Sunny Banana
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@sanibonani-y2g?si=09LymOLYjP7sE3cY
I am a school chaplain and the content is intended to encourage curiosity about Faith and it's impact on day to day life
The Sunny Banana, is a play upon the Zulu greeting, Sanibonani, meaning I see you.
As tech wrenches us from real life, we are not seeing each other. The Greek word 'idea' means to see. It is as if we have lost the idea of what it means to be human; social, communal, relational. The same word, to see, in Old English is 'seon' which has connotations of understanding.
Let's start seeing each other again, listening, respecting, and understanding each other and ourselves. After all, we are people through other people.
Sunny Banana
Peter Owen Jones | Disconnection from nature is our greatest mistake
Peter Owen-Jones invites us to rediscover our profound connection to the natural world in this thought-provoking conversation about spirituality, silence, and our place in the cosmic order. The vicar, author, and documentary filmmaker challenges conventional thinking about human separation from nature, offering a revolutionary perspective: we are not isolated beings but collections of organisms intimately connected with all life on Earth.
"I have to take care of the planet because for me it is a relationship of love," Owen-Jones explains, calling us to see Earth as a garden requiring our tender attention. His perspective emerges not from environmental obligation but from deep reverence for the miraculous nature of existence.
In our hyper-connected digital age, Owen-Jones advocates for the transformative power of silence – just five minutes each day to ground ourselves in reality rather than virtual experience. This practice of stillness becomes increasingly countercultural yet essential for developing wisdom and perspective.
The conversation takes us to the Egyptian desert where Owen-Jones once lived as a hermit for 21 days, confronting his core fears and discovering the value of stepping outside conventional existence. Through this experience and his encounters with diverse faith traditions while filming "Around the World in 80 Faiths," he developed an expansive view of human connection that transcends national boundaries and cultural differences.
"I don't believe anyone is foreign," he states simply, offering a vision of human interaction based on our common humanity rather than our differences. This perspective has profound implications for how we relate to refugees, political opponents, and those of different faiths.
Take five minutes today to sit in silence, turn away from your screens, and reconnect with the miracle of being alive on this extraordinary planet.
Please give a round of applause to our wonderful guests. Welcome everybody. What a pleasure it is to have you guys here and obviously, peter Owen-Jones, our guest today. Now Peter Owen-Jones can say more about, perhaps, who he is, but he's a vicar of Phil Church, which is just up the drag. He has participated in some really really interesting documentaries, some of them namely the Extreme Pilgrim Around the World in 80 faiths. He's a published author and a TV personality, but he's also a vicar. We'll get into this as we go.
Speaker 2:So it's wonderful to have you with us.
Speaker 1:Just from the car picking up Peter and walking here. We spoke about a garden, we spoke about a butterfly, we spoke about pain. It was, it was two minutes and it felt like a lifetime of lessons. When I met Peter, it was at a charity event in Lewis for Anthem House, a refugee charity and I asked Peter this question and I want you to elaborate on it for us today. I asked you, with religion and spirituality, what is the way in? And I hope you don't mind. Your answer was the environment, the environment. I said what are you doing at Phil Church? And he said the environment. He went environment. Now, in one of your recent books, in the Mountains Green, you talk about the rhythms of nature and you also talk about the importance of quietness. So today could you elaborate on this idea of of the rhythms of nature?
Speaker 3:Where are we? Where are we Right now? In a classroom, whereabouts, in a school, in a village called Upper Dicker, in a county called Sussex, in a country if there are such things called England? I'm not sure I believe in countries anymore On a planet, in a little solar system, in a galaxy, in a universe, and that's where we are, where you place yourself within those stratas, those realities is actually very important. Those realities is actually very important.
Speaker 3:So I kind of place myself for the time being on a planet and for the time being I happen to be one of the apex species on the planet and I can build things with my hands and I can think things with my head and I can feel things with my heart. But I'm still on a planet for my life, for my breath, for my being, for all that the planet gives me right now food, water, love, friendship, pain, suffering. And so it's not that I owe a debt. You know, a lot of environmentalists will say we have to take care of the planet because it sustains us. I have to take care of the planet because for me it is a relationship of love. For me it is a relationship of love when I experience the sunset, when I experience the morning, when I experience birdsong, when I experience you, when I experience being, I experience love. But you can decide. It's up to each one of you how you're going to relate, where you're going to place your being and how you're going to be here.
Speaker 3:Hmm, I grew up in a time when there was no internet. I couldn't FaceTime anyone, I couldn't send a message on a mobile phone. There was no such thing. You guys, you have an enormous world at the touch of a button and that is extraordinary, it's an amazing privilege. But within that, I would challenge each one of you to take up periods of quiet, because your lives, because you're connected now to everything everywhere all at once, the solace and the teaching of silence is very, very important, just to ground you in, just so that you're not constantly turning over at 90 miles an hour, that you have space to reflect on where you are and who you are and why you are. Five minutes every morning, five minutes before you go to bed, you turn off the phone. You don't get up and turn the phone on, or the laptop. You just sit and breathe and land. Can you do that? Is that possible? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's beautiful as the bird song in the background. Yeah, as you're speaking there. When I picked you up, Peter, you said, because you know, at the Porter's Lodge you look out and you see Long man and mountains and Peter goes. Just come down from the mountain and you speak about relationship there. Do you think in your practice of quietness? And you said, you went up to the mountain to pray? I do so. Your prayer life must involve silence. Yes, so could you talk a little bit about how you've come to believe and know and feel that?
Speaker 1:you are connected, because you spoke about connection there and relationship is quite powerful. Image how do we relate, you know, to this, to to nature and, as your practice of silence brought you to that understanding, speak into that we are.
Speaker 3:We're called human beings and um, I'm someone that believes in evolution. So it's taken billions of years for us to arrive here on this planet. But what is a human being? Are we a single entity or are we? Are we utterly connected to everything around us? On my elbow, there are seven bacteria that live on my elbow and your elbow. I could not bend my elbow continually. I couldn't use my arm without them being there. They stop the skin from cracking every time I bend my arm. Within my being, there are myriad cities and worlds and within your being, of bacteria helping to digest your food Within your bloodstream.
Speaker 3:Again, we are not this singular thing called a human being. We are a collection of beings, and when I understood that, I began to see that I was deeply connected to everything else that is also a collection of beings just like me, and I am NOT separate. I am a city of a myriad, millions of different beings that enable me to speak, to sing, to drink, to breathe, and that is what helped me to understand that, whether I like it or not, I am deeply connected to every other life form on this planet, and my only question would be if that is real, if what I have said is true, then how are we, to be human within this brief span of life, tremendously, are going to have to deal with and encounter the mistakes, the greatest mistake of all, that previous generations have made, and that is to believe that they are separate, to believe that human being is completely separated from every other life form on the planet.
Speaker 1:You don't need me to tell you what the results of that thinking have been.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:That's okay Brilliant. I was thinking of a Native American saying they say that the worst thing that ever happened was the rubber sole of a shoe. Yeah, the rubber sole of a shoe. It disconnected us, literally disconnected us from the earth. Moving on the conversation Hippie, vicar, maverick, extreme pilgrim Just quite straight to the point, how do you feel about those labels and do you feel a pressure to live into those? Or will you just tell us how you feel about those labels?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm pretty thrilled with those labels they really used to get to me and I thought, how could they? But I realized that if I'm being called a hippie vicar or if I'm being called a maverick, then I've really got to them, I've really got to them, i've've upset them, I've threatened them, then the establishment, whoever is normal. So yeah, keep it up. I'm a hippie vicar. Yeah, I'm a maverick. Yes, I am, and I will not stop and I will keep speaking, however unpopular it makes me, will keep speaking. However, unpopular.
Speaker 1:It makes me Because there might be a question later and we do it in philosophy about evolution, the Big Bang and religious belief. It's quite interesting knowing that you're a Christian vicar and you spoke about evolution, because there might be some contrast there. But maybe you can hear about that later for question time. So what we're saying with this theme is obviously this golden thread running through nature when we're walking up. You know those wonderful fences that they've put up on the new boulevard and Peter said what a beautiful fence. That's called a Sussex fence. He said to me so in a recent interview you mentioned that we're in a garden. Yeah, and the question also that Peter asked me was how many gardeners are you? We're just walking, how many gardeners do you have? So it's quite telling, because it's one of the questions that I've prepared for us. Is this garden, and it's a fascinating image that we're in a garden. So why a garden? And and why does that image matter to you?
Speaker 3:Have you seen pictures of Mars, the surface of Mars? We're the first generation to see a picture of Pluto. No other generations have ever seen a picture of that planet. Have you seen a picture of the surface of the moon? Yeah, I mean extraordinary. You come here to this planet. This is life. You know, this is a living blue planet, a living blue and green planet, and we're on it and it is. They call it the Garden of Eden. Is that just a small little place, an oasis in Iraq or Iran, or is it?
Speaker 3:here, Is it all of it? Is it the tundra? Is it the desert? Is it the tundra? Is it the desert? Is it the mountains of Canada? Is it the great dividing range of Australia? Is it the coral reefs of Australia? It's a garden, this planet. Are we to tend it and care for it? This great privilege of being here, alive with breath, in this garden, it's beautiful. Have you ever looked into a flower? You know I'm a hippie vicar. People expect me to do that. Have you ever just held a buttercup? You tremendously what you see, the miracle of what. Can I ask one?
Speaker 2:more thing about the garden. The reason I find that word garden really interesting is because there's a merger of something that's curated, on the one hand, human kind, controlling, shaping, trimming the pinches, whatever. But I think your definition of garden is also as a wild place without any of that control. So I'm just looking at where, wondering how do you see the relationship between those two? There's famous poems about the gardener and the gardener's negative things.
Speaker 3:He's manicuring and brewing and bleaching nature.
Speaker 2:yet you also mentioned that we have some I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on that where that tension is with the world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, when I was travelling the world, I saw some mean. When I was traveling the world, I saw some beautiful gardens, the gardens in Japan, you know. It's like every leaf is being polished and the way they grow vegetables with incredible tenderness and care. Yes, I see the planet as a garden, I see the wild places as a garden, but I see human responsibility as to tend this incredible life world. And you know, we're not the only species that creates Ants, create Birds, make nests, but you know, we've created this building. We create churches, temples, mosques, prisons. How are we to create? So I walk past the beautiful Sussex Fence and it is created beautifully. And that is all I would ask for that, if we're going to build a house, let's build something that is sustainable and lasts and is made to be beautiful, that is designed with light and love.
Speaker 1:That's all I ask for perhaps that's the relationship that we have with nature is when we work with it, we can make some beautiful things if we co-laborate not to misuse or manipulate, but to co-create.
Speaker 1:Yeah, co-create, that's the word I'm looking for. When you were speaking about staring at a daisy or a poppy, which one was it? A buttercup, A buttercup, A buttercup. It changes you, your friend Dr Martin Shaw. He said something about go outside with no shoes on. Something happens in the silence, and do it. Try it. One question though, again, carrying on about this theme of the garden and this beautiful thing you call a miracle. What's stopping people from seeing it? And then also, on the other side of that question, how do we start seeing it as a miracle?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. That's a great question. I think what's stopping humanity at the moment from observing the miracle is vulnerability, is strength, is this idea that we are the strongest of the species and therefore we can therefore do as we please. And if you have that mindset, then you are essentially taking without consequence, which means you're not really connected to where you are and what's happening. Again, I would say I mean, you know, in the 60s I was barely alive, but I do remember there was this emblem of the flower as being something profound that we pass by all the time. How much in a day do I just pass by, I don't even notice. It is about becoming aware of where you are um, how you're being um, and churches and religious faith attempt to you know. When christ speaks about the blind, see the deaf here, he's not necessarily talking about I have given someone sight, or I have given someone hearing. He is saying at it Should we let the cat in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say.
Speaker 3:Come on, puss Let the cats.
Speaker 1:come unto us, come unto me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what Christ is saying is look, look where you are, open your eyes, open your ears, see, see where you are. Expand your consciousness If you're gonna live your life just chasing, chasing cash. Yeah, looking for kicks all the time you know, that's part of it. There's a much bigger story going on. Puss must be heard. There we go, sorry, we all got distracted.
Speaker 1:What an incredible thing just come in have nature and creation.
Speaker 3:Disturbing us all. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to go back to silence, if we can, in the extreme pilgrim, just to catch you guys up. Peter went to the Egyptian desert, to a monastery in Sinai, and he met with this ascetic Orthodox monk called Father Lazarus, 100,000 feet up in the mountains. And Father Lazarus let Peter stay in his cave for 21 days. What did you make of Father Lazarus? Let Peter stay in his cave for 21 days? What did you make of Father Lazarus?
Speaker 3:Tell us a little bit about it, Father Lazarus. He had been a teacher in Sydney in Australia and he lost his mother. His mother died and he unraveled when that happened. He didn't have a wife and he was very, very close to his mother. So when he lost his mother, his whole life just unraveled. And he went into a church, you know, at a very, very low ebb, and he saw a statue this is him telling me. He saw a statue of the Virgin Mary and the Virgin Mary spoke to him and said I will be your mother. You can believe that or you can disbelieve it, that's up to you. I believe it because it utterly changed his life. And then he was told again that he had to go to this monastery in Sinai and to spend the rest of his life in prayer, opening his mind, opening his heart, opening his being to the consciousness of love. Would you like that to happen to you? Yeah, that's really going to mess things up, all those plans, yeah, Anyway. So that's what he did.
Speaker 3:And then I met him, this man up halfway up a mountain in the middle of a desert, living on his own with beaming bright eyes, drinking cup of coffee after cup of coffee. He was amazing that a human being could have that life, just that a human being could live a have that life, Just just that a human being could live a life like that was extraordinary. I found that extraordinary. Yeah, you know when someone says to you what do you want to do when you leave beats so I want to be a vet, I want to go into banking, I want to be a professional football player. Who's gonna say, I know, I want to be a vet, I want to go into banking, I want to be a professional football player. Who's going to say, I know, I want to be a hermit in the desert, yeah, anyone going to go for that. Maybe that's living, yeah, yeah, maybe that's really living Right out there on the edge Nothing, you, god, demons and love and sky and heat. Maybe that's it. Maybe he's got it right.
Speaker 1:A lot of criticism of monks and people like that would be like so what good is that? Then, you know great, he's got a lovely, he sounds like he's got full of life, but he's retreated from now. Don't get me wrong. I love monks and I believe in what they do. I think they're very special, but they've retreated from the world. What do they give the world then?
Speaker 3:They give the world a different perspective on what it is to be a human being. They give the world the perspective of life without a mobile, without a laptop, without any of these connections, without the very serious endeavor of raising a family. So they're able to give a very different perspective. There's a very unfashionable word at the moment. It's called wisdom. What is wisdom? Who has the right to offer wisdom? Yes, of course there is teaching, but where is wisdom? I would put it to you that wisdom has probably been one of the greatest losses that we have endured over the last 200 years. So the monk or the nun or the fool on the hill, the outsider who has chosen to sit outside of everyday existence, has the right to tell us what they see of us, how they see what we're doing, and we need that, we need that other perspective desperately, especially now. That is meant to be the job of the church to be the job of the church.
Speaker 1:It's meant to be the job of the priest, the imam and I. This other perspective, yeah, I guess it's that these people that retreat, not only the Christian monks, but they take a step back. It's like we're so close to the television and we're just in it and we can't see the moving parts. But the more you take a step back in, another one and maybe another one, yeah, then you can see, yeah, what's going on. Yeah, what was the most telling thing? You learnt lesson in the desert, the cave in the desert.
Speaker 3:In my time in the desert, in the cave, I learned how much time I had been spending navigating fear, that deep within me there was this core of fear. I was afraid of the impression I was giving, I was afraid of how I looked, I was afraid I wasn't tall enough, I was afraid I wasn't good enough. There was this, this well of fear, and in the absence of everyday life, it welled up and I had to face it. I had to face it. I had to face my view of myself and how that had been generated in part by fear, fear of failing, fear of appearing foolish and therefore I had to deal with it. Deal with what I was frightened of and why I was frightened of it. Have you ever done that? Dealt with what you were frightened of and why?
Speaker 3:you were frightened of it. Really done it.
Speaker 1:We spoke about this previously in another interview I've done with you about prayer being that time where you sit with all of that Absolutely, and it's that radical acceptance of what is, yeah, yourself, your identity. Yes, thank you, I think. Maybe a last question from me and then we'll hand over to you guys to ask questions. But last question from me I find it very fascinating that you're able to find so much connection with people and people. Looking around the world in 80 faiths You've gone out to make these connections with people that are so different to you. How do you do that? How do you find common ground with people that are A very different to you and also believe very different things to you?
Speaker 3:I don't believe anyone is a foreigner. I just don't believe that anyone is foreign. I believe everyone is human and therefore, any idea that I was dealing with anyone who was different to me. Very soon that got completely washed away, because the only place you can meet that, the only what exists within the common ground let's call it common ground. So I travel to Iran and I'm told it's going to be very difficult. Or I go to the West Bank, in Jerusalem, in Israel, and I'm told it's going to be very difficult and people are going to really object to your presence and everyone that you meet is going to be highly suspicious of you. And in part that's true. But the only way you can meet them is with love and not regarding them as a foreigner. And these boats coming across the English Channel, sailing across the Mediterranean, really are they foreigners or are they human beings?
Speaker 3:How you meet someone is very important. Do you meet them as someone who's profoundly different to you or do you meet them as someone who is the same, who needs kindness, love. Even Donald Trump, even Vladimir Putin, they're no different to you. They're no different to me. Putin, they're no different to you. They're no different to me, they just happen to be in a role that means they have to make decisions that we necessarily are not party to. But are they different to us? Sakhir Starmer is he different? Is the headmaster different? Is the gardener different? No, no, open your arms, greet them.
Speaker 1:They're no different to you and I they're no different to you and I Thank you, thank you, so I open to you. Anyone have a few moments for a few questions from the audience Nathiel.
Speaker 2:When you went to the cave with the monk, because you said he was trying to appreciate life did he hunt food or not? And if so, did he eat meat Because? Would that be disrespecting life?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. Yeah, he didn't hunt because there was nothing to eat. The only animals in the desert were wild dogs and they had belonged to some Bedouin who were a nomadic tribe who used to live within that area of the desert, but they had since gone into the local town and settled, so he couldn't hunt. He had a food drop every month and there would be rice and other things, some fruit in there. I'm not sure whether he ate meat actually. I'm not sure whether he ate meat actually. I'm not sure whether he did. Do you eat meat? Yeah, okay, yes, he was essentially supplied by the monastery. They would just leave a sack for him and he would walk down the mountain and pick it up, and that's how he sustained himself and he drank a lot of coffee.
Speaker 1:Well, he was a teacher, so that didn't change for him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was a teacher?
Speaker 1:yeah, the coffee that goes around yeah, it's incredible. So I think just also that question yeah, he was teaching. Yeah, the coffee that goes around yeah, it's incredible. So I think just also that question. I think strict monks actually don't have. They're not vegan, but they don't eat a lot of meat in any way. They might eat fish. I know in Orthodox monasteries and stuff. They are pescatarians most of the time, except for Easter or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Brilliant. I mean, how many vegetarians are there in the room? Hands up. If you're a vegetarian, I salute you. Yeah, I struggle with it because I'm a hunter, so I'm a kind of hunting guy. Not that I would get on a horse and chase a fox I'm not sure that's a good idea for human beings or the fox. But yeah, now I fish and eat the fish that I catch.
Speaker 2:Brilliant, yes, how has your faith and philosophy developed or evolved over time?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. I think, you know, I went to a special school in Cambridge where I trained to be a priest and every person there had had what's called a calling, and so that kind of bonded us and I think I expected, as time went on, that kind of stardust to kind of evaporate, that kind of sense of wonder to kind of leave me. But I have to say for me to kind of leave me, but I have to say for me it's increased in its velocity and in its volume. I am more amazed each day by being alive and by what I experience and the gift of love and the gift of suffering. So for me, I've been very fortunate. My faith has grown exponentially, day by day, and that's what's happened to me. But I think, you know, I visit, I'm a parish priest, so I have to visit a lot of people.
Speaker 3:We can get old. We can age in two ways. We can either old, we can age in two ways. We can either open as we age or we can close as we age. All I would say to you is, as you get older, open, open, puss, open, open, puss, yeah. But be conscious of that, yeah, be conscious of opening your heart, opening your soul. Be conscious of opening your being to loving more and more deeply. I hope that helps. It wasn't too woolly, yeah, yeah, I mean for me.
Speaker 3:I'm a Christian, so my teacher on my path is Christ. I'm a Christian, so I will look at what he's saying about what it is to be human and where we are. But I also appreciate the great teachings of other religions. I have a lot to learn from them. They're asking me the same questions. They're answering the same questions. They're just coming up with slightly different answers, and so I'm not closed to. I'm not going to say there is one path. I'm going to say that's the path that I'm on, that's the path that I've chosen. But I want to sit down with my brothers who are Muslim, my sisters who are Buddhist, who are J, who are Jain, who are Sikh. I've got so much to learn from them, so much to learn. That's probably how it's evolved. I think I'm not as set as I was.
Speaker 1:So you've started quite narrow there and then you've expanded, as you say, the expansion of love.
Speaker 3:I think so as I've got older. Yeah, yeah, I'm more open. Yeah, yes, I've been traveling a lot.
Speaker 2:How have you been able to stay grounded, I guess, and not feel lost moving?
Speaker 3:around and seeing so much, I guess. Yeah, okay, I'm not grounded. No, I mean, to a certain extent I'm grounded. Yeah, I've just sent someone a text who's visiting Santiago in Chile, and I would say that as I've got older, as we began this conversation, I accept that I'm living on a planet, in a galaxy. I don't really believe in the notion of countries anymore. I'm not going to ground myself in some national identity anymore because I think that is a cause for conflict and suffering. So I've grounded myself as a human being for the time being on this planet and that's fantastic because I'm free from all this nationality stuff and ownership stuff and country stuff. I'm not invested in that at all anymore. Um, and when I walk past a war memorial now I just weep. Frankly, does that make any sense whatsoever?
Speaker 1:yeah, thank you, maybe except when England play Scotland in the rugby.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well then, yeah, I slip back into my old ways. Yeah, I do. Yes, yes, I heard that everything is made from many things. Yes, you and I yes.
Speaker 2:Do you think there's something that's?
Speaker 3:made up of only one thing. I'm sorry, could you ask the question again? I'll take my hat off for my ears.
Speaker 2:Is there anything that's made up of only one being One?
Speaker 3:being. Is there any being? That is just that one being? I don't know. I'm looking out of the window trees, then. Trees are definitely not one being. Is an ant one being? And birds are definitely not one being. Does that bring? Then we look at the whole nation of God as being one being. What if God was the perfect combination of all being? I've never thought about that before, about that before. I cannot think of anything that is purely one biological being. Maybe at the basics, at the basis of form. Maybe an amoeba, maybe the simplest of bacteria is a singular cellular being, maybe one being. But I am not a scientist. But it's a great question what do you think?
Speaker 2:I thought it was something like gold or something like something that God wants to see, Like you know, actually, it can be like this Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Leon.
Speaker 3:I'm just going to read you one thing to finish.
Speaker 2:Have you got enough light? Have I to finish? Have you got enough light?
Speaker 3:have I got yes, yes once we were dust, a single cell here, illuminated in the void. We traveled through many falls, through unknowing, through becoming many deaths, many births, learning to feel, to respond. We traveled through water and out onto the land. We took our first breath, as we all still do.
Speaker 1:It has taken billions of years for each one of us to reach here, to reach this splendor. Well, on that note, I want to thank you so much and can we just give a nice warm round of applause for him? It was such a pleasure to speak to you again. It always is.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Jared. It seems to get better every time. Thank you so much, thank you, and thank you, mr Curtis, for this wonderful hosting us. Thank you, mr Curtis, and obviously our audience. Thank you so much, curtis, thank you and obviously our audience.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, everybody, for coming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for coming. Don't run away. There's still a lot of cookies to get through and I think we have. Officially, yeah.
Speaker 3:There we go. Thank you all. What year are you guys in Year 9. I still can't get a hold of year 9. How old are you? 14.