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#yiv6294425785templateHeader .yiv6294425785mcnTextContent p{font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6294425785 #yiv6294425785templateBody .yiv6294425785mcnTextContent, #yiv6294425785 #yiv6294425785templateBody .yiv6294425785mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv6294425785 #yiv6294425785templateFooter .yiv6294425785mcnTextContent, #yiv6294425785 #yiv6294425785templateFooter .yiv6294425785mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Covid-19 and Climate Change: Why Are We Here and Where are we Headed? | | | | | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox June 4, 2020One of the “ultimate questions” humans like to pose is this: Why are we here? This might seem to be a particularly appropriate question to ask in a time of the coronavirus plague when so much is becoming uprooted, when so many are afraid and suffering and dying. Through the months and weeks we have been sheltering indoors and away from our normal routines—on retreat some might say—such questions are very much in the air. Surely death and the threat of death bring us around to asking the most basic of questions such as: Why are we here? There are many and varied answers throughout history: We are here to survive; we are here to be happy; we are here to make money; we are here to make friends; we are here to raise a family; we are here to do well in our profession; we are here to shine and be honored; we are here to serve; we are here to save the planet; we are here to… (fill in the blanks)... Thomas Berry proposes that we are here to… celebrate. Says he: “In the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration. It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself.”[1] In this regard he is echoing his namesake, Thomas Aquinas who says “joy is the human’s noblest act.” We are here to educe our nobility, to tap into and release our joy; to bring joy out of one another. Aquinas declares that the primary origin and end of the universe is Joy when he declares that “Sheer Joy is God’s and this demands companionship.” Joy then becomes a final (and first) cause. In turn he is laying the groundwork for the teachings of Julian of Norwich who lived her entire life during a plague that returned in waves time and again throughout her lifetime. It was Julian who taught that “God is goodness” and “God is everything which is good… and the goodness which everything has is God.” Amazingly, Julian clung fiercely to the goodness of God and nature in spite of the pandemic that swirled all around her and killed one out of three people in Europe before it subsided. Seeing the world as good, she encouraged all to develop their capacity for joy. Aquinas had written about “original goodness” and Hildegard of Bingen about “original wisdom” and Julian wrote about original love when she declares that “God never began to love us” for “we have been loved from before the beginning.” My word for the same concepts is Original Blessing. All this is spiritual grounding for a time of pandemic. Julian resisted the patriarchal cynicism and pessimism and religious fanaticism that rose up because of the plague (fueled by scientific ignorance about its origins). As such, she becomes a kind of patron saint for surviving a plague. The key principle being: Don’t forget the Via Positiva, the taste of goodness. Do things exist not only to strive to exist and to live but also to celebrate? When I hear the birds in the morning singing furiously I presume that is what is going on. When the plague does eventually die down, it may be a fitting time to raise questions that matter. So much has been exposed in this time of covid emergency—the huge disproportion between the affluent and the poor, between black and white, between blue collar workers (whose jobs are often more necessary than white collar workers), between large cities and rural areas: Lots to learn from these realities. We can also take another look at how little we have paid attention to viruses that can put a stop to our lives as well as our economies. Questions about what/whom the great “defense departments” of the world are defining as our enemies. What are they defending us from? It would seem that viruses are more of a threat to us than other nations since a virus managed, in a matter of a few months, to bring our economies to a stand still and to spread death and severe sickness and the fear of death. Maybe it is time to withdraw a lot of the $56,000 per second our species is spending on weapons and militarism and invest that money in survival instead. To defend the planet against ourselves. To face climate change without denial. What a wonderful new direction the priority of Joy would bring to discussions about economics that ought to be in full swing as we move on from this plague; and to directions we want education to take; and politics.. Why are we here, anyway? And it helps to know where here is. This is where cosmology comes in, as the late and great spiritual master Howard Thurman observed: “It is natural that man should concern himself with beginnings. This is a part of the curiosity of the mind. Without it there would be no exploration of the world and there would be no growth… This is an inherent characteristic of mind; it is not unique to any age of man, culture, or society. Contemplation concerning origins is a part of the curiosity of the race.”[2] (203)I propose we are here to praise. Praise is the noise that joy makes. Praise flows from a grateful heart—even when times are tough the heart can keep praising or ought to. As Wendell Berry put it, “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts... Practice resurrection.” How different this is from patriarchal cynicism, from a death wish of patriarchy so powerfully captured by Adrienne Rich when she talks about a “fatalistic self-hatred” that is embedded in patriarchal value system. This alone might explain much of the dark news that has accompanied the coronavirus emergency, the invitations by a sitting president to inject Lysol, the so-called demonstrations (funded we have learned from the secretary for education of all places!) to open society up before the virus is stemmed, etc. Might this crisis prove the end of patriarchy and its self-pity tirades and its investment in necrophilia? If so, that might make the suffering it has wrought all worthwhile. Where are we Headed? Climate Change and the Corona Virus In an excellent article on “The COVID-19 Pandemic—A Systemic Analysis,” physicist Fritjof Capra observes that, in his opinion, “the coronavirus must be seen as a biological response of Gaia, our living planet, to the ecological and social emergency humanity has brought upon itself.”[3] The world population, now grown to 7.8 billion persons, derives, he feels, from an “irrational obsession of our political and corporate leaders with perpetual economic and corporate growth” that threatens our survival as a species and many other species as well. Thanks to COVID-19, however, “our political and financial elites are forced to pay attention” as economies shut down and death tolls rise around the world. We have “fractured the web of life” and humans have destroyed so many animal habitats that viruses which had lived in symbiosis with certain animal species have now “jumped from those species to others and to humans, where they are highly toxic or deadly.” This pattern occurred in the 1960’s when a rare species of monkeys jumped from West Africa to humans as a whole. The resulting HIV virus and the AIDS epidemic killed an estimated 39 million people worldwide. More recently the coronavirus jumped from a species of bats to humans in China and then around the world. We are learning the hard way that “biology trumps politics and economics.” The silver lining in this pandemic is that “social justice is no longer a political issue of left versus right; it becomes an issue of life and death. To prevent the spread of pandemics—now and in the future—it will be essential to improve the living conditions of the poor.” Working for the sake of the common good becomes a life and death issue that can be met only “by collective, cooperative actions.” The most effective way of limiting human population growth has been proven to be to educate girls and young women and uplift the status of women around the world. Here too, gender justice and social justice go “hand in hand with ecological balance.” The coronavirus holds some silver linings that can awaken humanity. Due to limited traffic, pollution of major cities around the world has diminished dramatically; with giant cruise ships grounded, the canals in Venice are now so clear that fish can be seen again. In Punjab, India, stunning views of the tops of the Himalayas are now visible for the first time in thirty years. “The coronavirus has already been more effective in reducing CO2 emissions and slowing down climate breakdown than all the world’s policy initiatives combined.” The result of these climate improvements is not to seek to end all human endeavors—but it does bring a taste of hope and a possible future. It demonstrates that humans are capable of rising to the occasion. “We know now that the world is able to respond with urgency and coherence once the political will has been aroused.” Thus with the current emergency “Gaia has presented us with valuable, life-saving lessons. The question is: Will humanity heed these lessons?” It would seem that the science of today and the wisdom of yesteryear might link up to arouse humanity from folly to wisdom. If so, we would, once again, have Gaia to thank. This article was written before the murder of George Floyd and its aftermath. But COVID-19 raises questions apropos of this essay, such as why are so many more blacks than whites dying of COVID-19? And why has unemployment surged more among black and brown communities than white ones, etc. ~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox Read online hereAbout the Author Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 35 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 74 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship (called The Cosmic Mass). His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society; A Way To God: Thomas Merton's Creation Spirituality Journey; Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times; Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times; Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest; Stations of the Cosmic Christ; Order of the Sacred Earth; and Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Name for God...Including the Unnameable God. To encourage a passionate response to the news of climate change advancing so rapidly, Fox started Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox - See Welcome from Matthew Fox. [1] Cited in Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations (Novato, Ca: New World Library, 2011), # 365.[2] Ibid., # 203.[3] https://www.ethicalmarkets.com/the-covid-19-pandemic-a-systemic-analysis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ethicalmarkets+%28EthicalMarkets.com%29 | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By Jeff I'm a politically blue kind of guy living in a very red state. My religious convictions tell me that I have to try to work at getting laws that treat everyone with love. I've always tried, but the last few years it's been crazy hard and I'm wearing out. Any suggestions? A: By Rev. Mark Sandlin Hi Jeff,You ask a question that resonates with something I think many of us are feeling: resistance fatigue. Spiritually, it is important that we continue to work towards a world that has more mercy, empathy, hospitality, and love. The reality is that when so many powerful folks are working in the opposite direction, it really can wear you down – mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So, good self care is important. This list is certainly not complete, but it's not a bad place to start. - Don't try to take on all the issues at once. Pick one (or maybe two). If there is anything that will absolutely wear a person out it's trying to handle too many things all at once – burning the candle from both ends. A key to not feeling resistance fatigue is to sort of specialize in an area that you feel very strongly about. - Play to your strengths. If you are an organizer, organize. If you are a writer, write. Learning new skill sets is a beautiful thing, but what will be the most helpful in this effort is each person doing the thing (or things) they are the best at. - Don't just engage with everyone who wants to engage with you. Be selective. - Take regular breaks from social media and the news. We live in an age of not only instant information, but constant information. Our brains are not wired in a way that makes the constant input of that kind of information healthy. It will eventually overwhelm us. Just like studies have show, students learn more when studying if they take frequent breaks - we are more capable of not burning out when we take a mental health break from all of it. Do a little bit of personal care. - When needed, take some downtime. Do nothing about the issue. Do things that feed you. The answer to solving any of this does not rest on the shoulders of one person. - Lovingly persist. ~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on “The Huffington Post,” “Sojourners,” “Time,” “Church World Services,” and even the “Richard Dawkins Foundation.” He’s been featured on PBS’s “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and NPR’s “The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! | | | | | | Join our FB community today! Spread the word, share with friends. Thanks! | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Study of Life, Part 2: Exploring the Drive to Survive in Animate Life and in Self-Conscious Life Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong August 6, 2009As I said in last week’s column, in that wonderful lull in the life of an author that occurs between the time the book goes to press and the time it is published, we decided to go on a trip to study life itself. Before one can speak about life after death, as I seek to do in this new book, one has to understand the meaning of life before death. We retraced Charles Darwin’s pilgrimage to the Galapagos Islands with a side trip to the Amazon Rainforest. I wanted to think about what it means to be alive. Last week I looked at insights gained in the rain forest about the apparent drive to survive that appears to be present in every form of vegetation. We discovered examples of this at almost every turn as we tramped that beautiful and sparsely populated part of the world. Our observations about the drive for survival as an aspect of living things did not stop, however, at the limits of plant life. We found the same principle operating in every form of animate life from insects to animals in which consciousness has both appeared and developed. This survival instinct, as it might be called, is not the product of rational thinking. One does not attribute that quality to ants or to wasps, to spiders or to bees or even to the higher mammals, but it is present in all of these forms of life no matter where we looked. We saw many spider webs in the rain forest. They were spun in community, not by individual spiders, requiring great cooperation, and the food trapped therein was shared equally by the members of the spider community. A social contract was operating in the insect world. We also noted alliances formed between species in the insect world that help both species in the struggle to survive. It is a common observation in the rain forest, for example, that one variety of ants builds nests in the same trees where hives of wasps are located. This tactic serves both species. These ants serve to protect the wasps from another species of ants called “army ants” that are mortal enemies of the wasps. Army ants seek out and consume the larvae of the wasps while still in the hives. They are immune to the sting of the wasp and invade the hive easily, as they are quite adept at climbing even the tallest of trees. Army ants, however, will, not pass the nest of the other ants, which are always lower in the tree than the hives of the wasps. These ants frighten the army ants away with crunching sounds of marching insects, so with this help the wasp larvae are able to survive for another generation. The wasps, on the other hand, attack with stinging efficiency the principle enemy of these cooperative ants: the anteaters. The anteaters are able to climb the tree to feast on the ants’ nests, but are driven off by the wasps, thus saving the ants. The alliance serves as a mutual survival technique. It is one more remarkable natural fact that reveals how deeply the drive to survive is in all life forms. We saw another incredible adaptation tactic in the Amazon Rainforest in a bird called Hoatzin. This bird, a rarity of nature since it is a vegetarian, feeds only on the leaves of the forest. There are no worms or insects in the diet of this creature. To accommodate this vegetarian diet, the digestive system of the Hoatzin is dramatically different from the digestive system of all other birds. The stomach of the Hoatzin resembles the stomach of a cow, which is also a vegetarian. Both of their stomachs are divided into chambers that allow the eaten leaves to ferment and thus be changed into energy and nutrients for the sustenance of life. It seems that when other sources of food became unavailable for this unique bird, the drive to survive expressed itself in this unusual evolutionary development. The most dramatic example of this survival adaptation in the Amazon Rainforest had to do with parrots and parakeets. Their source of food is tropical fruit, and most of the nutriments in these fruits derive from the seeds. In the plants’ own drive to survive, however, the seeds are toxic to discourage their destruction by the parrots. If the parrots eat the nutritious seeds of these fruits, they die of the toxins. If they do not eat these toxic seeds, they will perish from insufficient food. It was not until the 1990’s that a Peruvian scientist discovered the adaptation that these parrots and parakeets have made to overcome this serious problem. Throughout the Amazon Rainforest there are places now called “parrot clay licks.” The parrots visit these spots by the thousands each day and lick the clay, which contains anti-toxins that enable them to eat the nutritious seeds of the fruit without ill effects. It is to the parrots like taking Alka Seltzer before one develops indigestion. We went to one of the accessible clay licks near the water’s edge of the Napo River, about a hundred yards’ walk from our boat, and took our seats in an open shed where we could see the clay licks at the foot of a tree-covered hill without disturbing the parrots prior to their descent. The day unfolded like a liturgical dance. The forest was alive with the chatter of the parrots, but the clay lick was still empty of their presence. Sentry parrots flew above searching for predators and sending a warning if any appeared. Meanwhile, flocks of parrots slowly descended the hillside, coming ever closer to the empty clay lick. This ritual lasted for almost an hour as these birds dropped lower and lower in the trees and then flew away, only to return to a yet nearer position. Finally, one of these green-feathered creatures would break the barrier and land in the clay lick and begin to consume the anti-toxins in the clay. Slowly others would join until the clay lick was filled with hundreds of green parakeets demanding to eat their fill of anti-toxins. From time to time, a warning sound would come from the flying sentries and there would be a rapid and mass evacuation of these creatures, not just from the clay licks but also from every level of the forest by those waiting their turn at the clay lick. It was like watching the pilots of the RAF take off in their planes in wave after wave to confront the Nazi bombers during the World War II Battle of Britain. We watched on at least three occasions when literally thousands of parakeets took off to avoid danger. Then the “all clear” signal would come from the sentries and the parakeets would return, again filling the empty clay lick with a blanket of green until all the parakeets had consumed their daily requirement of anti-toxins and went off in search of the toxic seeds in the fruits that sustained their lives. The elaborate forms that the drive to survive seems to take in the world of nature is truly amazing. Deep in the heart of all living things, perhaps in the DNA of life itself, we discover that the drive to survive is present. This is true despite the fact that every living thing is actually in the food chain of every other living thing. Nature’s clear message is that all living things are hard wired to survive. This same principle is also seen in higher forms of life where consciousness is advanced. There is the herd instinct that enables the species to survive even if an individual member of the species is sacrificed. We are all familiar with the fight or flight syndrome in the animal kingdom. A predator appears. The herd flees. The predator cuts out his desired prey from the flock and their one-on-one flight takes place. When the intended victim can run no more, it turns to face its tormentor in one last stand at life. With whatever form resistance takes, from arched back to hissing sounds, from an attempt to delay the pounce with claws or hooves, the struggle for survival comes before the kill. When flight ends, fight begins. Meanwhile, with the sacrifice of this victim to feed the hunger of the predator, the flock ceases its flight and grazes peacefully nearby, knowing that the predator’s hunger is satisfied for the immediate future. Recent zoological studies have indicated that flocks are even organized in such a way as to place the older and therefore less productive members of the flock in the most vulnerable positions in the herd, making them the likely prey of the predator. Thus the older animals are sacrificed for the longevity of the species. Survival is a force in life that appears to drive all living things. So our search for the meaning of life arrives at its first conclusion. There is something about life in both its plant and animal forms that is driven by survival. It is not a conscious choice, for plants do not think or plan, and yet survival motivates all vegetative forms of life. It is not a rational thinking process for animals do not think abstractly or plan ahead for future contingencies. It is a natural response found in all living things. It is part of what it means to be alive. To our knowledge only one living creature, the human being, is conscious of the fact of its inevitable death. In this single creature this universal drive to survive becomes self-conscious. This creature alone knows in advance that he or she is mortal and that no matter how deep in nature the drive to survive might be, only the human being is aware that he or she will lose the battle for life. How will that drive then express itself in the self-conscious creature? Is the human yearning for life after death, which appears to mark all human life from the earliest dawning of self-consciousness, anything more that a sign of this universal will to survive? On the other hand is the human discovery of the oneness and interdependence of all life, the dawning awareness that we are part of something not bound by our limitations, perhaps not even bound by our mortality? Is self-consciousness the doorway into God? Does this insight open us to the possibility that evolution is a journey not just into life and consciousness, but also into transcendence, oneness and even eternity? That is the pathway that I will explore in this book. We moved next to the Galapagos Islands to follow Darwin’s discovery of evolution. Before making that journey, however, we had a chance to meet and engage briefly with a shaman of one of the tribes indigenous to the rain forest. Because this was the first time I had ever had the opportunity to listen to a shaman’s view of life, and because he offered me the opportunity to enter the religious worldview of animism, it seems worth still following my thought about the evolution of religion in human society to share that story with you. To that I will turn next week.~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Now more than ever we need an antiracist movement in our country. Each of us has the power to change white supremacy’s toxic legacy. Join Rev. Lewis for a special two-part Master Class, The Call of This Moment: An Anti-Racism Workshop, because so many of our societal ills stem from unexamined racism. Jacqui will lead participants through an exploration of the intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics of race, racism, privilege and implicit/explicit bias in culture, in our lives and in the organizations to which we belong. Read On... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |