Belonging to the Flow of Life

Series:  Long-Term Vision  #5

This series is titled long-term vision, but below the vision is thinking.  I want to consider long-term and short-term thinking. Short-term thinking serves the immediate, but only in long-term thinking is there room for vision and hope for the future. 

Let us take a closer look at thinking.  It is usually not something that is conscious (unless we choose to make it so) it is an operative principle below the surface guiding thought and action.  Long-term thinking (ltt) and short-term thinking (stt) are on the opposite ends of the spectrum of how we face life.  We need both and alternate between them—If we have an appointment on a given day we employ stt to fit the activities of the day around it. If we are buying a house it’s important to employ ltt to evaluate size in relation to family needs, consider location and proximity to what we find important, do an analysis of cost as it compares to income . . . and not react impulsively ‘because this one is cute’.  It is an individual choice to rely more on one side than the other but it seems like our fast paced society encourages stt more than ltt, the latter takes too long! 

How to explain stt and ltt? They are pretty much self-explanatory but to elaborate for better understanding let’s say: short-term thinking seeks quick, efficient solutions to immediate problems/demands/situations whereas long-term thinking looks ahead and back to take into account possible effects of our choice and remains open to possibilities not yet considered—which opens the door to vision. 

The ancient civilizations were imbued with long-term vision; their lives were shorter than people of today yet they were aware of a sense of belonging to history.  They built structures to last: Roman roads, aqueducts and the Colosseum are still there for us to see; Egyptians gave evidence to it with the pyramids; China’s great wall and the Terracotta soldiers were meant to last forever, they defy our understanding.

That awareness of belonging to the flow of life gives meaning to existence.  It has been lost in the modern era.  We became the NOW generation, members of a throw away society, ‘If it feels good do it’.  With too much short-term thinking and too little long-term thinking we’ve embraced meaninglessness.  Without a meaning or purpose it’s easy to choose violence or suicide.  

Step out of now for a minute and look back with long-term vision.  The human came into existence as an unfinished species with the inherent need to self-complete (its called evolution).     Going all the way back, Teilhard de Chardin defined the law of complexity-consciousness.  Briefly, it recognizes the path of evolution as a systematic progression.  The ‘without’ of life forms began with simple one-cell forms and over eons, constantly complexifying, till homosapien (human) appeared. Additionally, in the ‘within’, there was a steady progression of consciousness until thought was born in the human.  Eons are needed for the light of consciousness to fully realize our destiny and recognize our interdependence. If we go back far enough, we can see progress in mankind’s evolving consciousness; part of which is the search for ‘rightness’, exemplified by relinquishing what was once seen as the ‘norm’ but with new eyes seen as unacceptable—slavery being the most obvious example.

Early humans gathered in clusters that came to be known as tribes.  Then, in some unknown long ago, some brave individuals began to move beyond their tribe to walk the Silk Road in order to trade for exotic things found or created by other tribes . . . centuries passed, then ships sailed out defying the ‘known’ truth of a flat world wherein if they sailed too far, they’d drop off the edge.  They didn’t drop off, they discovered unknown places and the world got larger.  As exploring expanded a new generation followed rivers into the unknown, surveying and mapping; slashing through jungles and recording what was found and seen to bring new versions of the world we occupy. Over time technology grew to bring new ways to travel, the invention of cars to move us over land and planes to fly us thru the air—till finally, rockets broke free of earth’s gravity and floated out in space, allowing the astronauts to actually see planet earth for the first time, there it was!  A tiny speck in the vast universe enveloped in a layer of clouds embracing the life within. 

This world is one whole interacting unit supporting the rarity of life.  Once again our world had been rediscovered.  It is a global world.  And we, the reflective species that is programmed to see and appreciate the wonder, must rejoin the flow of life to find the way to assure its continuation  

Refining Understanding

Series:  Long-Term Vision  #4

Although I have more yet to say about long-term vision, I deviate slightly from my series today to address a Bible reference.  I have always felt uneasy with the phrase in the Lord’s prayer (the Our Father) which in the English translation is rendered as ‘lead us not into temptation’ and I must remind myself that any time phrases and sentences are translated there are alternate ways to word them.  The final line of Christianity’s most central prayer is, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”  It seems to suggest that it is God who controls life’s temptations, sends them to us then frees us from them . . . that would deny our freedom.  

I turn to the Letter of James 1:13 (Jerusalem translation), “Never when you have been tempted, say ‘God sent the temptation’; God cannot be tempted to do anything wrong, and he does not tempt anybody.  Everyone who is tempted is attracted and seduced by his own wrong desires.”

Why do I mention this? Because I believe it is important to realize that we humans are fallible and all that we know and understand has come through human interpretations.  That is the reality of how we progress, by continually refining the knowledge that is present to us.  It’s important to understand that faulty interpretations do not disqualify the essence—as in this prayer.  Another way to state that phrase might be: ‘guard us from temptation and protect us from evil.’  The essence of the prayer is more than a word or a phrase. 

Some people would be unset by the suggestion there is a better way to express that line from the Our Father . . . as if that is absolute and a sacrilege to suggest a change for it . . . yet we progress by refining what is known thus bringing better understanding.  Newton defined the force of gravity but Einstein’s genius changed how we understand it. –Newton wasn’t wrong; his understanding was just less complete. 

An important aspect of long-term thinking is to remain open to new understanding. 

The Royal Wedding

series:  Long-Term Vision  #3

If you watched the royal wedding on TV last week you heard Bishop Curry’s wonderful sermon on love. He made several references to Martin Luther King but he also quoted the contemporary theologian and mystic Teilhard de Chardin whose works are still unknown to the majority of people.  It is Teilhard’s writings that are the underpinnings of all that I write about—they are the fruit of long-term vision.  He was a paleontologist looking back at the earth’s beginning and ahead to its future trajectory of love’s realization by humanity. 

Bishop Curry ended his sermon with a paraphrase of the famous Teilhard quote: “Someday, after mastering the wind, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love and then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Look carefully at what those words are saying—for humans to have discovered how to capture and control the energy of fire provided us with the possibility of all the great inventions to follow.  Fire was not invented by man, but he discovered how to utilize it to his advantage . . . we cannot imagine our world without that discovery.

Teilhard and Bishop Curry are saying we have yet to discover the essence and energy of love.  The Bishop’s talk is titled ‘The Power of Love’ (go to Google or YouTube to find it).  We’ve romanticized and sentimentalized love, we have given its name to what isn’t love and we have failed to recognize its great power to change the world.

Love isn’t a human invention any more than fire is; love is of God and from God—but too often we treat it lightly, not recognizing its powerful potential.  At it core love is unselfish, sacrificial and redemptive. To choose to accept it and live it requires courage, selfless sacrifice, and long-term vision.

God awaits humanity collectively to live by love and that will take eons of time, as one by one we individually awakens to the true nature of it, live it and by our example pass it on.  As Teilhard said . . . if we harness for God the energy of love, for the second time we would have discovered fire . . . only with love can we change the world. 

What is Long-Term Vision?

series: Long-Term Vision #2

What is long-term vision? It is seeing beyond just now.  It is looking back with appreciation for the creative inventiveness that brought all we have into being—from the utensils we eat with to the automobiles that transport us.  And it is looking ahead to what can be—a world of peaceful unity where all people are respected.  To that end, it is asking ourselves ‘what can I do today to make this day a gift of love?’ It is an attitude toward what life is about . . . being a part of the human race which is moving toward some unseen unknown destiny with hopeful anticipation . . . it is awareness of belonging to something beyond self.

We are part of God’s great experiment to bring forth a species with reflective awareness having the freedom to make of this world whatever we choose for it to be.

My book The Stations*is of the spiritual journey of an artist; on page 204 he says to the nun who is his spiritual director:  “Regardless of whether on not there is ‘a God out there’, all that is good and desirable is contained in the idea of God.  The world’s wisdom literature tells of how we can be . . . must be in order to survive.  As intelligent beings we have reflective awareness and the freedom to choose to make life anything we collectively want it to be.  We have made it a hell through selfishness—failing to see beyond our immediate wants. 

“Peter once said ‘if God didn’t exist we’d have to invent him’.   For the most part, we live life using only short-term vision geared to what we personally want at a given time.  We can learn to develop long-term vision and see that everything in life is interconnected to everything else and there is no such thing as singular acts in isolation. What each does effects others and our accumulated acts of selfishness finally create a living hell.  If we hold to the idea of God—the goodness and love and totality that a God represents—we can create a better world and save ourselves from our selfishness.  Only the idea of a God is big enough to embrace it all. So even when I can’t affirm that a God exists out there somewhere, I keep knowing that only God—or the idea of a God—can transform this hell into a better world.  Maybe acting as though we believe in God—even if we don’t accept an ‘out there’ reality—will call God into being.”

Just as we have advanced technologically, intellectually, scientifically and medically, when we look carefully we can see progress in our ability to advance toward rightness.  To accomplish that requires long-term vision.

                                                                                                    *The Stations by B. Sabonis-Chafee
                                                                                                     available on Amazon books

Seeking Rightness

series:  Long-Term Vision #1

So many people have dismissed God as irrelevant, and the violence and immorality in our world increases almost daily. We’ve become complacent about greed and graft and developed an addiction to violence in our films, TV and video games . . . no God and a diet of violence . . . how is there not an awareness of a correlation? Psychology tells us that what we are exposed to regularly becomes a lived part of our consciousness and invades our unconscious, defining who and what we are.

In my youth there were not mass shootings or angry people driving vehicles into crowds of pedestrians—now it happens on a regular basis.  Graft and corruption in government was believed to be what happened in ‘uncivilized’ countries—now it is everywhere.

It used to be that awareness of God and goodness was regularly called to mind so God was in the forefront of our thinking, but it was mixed too much with rules and regulations of specific religious imperatives that emphasized sin and death.  We have so misunderstood and mis-explained God that many people came to dismiss all consideration of God.  It was our interpretation of God, not God that was wrong. The fact is we need a concept of goodness and rightness to define for us who and what we can be.

I cannot understand who or what is that life force which we call ‘God’ but I know God IS and wish to call the life-force something; I would call it ‘Thou’ because I know it has a presence but no material form.  It is not a ‘he’; it is in no way vengeful.  It is the source of all good and is somehow present in all creation; it is sometimes named as 'Love', 'Truth', ‘Consciousness’,  . . . qualities which Thou has shared with us; we posses consciousness, seek truth and are capable of love. 

In humanity there is a seeking for rightness, which can be countered because we also have free will. Morality is inherent in humans; it may be ignored and/or denied, may be distorted and even badly twisted, but our consciousness brings with it the desire for ‘rightness’ (Love, Truth, Mercy, Justice, Compassion) and that is the nature of God.  Unless the Will is distorted by that which is evil, we long for indestructible rightness.

I quote from The New Cosmic Story by John Haught: “Rightness . . . does not come cheaply and hence cannot be taken for granted.  It cannot be owned but only anticipated.  Its full reception requires not only patient waiting but also thankful appreciation . . . to an eternally generous and resourceful ‘Thou’.”

As a species we are not yet ‘finished’.  The patient waiting he refers to is our recognizing the long evolutionary struggle that ultimately brought forth our planet, then life, and then humanity.  The next evolutionary step is our struggle to bring forth the longed for indistructable rightness. 

Thoughts About Prayer

I want to say something about prayer.  Do we understand what prayer is? I can’t believe that God of the Universe wants or needs certain formula prayers in endless repetition—prayer is for our benefit, to keep us focused on what is right and good, reminding us that God is there for us.  When formula prayer seems to not work for us we may think we’ve lost the ability to pray—but prayer is so much more, it is entering the spirit of God: to offer to help someone in need is prayer, to wish others well even if they are unkind to you is prayer, to put effort into doing something well is prayer, to marvel at a sunset is prayer.   Prayer should be a sign of gratitude.  I believe it was Meister Eckhart who said, “If the only prayer you ever say is ‘Thank you’, it is enough.”

I’ve chosen a brief passage from my book The Stations * that addresses prayer. 

The artist says to his dear friend, “It worries me that I can’t pray”

Mother Abara gestures toward the studio, “Oh but you are mistaken, you are a master at prayer.”

“Yes, I carve stone into Stations of the Cross, . . . but me personally, in my quiet moments alone with myself I can’t pray.”

“What is missing is an experience of consolation, not your ability to pray. What do you think prayer is?”

He thought for several moments, “I guess I don’t actually know.  I think of the Psalms—those are magnificent prayers.”

“Yes, they are beautiful—but they represent one kind of prayer.  As children we are taught to ‘say our prayers’, so we come to think prayer is ‘saying words that please God’—and we think there are certain formulas that do the job better than others.  When our formulas stop working, or when we cease to make a connection between the formulas and our inner world, we think we’ve lost the ability to pray.  Our mistake isn’t in our praying, it is in interpreting—we have ‘failed to put an end to childish ways’.”

“ I hear what you are saying, Mother Abara, but I miss your meaning.”

“ Prayer is giving praise and worship to God, not in invoking magic formulas.  For many people, saying formulas helps them reach praise and worship, but others do it differently . . . To bask in the wonder of creation, to sing for the joy of the song, to reflect deeply and bring forth new understanding . . . those are ways of praising God. You’ve said yourself, as have the Psalmists, God is beyond our understanding so to appreciate the wonder without demanding that it fit our preconceived notions is to pray.”

. . .

“The form of prayer that is most your own is when you give form to the stone.  That helps others connect to the awe and wonder of life’s meaning.  Every moment of that work—including the struggle to know what to put into the work before a single line is drawn—is your prayer.  Stop thinking that saying words or experiencing the wonder is the only way.  That is the childish thinking you must bring to an end.  Recognize that the prayer you pray is in a different form.”

                                                                                                                              * Available at Amazon

The Modern Era

A few days ago I wrote here about the 1^st Axial Age, the name given to the time in history when humanity made a major leap ahead, a change in consciousness that brought scattered humanity—each in unique ways—to lay the foundations for civilization that still serve us today.

The modern era necessitates another axial change wherein humanity comes to embrace a new consciousness of what and who we are.  We’ve seen ourselves from outer space—earth as one small interconnected interacting unit.   We must come to realize that what happens to one part effects the whole.  We can no longer choose war; we are One world threatened with self-destruction. 

We were given a planet in which to create a world according to our choice.  Little by little, with glory and strife, we came together to become a global world; we have yet to realize our oneness.  May we in our lifetime experience humanity's rise in consciousness.

                                                                          - - -

        

 I repeat an earlier poem from my blog of 10/15/13

POTENTIAL

I believe in human potential--

     Man can be more than he is

     if armed with the will to become.

I see the inherent dangers--

     Power can either create or destroy

     so knowledge of it awakens fear.

I know of quantitative quality--

     That which can be expressed positively

     can likewise be expressed negatively.

     I look to civilization’s development

          - the taming of fire

          - the mastery of communication

          - the understanding of order

          - the creation of beauty

          - the invention of systems

          - the development of industry

          - the perfection of technology

     Laced with wars, tyranny, slavery, holocaust, bigotry, treason, genocide...

     This is my heritage, my lineage, my ancestry;

     It all came before me and is mine because I am!

     This awareness engenders painful ambivalence;

     Majesty and pride joust with horror and shame.

     All this is because of human potential;

     Our being has changed the face of the earth.

     Man has traveled to the moon

     And he has created Auschwitz and Dachau.

               Are we gods or demons?

     The more we refine our being

     the more aware we become of its flaws.

     Ignorance once hid from us our vast potential;

     Yet once glimpsed, that image holds the mind in bondage.

     Reality forces us to live with the less that is

     while desperately longing for the more beyond reach.

Now, together, we are called to create a better world--      

     The negatives are painfully real

     but somewhere, somehow, progress happens.

Truth demands we acknowledge our potential's full range

     without abnegating the responsibility;

     --each person's choices help shape the future.