Archive | 2014

Capturing the Depth

May17

Capturing the Depth

Brian Swimme notes that “Life created the human to capture the depth of things.” To capture: interesting choice of verb. How do we capture the depth of things?

Enduring Depth

6039037-fish-bread-and-wine-as-symbols-of-jesus-lifeJesus came that we might have life, abundant life (John 10:10). His hearers had to discover new ways to integrate what they always believed with the new depth that Jesus offered: the Life he said he was. People then and now sometimes had/have major challenges capturing Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness, inclusion and self-giving.

Believers listen to the still small voice of God within, the voice of our souls, the whispers of our hearts. We earnestly listen to the signs of the times to direct our ministry. We’ve done it for decades, but many now feel the need to update our methods in light of the new stories from science. Are these new revelations calling us to develop new ways of capturing previously unguessed depths?

I think it’s safe to say that those interested in ecospirituality (by whatever name) are eager to deepen their understanding of the depths: not just of the Universe, but of its Source, enlivening Power, Creator, Mystery (again, by whatever name). We also want to capture how Jesus fits into the new story.

About Receptors

Thinking about the way things are captured reminds me of three recent experiences:

A while ago I watched Barry Kibrick, host of PBS’ Between the Lines, interview UnknownGerald Schroeder, author of Genesis and the Big Bang,  Science of God, and Hidden Face of God. Gerald  was explaining why, if a tree fell in the forest, there would be no sound. The energy waves exist, but something or someone with the physical equipment to receive (capture) the waves is required to make noise possible. As would be expected considering the titles of his books, the interview continued with his insights about the big questions of personal consciousness, God, and death. But he had me with capturing sound.

images-1More recently I was rereading sections of Mary Jean Irion’s She-Fire, A Safari Into the Human Spirit. Her book has treasures of several types, and I always gain from perusing the many pages I have dog-eared. This time I stayed with her reflection on the blue sky she saw in Kenya. Mary Jean writes: Blue is not a thing in itself. It does not exist. It happens only in the relationship of matter, light, and cones in the eye. Take away dust in the air, or take away light, or take away eyes — and there is no color. Yet there it is: who cannot see it? The sky, so help me, is blue today. Like Gerald Schroeder, Mary Jean goes on to explore thoughts about God. But she had me at capturing blue.

One more: Jacob Berkowitz’ The Stardust Revolution recounts the recent discoveries images-2concerning our origin in the stars. Essentially connected are the stories of the prescient scientists who developed the tools that made possible these discoveries. Whereas the equipment to catch sound waves and to see color came without human help, learning about the stars required patient human perseverance. Thanks to these scientists, we can now “catch” information unknown and probably unguessed until our time.

Praying Attention

Like many who are transitioning from prayers to a God-out-there and who have dealt with changing and always inadequate images of God, my journey in prayer has taken various paths. We live in a worldview that past mystics might have intuited, but which none knew scientifically. With no clear road from the past (and perhaps reluctance of some to share too honestly how they now travel) we are the generation making the prayer path. Rarely does this challenge — How do I pray? — not come up when faith-filled individuals transition from the Genesis Story to the Universe Story.

M. Basil Pennington, in his classic Centering Prayer in 1962, said: Our practice, our prayer, must be a response to reality, to what truly is. Well, think of all we’ve learned about reality since 1962! Think how Earth’s travails, and our awareness of them, have deepened since 1962! Think what we’re learning about the unity of all life! Can we capture the new depths when our minds have not yet had time to evolve ways to grasp these new realities?

Might prayer in our time require evolving new receptors so we can better “tune in” to the Universe — where the Transcendent lives and acts? Every religious insight and major figure, including Jesus, is part of that primary story and cannot be adequately known divorced from it, yet no religious founder knew it. Might dedicated pray-ers be called to evolve adequate receptors simply by their persevering efforts to stretch their minds and hearts and lifestyles?

 

New Depths from Science

Exploring and relating to the depth of the Mystery we call God is different now that we’re aware of being interconnected with the consciousness and totality of the Cosmos, aware of contributing to its evolution, aware of the inadequacy of any image to capture that reality. We know about energy popping in and out, fluctuating between waves and particles; we are learning about exoplanets and cosmic kin. We try to grow our Christian beliefs in this new soil, but no wonder we sometimes feel inadequate!

For example, even Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault acknowledges that her brilliant The Holy Trinityimages and the Law of Three will be challenging. Her description of the ternary principle  and its applications to theology force a forging of new brain paths. Yet how worth the effort to follow her journey into a new model for God and its more spacious container for the rich mythological and personal language of traditional Christian understanding. Hinting at what’s coming, she says: . . . most of the paradigm distress besetting contemporary trinitarian theology has arisen out of trying to bottle into particle format what is intrinsically a wave. How shall we capture these depths?

 

Our Part

I like thinking that my/our loving and persevering (and oftentimes tedious and confusing) efforts to capture the depths of things never before known will contribute to the evolution of new receptors. Isn’t this sure to happen? We do influence evolution, we do alter cosmic consciousness, we do create morphogenic fields. Our efforts contribute to easing the task of future generations to comprehend theological insights as evolution progresses to the Omega Point.

 

 

 

 

RESPONDING TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Apr24

RESPONDING TO THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE’S REPORT (IPCC)

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Readers who believe that all of life is interconnected, and that God has been living and acting in planet Earth throughout its 4½-billion-year story, are highly motivated to respond to the March 31, 2014
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Report by the
world’s international climate experts. (Summary Report: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf)  The Chinese proverb’s warning was never more needed: Unless we change our direction, we’ll end up where we’re going.

IPCC Report 

The peril is even more certain, and more frightening, than past IPCC assessments stated. The Summary begins starkly: Human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems. Climate extremes are unequivocally caused by human activity. 

Risks, benefits, and outcomes of adaptation are predicted for the near-term and longer-term. Statements are labeled by authors’ confidence degree: very high, high, medium, or low.  The list of  very high confidence  risks is staggering. All risks, and solutions, involve emission levels. Greenhouse gas emissions will have to drop by 40-70% by 2050.

Earth has had 5 extinctions. None had human causation, obviously. No human should want to be responsible for #6 —  though many factors indicate we are already causing it. 

IPCC’s Reasons for Hope

But it is not too late to keep the global temperature at a manageable level — if the world embarks quickly on an intense effort over the next 15 years.

10-05-2012zClimate change can be addressed without affecting living standards, they report, and with only a tiny reduction in economic growth. The IPCC report concludes that diverting hundred of billions of dollars from fossil fuels into renewable energy and cutting energy waste would shave just 0.06% off expected annual economic growth rates of 1.3%-3%. This investment would save the billions needed to repair losses from extreme climate events. 

In addition, it would prevent deaths and destruction from future weather extremes. It would provide   global economic opportunity we can seize today,  Sec. of State John Kerry said. So many of the technologies that will help us fight climate change are far cheaper, more readily available, and better performing than they were when the last IPCC assessment was released less than a decade ago, Kerry said. And cleaner air and fewer climate calamities would have positive effects for, e.g., health, job creation, and food production.

The report is clear: the more you wait, the more it will cost [and] the more difficult it will become,  said EU commissioner Connie Hedegaard. 

What’s Needed?

Rapid action can limit global warming to 2˚C, the internationally agreed safe limit, if low-carbon energy triples or opportunity-costquadruples by 2050. Companies and individuals must rapidly wean themselves off coal, gas and oil and fund low-carbon growth in poorer countries. Along with measures that cut energy waste, renewable energy – such as wind, hydropower and solar – is viewed most favorably by the report as a result of its falling costs and large-scale deployment in recent years.

Readers already committed to reducing fossil fuel emissions that exacerbate climate change are often puzzled by climate deniers and those who continue to spew greenhouse gases that clog our atmosphere. Will this report wake us all up to the immanent danger and changes that must be made immediately?

Action Suggestions

Here are some of many actions that can be taken to change attitudes and atmosphere. Trust that still, small voice that says: This might work and I’ll try it.  (Diane Mariechild)


– Appreciate the gift of creation and the billions of years of evolution. Don’t do anything, just stand there! (David S. Toolan, SJ) Fall in love with creation! Be awed by what has evolved and what we and future generations could lose.

– Imagine/ Vision: How old will your children/ grandchildren be in 2029? Picture the planet you want them to enjoy. We cannot choose whether or not to create the future; we can only choose whether or not to create the future we want for them.

– What would you say to parents who continued to give their children food that already makes them sick and that 97% of reputable food experts judge to be toxic? What could you say to climate deniers you know?

– Be able to explain the climate change/fracking connections (e.g. https://ecospiritualityresources.com/media; Triple Divide, from Public Herald; Gaslands 2).

– Deepen empathy for those who have invested in land and machinery, lobbying and media ads  for mining fossil fuels. It won’t be easy for them to change. Send strong, loving energy to support their, and its, “conversion.” Pray for Mother Earth’s healing.

– Lobby and join groups acting to reduce use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) locally and nationally (e.g., 350.org, various frack-free and Keystone XL organizations).

– Transition to renewable energy sources for home and business (e.g., Credo: You can switch right now to 100% clean energy from Ethical Electric, America’s Progressive Energy Company.)

– Support expansion of renewable energy locally and nationally.

– Lobby for reduction of military budgets and for applying those massive sums for renewable energy. (According to TIME, April 28, 2014, the U.S. defense spending totals $640 billion, $452 billion more than #2 defense spender, China.)

– Encourage institutions to divest from fossil fuels and invest in renewables. (Archbishop  Desmond Tutu advocates an anti-apartheid-type campaign against fossil-fuel companies, which he blames for the  injustice  of climate change.)

– Reduce driving, but if necessary, drive no faster than 55 – 60 MPH. This results in notable reduction of fuel and of pollution — and it saves money at the pump.

 

All ministry will be futile if — through our ignorance, indifference, or refusal to act — Earth’s ecosystems are destroyed. Nobody makes a greater mistake than those who do nothing because they could only do a little!

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EASTER AND EARTH DAY: life-death-life

Apr10

DID NOT THE CHRIST HAVE TO DIE?  

(Luke 24:26)

Lent is transitioning injesus-christ-ressurected-115to Holy Week and Easter — with Earth Day very soon thereafter —    images
a good time to reflect on death and new life within the context of the new creation story. The chaos and seeming hopelessness of Good Friday, and the bitter cold and icy winter many have experienced, will both result in new life. It’s a cosmic pattern.

Cosmic Beginnings

When we think of Jesus’ death bringing him and us all new life, we can remember that the beginning of this death-to-life paradox can be traced back far beyond Scripture. When we start in the very beginning  — “a very good place to start,” as Julie Andrews reminded us —  we arrive at the Flaring images-1Forth (recently confirmed by John Kovac and his colleagues at the South Pole) and the subsequent formation and deaths of stars. It would have seemed unlikely that anything of substance would result from dying stars, but we know that by dying, each generation of them created more complex elements for new worlds and complex life.

Evolution continued for 13.8 billion years, always by way of some beings giving up their independent existence to create something new. Over billions of years, elements became molecules that bonded in ever more complex patterns. Major extinctions on Earth gave space
for new life forms. Created in God’s image, all of nature incarnates God’s generous. lavish, immense pouring out. Dying to live, living to die is an old, old pattern.

Plants and People

dying-seed1Death for life is obvious in plant life: Unless the grain of wheat dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it does die, it will bear much fruit (John 12:24). For a beautiful piece on regeneration of trees by coppicing (a special pruning and cutting technique that dates to the Neolithic period and that allows for continual, healthy wood harvesting from the same trees, often for centuries) see http://ncronline.org/node/73506.

In human growth and development, infancy gives way to adolescence get-attachment.aspxthat gives way to adulthood. Each moment cells die to give space/opportunity for others. David S. Toolan, SJ, writes: We regrow our entire physical body as we do hair and nails. Nothing in our genes was present a year ago. The tissue of our stomach renews itself weekly, the skin is shed monthly, and the liver regenerates every six weeks. Every moment, a portion of the body’s 10[28] atoms is returning to the world outside, and ninety-eight percent of them are replaced annually. It’s automatic!

Chosen deaths

These automatic deaths, of course, were also true for Jesus. But Jesus gave us the ultimate example of chosen self-giving throughout his life.  Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is nothing else Evangelii-Gaudium-Imagethan the culmination of the way he lived his entire life, Pope Francis reminds us in The Joy of the Gospel. Jesus’ total self-giving so that we might have new life confirmed his participation in the fabric of creation.

Jesus modeled for us how to live lovingly and selflessly for the good of others — with both love and justice. His life and death were obviously unique, but, like him, we who follow his life pattern have both automatic and chosen deaths.

Our Turn

We try to make the conscious deaths with love and joy, no longer, as in the past, for our small selves, for our small family, our small country; but for the salvation and the success of the universe. (Teilhard de Chardin) Aware of our interconnection with all being, we “die” to what we judge holds us (personally and globally) from abundant life – usually selfishness in some form. We can be confident that the Spirit of Life can bring new life both within and without us and all creation. We can be sure that our efforts for justice will bear fruit.

Thomas Merton recognized this principle in all religions: All mature religion must and will talk about the death of anyUnknown notion of a separate, and therefore false, self. Merton suggests we substitute the word “separate” whenever we read “sin” in the Scriptures! Try this when renewing Baptismal promises! (Do we renounce feeling separate from any part of creation, whatever the “ism”?) In Baptism the “separate self” dies so a new, more self-giving and Christlike person can grow and realize its place and responsibilities in the Christian (and unavoidably the cosmic) community.

The certainty of this pattern can give comfort when deaths are not self-chosen: those of loved relatives and friends, of physical and mental abilities, of beloved organizations . . . .

Michael Morwood writes: Everywhere we look we can observe the perpetual rhythm of new life, followed by death, followed by new life. So we do not believe that death is the final end of anything, nor is it for us the start of a journey to somewhere else. Rather, it is a transformation and a continuation of the ebb and flow of existence in ways we do not understand. 

FOOD FOR PRAYER:

How can we better follow this ancient pattern of death leading to new life in order to become more benevolent members of the Christian and of the Earth communities?

How can we more deeply root ourselves in Jesus’ story and Earth’s story?

How can our choices contribute to the new life of Easter and spring?

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April 2014  Nannette Manley: There is so much food for thought in these meditations. I will keep them for future reference. Thank you so much.