Advent Paths to Peace

Nov26

For December I shall be adapting sections from “Advent Reflections 2018, Paths to Peace”:
PATHS TO PEACE – ecospiritualityresources.files.wordpress.com

Christians often refer to the Christ Child as the Prince of Peace. Many groups exchange a sign of peace during their services. When someone dies, we sometimes say: May s/he rest in peace. We pray for peace in our world, our families, our selves. Nobel awards a Peace Prize. We assume that the Cosmic Christ’s reign will be one of Peace on Earth. Let’s ponder the challenges of “peace.”

How do you feel when applying Pope Francis’s words to personal and national/international situations: “Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare. Only the tenacious say yes to encounter and no to conflict; yes to negotiations and no to hostilities; yes to respect for agreements and no to acts of provocation”?

In the Hebrew Bible, “shalom” is translated “peace.” (The image here includes “shalom” in Arabic and Hebrew.) Shalom is about wholeness. Each part of us (e.g., cells, organs, systems) is a whole entity, working for the good of the greater whole. Each person is part of larger wholes. Ultimately we are integral parts of our interconnected, expanding creation. No one and no thing can be excised from that whole. “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” (John Muir) Justice demands that each be given its proper respect.

Note that shalom is not the absence of tension or even of conflict. Think how our Universe somehow began with an expansion of particles and light and the repeated transformation of these particles as they gave themselves to become the next generation of elements within evolution. Eventually supernovas exploded so that the remains could become our solar system — and everything in it, including ourselves.

Death and conflict pervade creation, yet from the beginning, creation has kept in balance and harmony. Earth repaired disequilibriums whenever that was necessary. (E.g., when too much oxygen threatened the health of the atmosphere, Earth “invented” respiration to assure the presence of the right amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) to foster life. This required eons.) We know from experience that we, too, can heal, though sufficient time must be allowed.

Others have shed light on the meaning of peace. Margaret Anna Cusack (foundress of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace in the 19th century), emphasized the biblical conception of peace not as the absence of hostility but as the establishment of right relationships based on justice. Pope Paul VI repeated this concept in his famous 1972 quote: “If you want peace, work for justice.” The world awoke to yet another aspect of peace when Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 because of her efforts to save the environment and plant trees, thus contributing to social and ecological justice. How would you explain that to someone who didn’t understand why she won the award?

What right relationships based on justice seem most needed in our personal lives, our groups, our nation, church, and Earth? How can justice bring peace to these issues? What difference happens when we use positive words rather than negative ones, e.g., “work for justice” instead of “war on poverty”?

As we ponder the gift of Jesus’s example and teachings this Advent, let’s remember that “justice and righteousness” are needed to keep ourselves and the entire web of life whole/at peace. Any single thing we do for peace will affect many people, many other issues. As with the mobile (on the left), touching any one part affects the whole. Butterfly wings flapping somewhere influence weather patterns elsewhere; stones cast into water result inripples that extend and intersect. We cannot do one thing in our interconnected universe!

Thanksgiving and Native Americans

Nov7

I live barely a block from Lake Michigan. I see it from my windows, and I can walk to its shore in minutes. When there, I sometimes join in spirit with the Potawatomi who must also have stood there, marveling at the pristine incoming waves. 

They did not know — as I do — that they evolved billions of years ago from creatures who originally lived in water, or that their bodies were over 70% water. But they had a very advanced reverence for, and unity with, water and all creation. How sad, how tragic, how foolish we were to reject their sense of the sacred and use Earth’s water and resources in ways that desecrate them, thus harming all lives, including our own! 

Every corner of this continent was originally Indian country. There are more than 565 federally-recognized tribes and hundreds of unrecognized tribes. Each tribe has its own culture, customs, traditional clothing, dwellings, and rituals. How would we feel if strangers forced us and our families to leave our homes so they could claim to have “found” this land — and too often spoil it? Why might Native Americans respond to Thanksgiving holidays with acts of rebellion and resistance?

As we give thanks for our abundant gifts this Thanksgiving, let us also remember and value the example our indigenous ancestors left us. Let us remember the injustices done to them both in past centuries and also today. Let us do what we can to protect their sacred burial grounds and their human rights, and let us strive to reduce the pollution and wasteful use of water caused by industries and by ourselves (e.g., if we use bottled water or plastic straws). 

In her gloriously inspiring book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer tells us that Native peoples globally send greetings and thanks to all members of the natural world each day. Here is one excerpt taken from the Haudenosaunees’ all-encompassing Thanksgiving Address:

We now turn our thought to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greeting and thanks to the Creator. Now our minds are one. (p. 115)

Robin ends that chapter with this sobering thought:

Every day, with these words, the people give thanks to the land. In the silence that falls at the end of those words I listen, longing for the day when we can hear the land give thanks for the people in return. (p. 117)

May we speed that day!

Re. Beatrice Bruteau

Oct19

I have been thinking a lot about Beatrice Bruteau lately. This began while I was going through files in preparation for my move to PA next spring. Among the papers to survive the purge are several of her treasured notes to me. While I didn’t keep every note she wrote, I am so grateful that I did keep a few of them. Through them and her published writing, I grew to love her, and I keenly grieve her loss. (She died in 2014.)

Getting to Know Her

My awareness of Beatrice dates to when one of my sisters gave me Beatrice’s “The Immaculate Conception, Our Original Face” (Cross Currents, 1989). This article filled a need I had at the time, and I subsequently read as much of her prolific writing as time allowed. Because my religious congregation (Society of the Holy Child Jesus) is especially devoted to the Incarnation, I lavishly highlighted and dog-eared books like her God’s Ecstasy: The Creation of a Self-Creating World (The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997). It led to our first contact.

In 2002 I was designing note cards with sayings that I felt deserved attention. A friend gave me her address, and I wrote a formal letter asking permission to use a quote from God’s Ecstasy. I enclosed samples of cards I had created using quotes from Thomas Berry and Mary Evelyn Tucker. (I duplicated the black lettering, and hand painted or stamped the rest.) Her hand-written reply left me speechless: “Dear Terri, Your cards are very good! Here’s a little something ($25) towards production. Love, Beatrice” 

An additional note included her order for some of the cards I had sent her, an invitation to a conference she thought would interest me, an offer to arrange a ride if I decided to come, and the suggestion that I bring samples of my cards if I came. She added names and numbers of people she suggested I contact. I was overwhelmed! She later assured me that she was honored by what resulted, and she ordered many of these cards: 

The Cosmos is an externalized and manifested expression of the
indescribable reality that is GOD.
Beatrice Bruteau
May this GOD bless you always.  

Although we never met in person, our written exchanges continued for years. She told me about her husband, Jim Summerville (also a prolific writer), their move, their TV interests, her family…. Beatrice was always affirming and supportive as my endeavors expanded into a DVD (Wake to Wonderment), music, poetry, and group reflections. She wanted to know all about Sisters of Earth and the SHCJ EcoSpirituality Group and to get them better known. She invariably humbled me with her gratitude. 

I believe what Francois Mauriac wrote: “No love, no friendship can ever cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark upon it forever.” How blessed I am to have had Beatrice mark my life!

Getting to Know Her Writing

Beatrice was a luminary in the fields of theology, philosophy, contemplation, spiritual ecology, the writing of Teilhard de Chardin, Eastern faiths, developing and non-dual consciousness, feminism — and within each, exemplified her deep gift of opening up new lines of thought and praxis. Her writing demanded attentive reading and pondering.

I am currently reading a tribute to her that I highly recommend: Personal Transformation and a New Creation: The Spiritual Revolution of Beatrice Bruteau, edited by Ilia Delio, OSF (Orbis, 2017). The three sections of this book include A Dynamic Person; Philosopher and Theologian; and Teacher, Mentor, Friend. The list of Beatrice’s writings at the end of Ilia’s book exceeds 10 pages, so I won’t attempt to list them! Whether familiar with her writings or new to them, you will profit from the both warm and scholarly reflections in this book. I also encourage you to sample Beatrice’s own books and articles. For those interested in ecospirituality, Beatrice’s writings are a must!