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Stars, Language, Worldviews

Oct4

Stars

One of my pet peeves is language that says the Sun moves around Earth. Words carry meaning, and if we reinforce long-disproven concepts, we stay stuck in centuries past — scientifically, socially, and religiously.

What follows will offer some alternatives — and, I hope, some food for thought and reflection. Before reading, think for a minute about how you would describe what is pictured here:

A Summer Sunrise over on the Nature Conservancy's Tallgrass Prairie Preserve near Pawhuska,Oklahoma<br />

Here’s how Marilynne Robinson has her protagonist describe it in her Pulitzer-prize-winning novel Gilead:

“This morning a splendid dawn passed over our house on its way to Kansas. This morning Kansas rolled out of its sleep into a sunlight grandly announced, proclaimed throughout heaven — one more of the very finite number of days that this old prairie has been called Kansas, or Iowa. But it has all been one day, that first day. Light is constant, we just turn over in it. So every day is in fact the selfsame evening and morning.”

Wow! Your reaction to that?

Here’s what I wrote years ago, in “Matins,” (Matins):
fql1od“ …
Slowly, slowly (or so it seems) Earth rotates,
revealing a brilliant, blinding star
so distant that its million multiples
of Earth’s size seem
a solitary shining footlight on the horizon.
…. ”

While we’re remembering that our sun-star neither rises nor sets, try these last ten lines of Katy Didden’s poem ”Before Edison Invented Lights” (in The Glacier’s Wake) [Painting by Mary Southward, CSJ]:
“ …
When you sleep with your face to the sky
untitledthe stars are not so much above
as around you. Stare long enough
and you begin to feel
you could lift your body off the earth
and hover in the black night
on the web of your awe
at a billion suns
toward which
everything you’re made of yearns.”

Wow, again! And why does everything we’re made of yearn for the suns? Curt Stager answers in Your Atomic Self, from the chapter “Fires of Life”:

“To look into the night sky is to survey distant gardens in which the elements of life are ripening, and your body is a composite harvest from these cosmic fields. Throughout history, people have spoken of the earth as our mother and the sun as our father … In an atomic sense, however, it would be more accurate to think of the earth and the sun as our siblings, because they both formed from the same star debris as the elements of life within us. Earth is indeed a kind of surrogate mother to us in that our bodies are derived from it, but we exist today only because our true celestial star mothers died long ago.”

Neil de Grasse Tyson echoes that reality: “The spectacular truth encoded in your DNA is that the very atoms of your body were initially forged in long-dead stars. This is why, when we look at the sky with wonder and longing, we feel some ineffable tugging at our innards. We are star stuff.”

Language and Worldviews

As for changing language, Stager writes “Simply replacing the word “sun” with “star” can change your sense of what this sylvan scene actually is. Lie flat on your back on the warm wood of a dock, and it may further dispel the normal illusion that the great fireball is “up there in the sky” instead of “right over there beside us in space.” Something about being horizontal and seeing the sun-star before you rather than above your head makes it easier to sense the absence of supporting pedestals or cables and therefore to realize that the brilliant, life-sustaining heart of our solar system floats in emptiness as it directs the trembling of your atoms from millions of miles away.”

It’s easy — though sloppy — to perpetuate a faulty philosophy by using words that belong to an obsolete flat-earth worldview. It can be disorienting to realize that we are one planet orbiting one of the billions of suns in our galaxy, and that our galaxy is one among billions. It almost hurts to get one’s head around the truth of where we are! But, to quote Stager again:

“The task that we face now is … to more closely attune our worldviews to the fascinating reality that Earth-orbiting telescopes, atom-probing microscopes, and other complex inventions have only recently uncovered for us. … How amazing to exist at all and how important it is, as our numbers and know-how increase, that we and our descendants develop such awareness as best we can.”

Language, Worldviews, and Believers

Is it important for believers? Ask St. Thomas Aquinas, who wrote: “A mistake about creation will lead to a mistake about God.” Ask Fr. Sean McDonagh: “We must continually learn from science, evolve our theology, and humbly situate ourselves in the wider Creation story.”

What have you learned from science about our place and our meaning in the cosmos — including our role in caring for our precious common home? Replies welcome!

Note: Christians who wish to ponder Light this Advent, alone or with others, might consider using Advent 2016: In Praise of Light: advent-2016.

Nov. 30: Grieving for Species, Hoping for Climate Results

Nov11

The annual International Remembrance Day for Lost Species and the opening of the Paris Climate Change Conference both happen on Monday, November 30. How fitting that the days coincide! 

Species Remembrance Day Nov. 30

In 2011, a group of artists from Feral Theatre and the Life Cairn Project in the UK Unknown established November 30th as International Remembrance Day for Lost Species.

In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis makes essential connections about interrelationships and lost species, e.g.: Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another. (par. 42) 

News about species’ extinctions is grim. For example, The Week (11.13.15) reports that by 4330102035 most African lion populations will be half their present population; two-thirds  of them are in decline. Bad news for lions, but notably bad news for all of us who are interconnected within ecosystems. Bad news because each species and each ecosystem has taken billions of years to evolve. Bad news because, as Pope Francis writes: thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. (par. 33)

With Teilhard de Chardin, we believe that “… the inner Reality … is the support common to all substances … .” The inner Reality living and acting in all creation also empowers us to participate in the on-going evolution of life and spirit and to make a difference for Our Common Home.

Since climate change is a major cause of the extinctions of species, positive results from the climate change talks will result in reprieves for many species. 

Climate Change Talks Nov. 30 – Dec. 11, 2015

The annual meeting of all countries that want to take action for the climate will be held in Paris from 30 November to 11 December. (It is also called the United Nations Climate Change Conference or Paris Climate Change Conference.)  “COP21,” so called because it is the 21st meeting of [deep breath] the Conference of Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will meet December 4 – 6.

logocop21-ppalThe objective of the 2015 conference is to achieve, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, a binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world. President Obama, about 80 other heads of state, and more than 40,000 others are expected to attend the climate change conference. “We’ve got to come together around an ambitious framework to protect the one planet that we’ve got while we still can,” Obama said. The general secretary, Sharan Burrow, has repeated that there are “no jobs on a dead planet.”

Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ was written, in part, to influence the conference. The encyclical calls for action against climate change. The International Trade Union Confederation has called for the goal to be “zero carbon, zero poverty.”

Grieving, Praying, Acting

I hope that when we grieve the loss of increasing numbers of species and their ruined habitats, and as we pray and act so that the Paris meetings will be effective in reducing emissions causing climate change and species extinction, we will also remember the millions of humans whose lives, homes, and livelihoods have already been lost as a result of extreme and changing weather patterns, ecosystem destruction, and species extinctions.

Pope Francis again: God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel … the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement. (Joy of the Gospel, par. 215) Those of us who allow ourselves to feel the painful disfigurement may wish to use the following grieving prayer. You are free to adapt it in any way. For a copy of just the four-sided prayer below, click here: Extinction Grieving Prayer 11.15.

Extinction Grieving Prayer 2015

Use two candles; prepare suggested (or other) music and video. Adapt in any way that facilitates use.

Call to Prayer

. . .today, the dusky seaside sparrow             sparrow-dusky_seaside_sparrow-from-wikipedia
became extinct. It may never be as famous
as the pterodactyl [tera daktel] or the dodo,
but the last one died today . . . .
An excerpt from “Science” by Alison Hawthorne Deming

What you call resources, we call our relatives. Source unknown.

Light the first candle. It honors all the species that have gone extinct in our lifetimes.

All: Great Giver of Life, we pause to remember our place at the beginning of the Sixth Great Extinction on Planet Earth. For 13.8 billion years creation has been groaning: bringing to birth, becoming more complex, more organized, more conscious. Now, for the first time, our species is ruining whole ecosystems, aborting entire groups of interdependent species. We send blessings to the world’s nations, meeting in Paris to redress climate change, one of the major causes of extinctions.

Litany of Affirmation 

imagesWe affirm the Sacred Mystery that caused and continues Creation.

We affirm the 13.8 billion years of our Universe.

We affirm the billions of galaxies, each with its billions of solar systems and stars.

We affirm the multiple transformations during the 4.5 billion years of Mother Earth’s life so far, and the relentless evolution towards potentially ever-greater consciousness in the future.

We affirm the millions of species that have inhabited our planet in beautifully-webbed communities: microorganisms, plants, fish, birds, mammals . . . .

We affirm that we came from Earth and exist, like all species, in a communion of subjects.

We acknowledge that we play a part in violating this communion by our carelessness, ignorance, and indifference. Forgive us our part in the death of ecosystems and the resulting extinction of creatures in whom we believe divinity lives and acts.

Litany of Grief

We grieve humans’ lack of awareness of, and concern about, the destruction of interdependent communities that have taken billions of years to develop.

We grieve the climate disaster that is extinguishing habitats and the multiple species within them.

We grieve the more than one-in-four flowering plants, the one-in-five mammals, the nearly one-in-three amphibians, and the one-in-eight birds that are vulnerable to being wiped out completely. (International Union for the Conservation of Nature)   img_18-tm

We grieve the Golden Toad, native to Costa Rica. It has not been seen  since 1989, when a single male was found, the last of its species.

ibex1-tmWe grieve the Pyrenean Ibex. The last of this species naturally born was a female, Celia, who  died in 2000.

We grieve the St. Helena Olive, a small spreading tree, the last of which perished in 2003 primarily due to deforestation and images-1invasive plants.

We grieve all our extinct brother and sister species, the amphibians, fish, birds, mammals, plants and trees, and their diminished habitats.

We grieve the humans whose sustenance and livelihoods are threatened by this disruption in the food web.

We grieve the deaths of ecological martyrs: Sister Dorothy Stang, Dian Fossey, Chico Mendes, and the over 900 other activists slain since 2004. (Global Witness)

* Add as you wish.

Listen to and/or Sing: While listening to or singing this song, note the interconnections: war, bees, climate, soil. ”Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Kingston Trio: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eyof5doUFzk.

Quiet reflection

Extinguish first candle. Light second candle. It represents all threatened species and our desire to protect them.

images-2Watch “How Wolves Change Rivers” (4:33 min.):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

Litany of Gratitude and Hope 

We are grateful that 90% of species under the protection of the Endangered Species Act (U.S.) are recovering at the rate specified by their federal recovery plan.

We are grateful that British oil company Soco International agreed (June 2014) to 0611.Rugendo_in_bukima.150suspend exploration in a national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), home to half the world’s critically endangered mountain gorillas (pictured here) and thousands of other species. We thank the over 750,000 people who signed a petition to stop the oil drilling.

We are grateful that the Zoological Society of London released its list of birds most at risk of extinction based on evolutionary distinctness and global endangerment (EDGE) in April 2014. This information will help conservationists decide where efforts should focus first.

whale-83211b46cbd3936dfe91f263f0faaaaddfc556b7-s6-c30We are grateful that the California blue whales, nearly hunted to extinction at the turn of the 20th century, are slowly rebounding after the global hunting ban in 1986.

We are grateful for all of the habitats that have been saved so the interdependent species within them can escape extinction.

We are grateful for the many people throughout the world who dedicate their time and efforts to keeping habitats and species alive so they can give praise to their creator by their distinct lineages, attributes, and contributions to the web of life.

Add as you wish.

Action Suggestions

Let us not leave in our wake a swath of destruction and death which will affect our own lives and those of future generations.  Pope Francis

To save species, we must save ecosystems.  To save ecosystems, we must reduce climate change, pollution, poaching, invasive species, and over-consumption. Mentally check the list that follows for actions that you already take. There might be something there that you would also want to do.

Read quietly:

Consciously deepen appreciation of the glory of creation, its long story, the place of Divine Mystery in it, and humans’ dependence upon it.      Pray for the healing of creation.

Reduce all energy use.                        Transition to renewable energy sources.

Encourage institutions to invest in renewable energy and to divest from fossil fuels.

Drive less and/or reduce gas use by not exceeding 60 mph on the highways (and by other ways).

Avoid produce, meat, and poultry from factory farms.             Buy recycled products.

Reduce use of plastic. Carry water in a thermos (not bottled water).      Buy local.

Avoid genetically modified foods (GMOs).       Lobby for laws to protect habitats and species.

Include climate change and other Earth-care concerns when choosing legislators.

Join (or cooperate with) a group working to conserve, restore, and protect habitats and species.

Share on any one of these topics:

What are the most meaningful things we can do to co-create a better world?
What are your hopes for the Paris Climate Change Conference?
What kind of Earth “could be”?

Sending Forth:

Leader: Great Giver of Life, we come from, and we dwell in, the magnificent world in which you live and act. Our species is causing extinctions; our species can prevent them. Let us not be thwarted by the immensity of the challenge, for the Power working within us can do more than we could ask or imagine. May the flame of this candle continue burning in our hearts, reminding us to help “our sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.” (St. Francis) Send forth your Spirit and we shall be empowered.  All: And you will renew the face of the Earth. Amen.

Extinguish second candle.

Share a blessing of hope with one another. Celebrate possibilities!