•  Exploitation is relatively low by international standards
•  Vanguard companies are emerging…new models, typically small, engaged
•  Old models (e.g. co-ops, Maori incorporations) might adapt
•  Slow, hard work:
•  Corporate social responsibility and related disciplines
•  Unique New Zealand responses…to offer the world
•  International connectivity
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Voluntary action e.g. Hikurangi Foundation
•  “NZ’s incubator for low carbon social innovation” e.g. community wind farms
•  …& Rod’s Rio blog www.hikurangi.org.nz/2012/06/19/rod-orams-blog-from-rio-20/
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Our future
•  NZ Land: 270,000 sq km
•  Australia’s 28x NZ
•  NZ Oceans: 5.8m sq km
•  5th largest in the world
•  Australia’s 1.4x NZ’s
•  Huge responsibility:
•  …to nurture
•  …to use responsibly
•  …to sustain us
•  …we get $184bn of ecosystem
services for free
Theology
•  Our understanding of God
•  Gift: God’s radical abundance
•  Relationship: God -> his creation -> us
•  Redemption: Being made whole
“We are consumers of what God has made.
We are are in communion with it.”
•  Archbishop Rowan Williams
•  We need new values, systems, learning,
collaboration:
•  …to be sustainable
•  …to offer hope to the world
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Faith
Community
•  Our response to God
•  How we act on our understanding of God
•  Belief:
•  Relate: to each another
•  Empowerment:
•  Discuss: with each other
•  Enlightenment:
•  Understand: each other
“Science without religion is lame,
religion without science is blind”
•  Albert Einstein
•  Support: each other
•  Act: together
Opportunity
Sparks in the stubble
•  We are good at this
Let the pain of the world seize us by the throat.
Listen for Jesus calling us all out of
our tombs of despair and apathy.
May the shock of baptismal dying once more set us afire.
This place we call home is meant to be
a new heaven, a new earth, a holy city, a new Jerusalem.
It is the sparks in the stubble that will make it so.
•  Bringing people together
•  Multiple, inter-linked global crises
•  Paradoxically, the best response is local…multiplied across the world
Challenge
•  What we need to do
•  Apply timeless faith (understanding)
•  …to contemporary responses (action)
•  For example…on economic activity
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church
All Saints Sunday,
November 5th, 2006
Washington National Cathedral
25
“Landfall in Unknown Seas”
“Landfall in Unknown Seas”
But now there are no more islands to be found
And the eye scans risky horizons of its own
But now there are no more islands to be found
And the eye scans risky horizons of its own
In unsettled weather…
Who navigates us towards what unknown
But not improbable provinces? Who reaches
In unsettled weather…
Who navigates us towards what unknown
But not improbable provinces? Who reaches
A future down from the high shelf
Of spiritual daring?
A future down from the high shelf
Of spiritual daring?
Allen Curnow: Landfall in Unknown Seas
Allen Curnow: Landfall in Unknown Seas
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