World in Distress

Our world is in distress.  We have experienced unprecedented life-threatening high temperatures in the 100’s for days on end.   Droughts, fires and floods have resulted in unparalleled destruction and loss of lives.  Rivers, lakes and streams and oceans as well as lands and the air are all polluted.   We see a degradation of the food chain from overuse of antibiotics and chemicals.   This past year has brought a plague of deaths from a new virus and the flagrant rash of ‘recreational’ drug use.  Nations don’t know how to manage the onslaught of millions of refugees all over the globe fleeing drought devastated lands, tyrannical leaders and uncontrolled crime.  This is our world in the 21st century.  

 

Isaiah 24:4      The earth is mourning, withering,

                        the earth is pinning, withering,

                        the heavens are pining away with the earth.

                        The earth is defiled under its inhabitants’ feet,

                        for they have transgressed the law,

                        violated the precept,

                        broken the everlasting covenant.

                        So a curse consumes the earth

                        And its inhabitants suffer the penalty.

 

Those are words prophesized by Isaiah over three thousand years ago . . . and it tells of our world today.  Isaiah describes it as God’s wrath.  Each age describes reality in the terms that are available to their understanding.  The ancients believed God directly controlled everything.  Their idea of God was that of a harsh, demanding and controlling Deity—much in line with the rulers of the times.  So in prophesying a world disaster he attributed it as being the curse of God punishing humanity. 

 

God’s covenant to man was to shepherd the earth.  We were given control. 

Jesus introduced a new view of God, as the God of Love who desires and awaits mankind to choose ‘the good’.   Jesus did not demand and command, rather he demonstrated love with stories of kindness and lessons like the beatitudes, and he left it to his followers to choose to accept or reject.  In Deuteronomy, God’s words are reported as “I have set before you, life and death, blessings and curses.  Now choose life so that you and your children may live.”  Not a command or demand, but a choice.

 

As religions grew, particularly Judaism and Christianity, they were structured more in line with  the Old Testament God of wrath and control.  The New Testament view of God, is of a God of love as demonstrated by Jesus.  Religions do not clearly convey the difference.  

 

Since the mid-20^th century there has been a decline in religious participation as science showed us another side of existence and it seemed less likely that God was controlling what was happening on earth.  Many came to think that meant there wasn’t a God.  Materialism and consumerism grew, and God was left out of the equation.  That was the mistake!  It’s not that God isn’t, it that God gave humanity a directive, “I lay before you life and death, choose life.” God watches and waits for humanity to choose ‘the good’ that leads to life.

 

In today’s world most people recognize that God is not controlling our actions.  Humans were given consciousness and free will.  That means we are expected to see, think and choose the course of action.  Unfortunately we have not chosen to follow the laws laid out at the beginning of time ‘to shepherd the earth’, which means we were to guard and protect it;  instead we have chosen to exploit it for selfish ends.  We have been directed to ‘love one another’; instead we divide into camps of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and fight each other.  We are instructed to share and to care for the poor and needy, instead we accumulate for ourselves—and the world became lop-sided with one percent of the extremely wealthy holding as much wealth as the poorer half of the world.

 

The climate crisis is not ‘God’s wrath’ punishing us; it is the result of the careless abandoning of principles and laws of justice inherent in ‘choosing life’.  In the process we have broken God’s covenant to shepherd the earth.  It is not God’s wrath we are facing.  It is the result of our own choices; we have chosen for death—and we, the inhabitants, are suffering the penalty.  

 

We still have time to choose the other option.  But that requires us to recognize our One World and work together to save it from those selfish choices we have made that got us to this point.

 

                        

                     

                        

Awakening Our Humanity

For the first time ever, all services and rituals of Easter and Passover season were canceled—attention was focused on the crisis of the global coronavirus pandemic.  People sheltered in their homes, some watched virtual services on computers and TVs.      …...It felt empty.

We are embroiled in a world pandemic; thousands have died and more will follow.  This is a tragedy beyond reckoning . . . but history of the world shows that out of tragedy there often arises unexpected good.

I have seen signs of an awakening of our humanity.  People reaching out to help others: doctors and nurses volunteering to leave their homes and go to help where the need is greatest; first responders knowingly walking into danger; people in apartment buildings cheering together from their windows the efforts of those facing the danger; healthy people singing and dancing from a distance to cheer up their neighbors; children finding ways to raise money to help strangers; homebound folks making face masks to distribute to nursing homes and shelters; random groups distributing food to those financially challenged by job loss . . . These are people helping people, not for profit or personal gain but because there is a need.  Isn’t this what we are supposed to be about?

In our fast-paced competitive world we have over-valued the material side of life while under-valuing—often ignoring—the spiritual dimension of our reality.  The spiritual dimension is not substantive but ethereal (without weight or measure) . . . the consciousness that is present only in humanity: love, compassion, empathy, hope, dreams, ideas, creativity, inventiveness . . . qualities that define our uniqueness and the very essence of our humanity.

I’ve longed for some unexpected good to come from this tragedy and I see it in the kindness, compassion, and thoughtfulness that is daily emerging.  Perhaps we needed to be slowed down to allow it to shine forth.  This world-wide viral attack shows us the oneness of our small planet, what harms any part harms the whole.  Man made boundaries no longer apply in a world with international transportation and communication.  We are at the point in history which requires our acknowledgement of our One World—our survival depends on it.

A quote from Martin Luther King:  ‘We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

And from a book by Kathleen Duffy titled: Teilhard’s Struggle ‘An evolutionary worldview implies that the cosmos is still unfinished and that its future depends on Human activity . . . the advance of Humanity’s movement in the direction of spirit depends critically on Human endeavor’ . . . not fleeing the world to commune with God but plunging into the World at its deepest and most violent.

Humanity has a purpose--we are here to build a better world.

A Meaningful Life

What does it mean to have a meaningful life?  Teilhard de Chardin writes of ‘a true act’ and the ‘zest for life’.  A true act is something into which one invests his or her self, believing it to be of abiding value.  The ‘zest for life’ is the fundamental energy—an evolutionary pressure born with reflective awareness that drives humans to create.  All creativity fuels hope and move us toward meaning.  To create can be as simple as finding a new way to tackle an old task or as profound as composing a symphony. 

Meaning doesn’t come from the accumulation of wealth and it can’t be reached with a ‘me first’ attitude.  Many suicides and much of the drug use results from a loss of hope and the failure to find meaning in life.

How does one find meaning?  It begins with having an appreciation for what is here for us that we ourselves haven’t created—which is almost everything . . . from the world in which we live and the air we breathe, to the food we buy in the grocery store, to the music and stories we enjoy, to our fancy gadgets from cars to smart phones, to electric tooth brushes; someone else is responsible for it being there for our use.  Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you say is ‘Thank You’—it is enough.

A search for meaning requires a serious self-exploration asking ‘What truly matters to me?’  Some find their meaning easily but usually it is not readily obvious and takes work to realize requiring much thought, reading, meditation and moving out into the world, trying what is appealing but perhaps is scary and difficult.

The next requirement is to leave self-centeredness behind and begin to look for purpose beyond the self, asking ‘What out there matters to me and how does it affect those around me?’  That expands our awareness to taking others into consideration—from our family and their wants and needs, to friends, to strangers, to life and our world.  Some times in the search for meaning one finds support, but often there is opposition and that raises new questions: ‘How does their opinion effect me?’  ‘Can I stay true to what I seek without damaging others?’ ‘What in all this is truly important to me?’

That expansion allows one to begin to see that we are part of the flow of life in this One World and that One World is what it presently is by the choices and actions of all who came before us.  It is our turn now; we are making the choices and taking the actions that continue the flow of life that will go on beyond us.

As we awaken to meaning, we move out of our selfishness, to invest in something greater than ourselves.  We all need hope, and meaning provides the ground for hope.  To merely hope for a better world is not enough, it isn’t going to ‘just happen’—we must choose to make it happen, to hope and believe ‘I can add to the possibility of a better world.’  That is the beginning of a meaningful life.

Finding the answer to ‘What really matters to me?’ will be different for everyone.  For some it will be small and local such as making a good and loving home for my family.  Others desire a wider pursuit like giving expression in art, music or writing, and for still others, devotion to a worthy cause, but always it will be something beyond selfishness.

There is a deep satisfaction that comes of being able to identify what truly matters personally and pursuing it with devotion.  Life doesn’t become easier, it often opens the door to unexpected disappointments but if it be a ‘true act’, it gives hope and meaning that allows one to face whatever the challenges.

It is more than just an expression to say ‘it is in giving that we receive’; it is only in giving that we find our way to a meaningful life.