Study on Creation Spirituality at The Land: Part Two

I've recently found a faith community called The Land,  a Methodist-based outdoor church dedicated to social justice and the Earth.

I have been leading the morning study using Matthew Fox's book Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth. I am sharing the class curriculum plus a few notes here. Read class one here.

Here is class two.

Creation Spirituality at The Land, Class Two

In the beginning was the gift.

…All shall be called children of the gift,

Sons and daughters of grace,

For all generations. (from pages 1, 4 of Creation Spirituality by Matthew Fox)

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)

Essential question: How would we behave differently if we regarded life and the Earth as a gift? Why don’t we?

Definitions:

Mystic: One who responds with joy and awe to the Universe, who finds God through and in all things – not pantheistic but panentheistic. One who sees the Christ in all and seeks to awaken the Christ in themselves. 

Part of the reason mysticism is seen as "crazy" in Western mainstream society is that we have what is known in psychology as an intensity tolerance. Our culture often scorns a sense of wonder. It's just "too much."

Panentheism: We are in God, and God is in us.

Theologically, God is understood to be both “transcendent” and “immanent”—transcendent, meaning above and beyond all that is, but also immanent, meaning “indwelling” or abiding within and pervading all of creation. Some people may feel uneasy about thinking of God as being present in all creation. However, such an awareness of God’s presence is not to be confused with “pantheism”—the worship of natural items or entities as God, or gods. Another term that some have used in recent years to help make that distinction, is “pan-en-theism,” an understanding that God is in (“en”) all that is, as well as above and beyond all that is. God’s indwelling love and grace inspires and calls forth what we might think of as the “hymn of all creation.” (from “Awakening to God’s Call to Earthkeeping,” session 2)

Cosmic Christ: The archetype of Christ – God’s love, the Christ in all – found in all of Creation. The sense that the Universe is an expression of the Christ. The Christ was present in the Universe before the Big Bang, and was expressed through Jesus.

We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning God had meant us to live it.”–Ephesians 2:10 (92 of CC) (for other translations, see https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Ephesians%202:10)

He is the image of the unseen God, and the firstborn of all Creation. In Christ were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and invisible… before anything was created, Christ existed, and Christ holds all things in unity. – Col. 1:15-17   

“a pattern that connects.” – subatomic particles…..

Prophet: the prophet is the mystic in action – they struggle with inertia and injustice. They act, teach, bring their compassion into the world.

The Four Paths (to God, to awakening)

Via Positiva – awe, falling in love

Via Negativa – darkness, suffering, letting go – Dark Night of the Soul

Via Creativa – joyful co-creation with God

Via Tranformativa – justice and action as praise, compassion

“An impoverishment of the soul exists within ‘First World’ countries: the means for a just existence are within our grasp, but our wills, our social structures, and our imagination have yet proven adequate for that struggle.” – xiii

What does a just existence look like? Why do we struggle to create that for all? What can we do individually or as a community to promote that?

“We cannot have authentic human justice without engaging equally in the struggle for justice toward our home, the planet earth. There is no need to choose… we are too interdependent for that.” (35)

“Compassion is the working out of our interconnectedness; it is the [action taking, practice of] our interconnectedness.” (36)

-         What about when the wolf eats the deer? Is that compassionate? What about when we extend that argument to humans? (timescale – the deer is the mountain)

People will not say, ‘Look, God’s kingdom is here!’ or, ‘There it is!’ No, God’s kingdom is within you.” – Luke 17:21

If the kingdom of God, or the Cosmic Christ, is within us, and we are within it, and all things are held in unity through Christ – not because we believe or “accept” anything but because it is just SO – and all things are interdependent, then God’s Kingdom is all of Creation, including us, the land, the geese, the beetles, the snakes, etc. How does or could this inspire our choices, our actions?

Closing scripture:

For what can be known about God is plain to [humanity], because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. --Romans 1:19-20

Step One to Responding to Climate Change is to Learn What is Really Going On

"We need the deniers to get out of the way. They are risking everyone's future.... The Koch Brothers are criminals.... They should be charged with criminal activity because they're putting the profits of their business ahead of the livelihoods of millions of people, and even life on earth." - Jason Box, in "When the End of Human Civilization is Your Day Job," Esquire


Read the above article. If you're reading my blog, you probably already know that Climate Change, aka Global Warming, is a real thing. You may have posted similar articles on Facebook, and gotten "likes" from other people who also get that it's real, and snarky comments from your two friends who think it's just liberal hogwash. But you know it's not just real, it's here, now, and it's speeding up.

You probably feel a sense of dread and hopelessness, because you also know that there is no way to "go back" to where we were, to a not totally destabilized planet. You just hope that grassroots organizations can do enough to help us deal with the changes underway, providing solutions like floating houses run by solar energy for the billions of people displaced by rising seas. You sense that governments aren't going to do enough.

You know why they aren't? Because they are in too deep in the bullshit of running the world.

I'm reading Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen. One thing Loewen returns to repeatedly, an invisible theme of public school history education, is that the mythologies of our nation holds more credence than actual fact, especially if that fact flies in the face of said mythology. One of the United State's sacred mythologies is that our nation is a peace-keeping good guy that steps in like a kind big brother to fix the world's ills. The fact is, however, that "the United States now spends more on its armed forces than all other nations combined and has them stationed in 144 different countries," (222) and while many of these stations are in the name of "peace keeping," much of them are actually in support of the financial growth of multinational corporations like ITT and Monsanto. Some of these multinationals have budgets larger than those of most governments. And if those companies want something from foreign soil, our federal government is more than happy to step in and push things around until they get what they want. Like deposing Prime Minister Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, bringing down the elected government of Guatemala in 1954, rigging the 1957 election in Lebanon, repeated attempts to kill Fidel Castro, and I'm sure many other and more recent (in the book he gives these older examples to make sure textbooks had time to include them) examples of ways the US takes over other countries in the interest of economic gain.

A huge part of this economically-motivated international bullying is, of course, about oil. "In Equatorial Guinea, for example, oil companies pay millions of dollars to the regime's leaders for the privilege of taking the country's oil... [T]hey pay royalties of only about 10 percent for taking Equatorial Guinea's oil -- far less than they would pay in a justly run nation." (225) While oil companies and the federal government are paying "far less than they would," however, they are paying insane amounts of money to extract oil around the world. In the article "The New Abolitionism," Christopher Hayes writes,

Fossil fuel extraction is one of the most capital-intensive industries in the world. While it is immensely, unfathomably profitable, it requires ungodly amounts of money to dig and drill the earth, money to pump and refine and transport the fuel so that it can go from the fossilized plant matter thousands of feet beneath the earth’s surface into your Honda. And that constant need for billions of new dollars in investment capital is the industry’s Achilles’ heel.

 He doesn't mention to cost spent on the armed forces used to occupy the countries we get oil from.

So here is where I suggest we put our efforts in attempts to slow Climate Change (in addition to efforts to mediate its effects on us humans, like the floating houses and local, organic farming): Pull out of other countries. Stop spending money on creating corrupt governments. Stop spending money on digging, drilling, and surveying for oil. Put those billions of dollars into expanding renewable energy, building renewable energy sources in other countries (that actually would be a Good Guy move), and reducing poverty at home and abroad. Not because we want to control other countries but because we humans are in this together and its the right thing to do.

Naive? Simplistic? Probably. But also our only real chance for our grandchildren and children to not go extinct, and it's our imperative as members of a sacred and dynamic earth.

Screen Time and Nature Play: Both Together Will Save the World

You have no doubt read that kids these days spend too much time on screens, and too little time outdoors. Articles and books arguing the evils of screen time quote studies linking screen time to obesity and diabetes as well as depression and lack of vitamin D (which can lead to cancer).

Then there are the equally compelling articles and blogs that posit that playing computer games is actually really good for our children. They learn hand-eye coordination, three-dimensional design, problem solving, and even social skills. They are exposed to math concepts, story arcs, and consequences. 

Which perspective is to be believed? I think it's both. Kids benefit greatly from screen time, and they need to also spend lots of quality time in nature. 

I suspect that the problems of screen time arise not from the computer or TV itself, but from circumstances outside the screen bubble, like poor nutrition and lack of attention from caregivers. I also sense that the debate - too much screen time? too little nature time? too much testing? - about what kids should really be doing with their time has more to do with our adult compulsion to control things than about kids themselves. The fact is, we cannot control the future. Sure, we can give our kids good nutrition, and that will give them a huge leg up in future health. We can make sure they learn to read, speak clearly and assertively, and perform math skills so that they can  follow whatever field they wish. But we don't know what jobs will exist in the future. We don't know what discoveries and experiences they will have that will lead them into a certain field. We also don't know what the changing planet will mean for them, although we have some ideas.

Climate change is here, as evidenced by crazy weather, acidifying seas, and melting ice caps. Because we refuse to turn off the CO2 machine, it's only going to get worse (and in fact, even turning off the machine wouldn't help for 100s of years, as we've already crossed the threshold of CO2 levels in the atmosphere). This is one reason why it is imperative that kids get to know the natural world. "If sustainability depends on transforming the human relationship with nature, the present day gap between kids and nature emerges as one of the greatest and most overlooked crises of our time, threatening people and countless other species. Helping children fall in love with nature deserves to be a top national priority, on par with reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preserving species and wild places," writes Scott Sampson in How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature. 

But, consider the skills a child learns while exploring biomes in Minecraft, building houses and fighting zombies. She learns, in short, to craft and defend a world. She learns to keep trying when she is doomed. She learns to ask questions about how to solve problems, and learns how to find answers to those questions. These skills will help our children save our warming planet or learn to adapt to it just as much as a love of nature will. 

So I encourage parents, educators, and policy makers to stop arguing about the evils of screen time and whining about how little time kids get outside, and seek a powerful balance. Take kids outside. Let them use the same skills they so love in video games as they explore, question, and discover. Give them time to fall in love with nature. Then encourage them to do the same on a computer. What they create will go beyond anything we as adults could try to craft or force through their carefully controlled educations.

I believe it will be young people who love nature and are really skilled at well-created video games who will create technologies, policies, and plans that will bring our species into the next phase of human life on Earth, one that responds to the changing planet in a positive way. We can support them in this by bringing them outside and supporting their love of technology. It isn't an either/or situation, it's both-and. Nature and technology, engineering and love.

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For more ideas on natural parenting, 

check out my book! 

Zen & the Path of Mindful Parenting by Clea Danaan

Humiliation and Environmenta Living

Why Green Living is so Hard
 
I read today on Maria's Farm Kitchen blog that conventional toothpastes contain plastic microbeads for scrubbing that do not biodegrade (of course) and will get washed down the drain and into the water system, eventually finding their way into the ocean. In a quick succession of thoughts, it occurred to me that the biggest stumbling block to our species living in harmony with the earth and creating an environmentally compatible society is not our fear of change. It is not the difficulty of changing our habits. The biggest challenge in humanity's changing course for greener waters is two fold:

1. We have been sold a seriously long line of crap based on bullshit that we have to realize is bullshit and realize is crap in order to change.
2. Admitting that we have been duped is humiliating. And for humans, humiliation is worse than death.

The Rat Race

First, regarding the bullshit. Our society believes that life is about achieving prestige, leisure, and stuff. It starts by seeking security, and then the idea of security gets bigger and bigger and harder to achieve. I will really feel secure when I own my home, have savings and investments, and a college savings plan for my kids. No, I will only feel truly secure and can then relax when I own a mansion and a yacht. As you know, it's endless. We do need to feel secure, but we've been sold a line by others trying to feel secure that the only way to do so is to buy their investments, stuff, and lifestyle. Then when I am secure, others will look at me and wish they could live like me - prestige. We can all sit on my gorgeous, expensive deck furniture and feel secure. Leisure. Stuff.

Not that there is anything wrong with college savings, deck furniture, leisure, or security - but these do not equal the most important things in life. And usually, they don't leave us feeling secure or leisurely. We instead feel afraid of losing what we have built. We feel afraid that we are not keeping up with the latest styles, and will lose that prestige. We feel afraid, constantly, that we are no doing or being enough.


Hello Madison Avenue

Second, the line of crap. Marketing and the media tell us constantly from every angle that in order to get those most important achievements (prestige, leisure, and the best stuff), in order to be enough, we have to
a) buy the right stuff and b) look the right way. Toothpaste with whiteners so that our teeth look straight and white. Skinny jeans. Low cal whatever. Diamonds and gold. The prettiest car. The latest gadgets. The nicest smelling detergents, perfumes, lotions, and shampoos. Lipstick and eyeliner. 3000 square feet house with giant television and a private bathroom for every person in the house.

We've been sold these assumptions - that we are not enough, that we need to be wealthy and have the latest coolest stuff, and that buying more things, changing our bodies and our lifestyles and our homes to be better, is the only way to go. That this lifestyle is in fact the only way to feel okay, be okay, be alive. These assumptions get all tied up with goodness, self worth, morality, and education. And many of these practices that are run by these assumptions are really, really bad for the planet.


Poly-tetra-what?

The garbage, plastic, pollution, toxins and burned fossil fuels that goes into feeding these assumptions are mind boggling. Microbeads to whiten teeth and smooth skin. Fungicides and herbicides and pesticides to give us shiny apples and oranges at any time of year. Toxins in cotton and massive mounts of water (and cheap labor) to bring us the latest t-shirt. Polytetrafluoroethylene, which kills birds and sickens human, for convenient, shiny non-stick pans. And the fossil fuels for each of these and the trillions of other non-crucial items? Stunning to contemplate.

So we don't contemplate these things. It's too depressing, too disempowering, and, frankly, too humiliating to do so.


Desperate to Avoid Humiliation

Studies show that we humans fear humiliation over just about everything else. We do whatever we can to avoid it. Humiliation means potential ostracizing. This fear goes back to our most basic roots of selfhood and humanity. And it is the opposite of prestige, leisure, and the best stuff.

So to admit that we spend all this time and energy chasing after the craziness we have been sold as how-life-should-be is doubly humiliating. We were duped, and when you take away these basic values (prestige, money, stuff), we are left with our basic animalness, and that can also be humiliating. We are left comparing ourselves to poor people in slums in India, and our greed and stupidity s horribly humiliating. So we just don't go there. Life as usual is much more comfortable.

But until we are able to admit these things and change course for what really matters - human rights, compassion for all life, creative expression, the precious Earth - we will not be able to step off the crazy mobile of microbeads and polytetrafluoroethylene. And that right there is the biggest challenge for living an ecologically sound life on our planet.

Have you ever had to apologize to someone in a situation where you really screwed up? It's humiliating. Your heart pounds, your hands sweat, you want to run away. But you know you can't. And then, when you've apologized and the other party has accepted and you make up, you feel so much better. The guilt and fear are gone. And all there is to do is go forward, carrying what you learned. As a society, that's what we need to do. Admit we've been wrong. Learn from our mistakes. Move forward with new understanding.

I do believe this is possible. I think social networking, green living, and our growing sense of global social justice are together pushing many of us towards this realization, acceptance, and changes in living. But it has to happen on a really huge, societal level. I believe anything is possible...

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For ways to live in harmony with the living earth,
check out my book Living Earth Devotional by Clea Danaan

I just watched PBS's Secrets Beneath the Ice, a report of research in Antarctica examining what our world will look like when the planet's temperature rises the predicted five degrees over the next hundred years. Scientists are finding strong evidence that sea levels will rise in the neighborhood of sixty feet as the ice shelves of  Antarctica and their sister glaciers melt. Which means our coastal cities will be partially submerged. It means the salinity of the sea will change drastically. The higher temperatures will also mean changes in vegetation, summer temperatures, and other habitat changes.

Global Warming is real, but still unpredictable. We don't know for sure what is going to happen. And since it's probably totally out of our control (if we were to stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere the temperatures will still rise at this point) and we fear what we can't control, we just act like it isn't happening. But it is. And it will change the face of the earth in my children's lifetime.

Climate change is not a new topic for me. Trying to live in a way that mitigates its effects, like riding my bike and turning off the lights and hanging clothes out to dry, are not new behaviors. They feel neither wholly effective nor foolish, just part of being a responsible human being. But after watching this documentary (having also recently read most of The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery) I'm left with two unanswered questions: What does global change mean to me as I try to live a meaningful life? And what does it mean in terms of how I raise my children?

If rising sea levels is a given, for instance, what do I want to do with my life? What gifts and tools do I want my children to have given that this world now and the world to come in their lifetimes will be totally different than the world throughout human history? Surely the basics remain the same: love, compassion, understanding of interconnections, responsibility. But do those basics change in the face of a different planet? If, for instance, the world is as warm as it was during the age of dinosaurs yet contains nearly nine billion people, how will that change the way humans live? How can I raise my children to be wise, loving, calm, yet prepared?

I don't know. No conclusions. Just thoughts and questions. I'm curious what you think.

Who Will Pay for Environmental Clean-Up?

I'm reeling a little thinking about environmental ethics.

There is a company, Abtech Industries, that has created a Smart Sponge that cleans up oil and bacteria into a stable state that can then be recycled or burned to create electricity. How cool is that?!

The technology is NOT being used to clean up the gulf oil spill or pollution in Puget Sound (where the orcas are the most toxic marine mammals on earth) or anywhere but the test sites (as far as I know) in California, Connecticut, and North Carolina. See the pdf with more info here.

Why not, you ask? Because no one can figure out how to pay for it - or WHO should pay for it. Alabama ABC news said, "BP hasn't placed any orders." See the videos (which are several months old) here under Abtech Videos. I don't know if further talks in order, but it brings up a huge question for me.

If we humans possess the technologies to fix our environmental crisis, solutions like the Smart Sponge, solar panels and hydrogen cars, but we won't implement them because we're looking at the bottom line, at money, then where does that leave us? Pretty screwed, I think.

Obviously it takes money to manufacture sponges and cars and solar panels, and money to implement them. But it takes money to fight wars, too. It takes money to do anything. So why are we not spending it on healing and cleaning up pollution and preventing our children's cancers and saving wildlife?

Who will pay for it all? And what is stopping them?

The Energy of the Gulf Oil Spill

As massive amounts of oil glug into the Gulf of Mexico, poisoning the water, beaches, and wildlife refuges, we all float on a sea of questions: Can it be fixed? What is going to happen? How can we help? At my house we don't have a television, so I'm having to search for my news about the spill. I'm caught between wanting to put my head in the sand and know as little as possible, and wanting to devote several hours teasing out "the truth." What I have heard tells me that BP and Halliburton are pretty much at fault and are pretending nothing has happened, and that nobody really knows what to do. I have also heard speculation that when this 100 million barrels of oil gets picked up by the Gulf Stream, life as we know it along the US eastern seaboard and western Europe will be irrevocably altered. In some very awful ways. And then there is the hurricane season approaching us, wherein sea water from the gulf is picked up, churned, and dumped inland. Scary.

I try very hard to be an optimist, at least in my musings (I'm a total cynic in many ways, and maybe that's why I write inspirational spiritual stuff - it is said that we write what we most need to read). So I want very much not to get sucked into the End Time discussion of the oil spill. Or the island of garbage in the sea, overwhelming oil issues in Nigeria, civil war in east Africa, etc etc. The only thing I know to do, given that I am not a scientist or a lawmaker or a billionaire, is to try to understand on an energetic level what is going on. It helps me to have an idea of the bigger picture. Then I can choose to ride my bike, send money to a cause, or take other "small" actions and know how they fit into the big picture. I can't read enough articles to really know the big picture in manifest reality, but I can get a feel for the big energetic picture.

So here it is, at least as I sense it. When I feel into the Gulf of Mexico, I get a choked feeling, a poisonous, hot, thick feeling. Like I can't breathe. I see the constant motion of the water, of the oceans all connected, wrapping the planet. I see the life forms in the sea that live near volcanic vents that live in conditions totally poisonous to us, and I know that we may cause mass extinctions but that life will go on.

But also I see an opportunity. I feel that the energy of the oil spill, like many other disasters, is an invitation for us to work together and rise to the cause. To use together the technologies we have developed to stop the spill, to change our lives, to heal. I see an image like a large group of people and animals and non-corporeal energies gathered together, working as one, raising all to a higher level of consciousness and interrelatedness. To do this, we must be positive. We must think integrally, stepping outside of old boundaries. We have to let go of attachment to the bottom line and to usual ways of being. We can do this. We must.

So what can you and I do? Here are some concrete ideas on National Wildlife Federation's website. And the International Bird Rescue Research Center. Here are some more organizations to check out, too.

You can pray. Do ritual sending Reiki or other healing energy to the planet and the ocean and the beaches. Hold circles to raise the energy on the planet. Learn to transmute poisons by reading Sandra Ingerman's Medicine for the Earth.

You can do your part to shift the global paradigm by living as green as you can. Garden. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Ride your bike or walk. Help others to do the same - not by preaching, but just by supporting and teaching. Every bit matters.

The Earth is hemorrhaging oil. We need a tourniquet and some very big bandages. We need to stop stabbing her. We need to help her heal.

Global Warming, Reindeer Herders, and Past Lives

I just read a short article and slide show about how climate change is affecting reindeer habitat and traditional Sami way of life. The article leaves me sad, determined, and also strangely spooked. I am looking in a mirror and seeing a face from long long ago.

I realized several years ago that I am likely descendant from the Sami, the semi-nomadic peoples of Norway, Finland and Sweden. My grandmother on my father's side was full Norwegian, and though she died when I was a baby, I've always felt very connected to her. We look alike: dark hair, olive skin, brown eyes. Not your "typical" Scandinavian. When I saw a picture of contemporary Sami people, I knew they were my people, my grandmother's people. I have often been asked if I have Native American blood - I do not. But probably Native Scandinavian. I do not know for sure because I cannot trace my Norwegian ancestors much before emigration. The contemporary Lindemarks (the family name before they came to the states) have no record of my great-great-great grandparents. I think they must have been farmhands who took the name.

Then a year or so ago an astrologer told me my Sagittarius rising gave me "gypsy" leanings. It's true I have never lived in one place for more than four years. Ever. In each house, I tend the land, build a garden, trim the fruit trees, and then move on. Perhaps some of this comes from my nomadic blood.

Either in a past life or in my DNA (or both), I roamed the northern lands tending reindeer. Today I write to save the earth, to inspire people to live in integrity with the land, and the Sami way of life is threatened. I feel great loops of time and love and ancient wisdom.

We are all one as we journey to evolve on a sacred planet.

To read the article and see the photos, click here.

Gardening Halts Global Warming

Growing locally and in tune with the local seasons and climate (by not growing hothouse tomatoes in December, for instance) can reduce greenhouse gases. You really can make the world a better place by gardening!

First, growing your own food vastly reduces the amount of greenhouse gases produced for large-scale agriculture, food storage and distribution, and packaging. Buying locally from nearby farmers, or sharing with friends also reduces your carbon footprint, or the amount of carbon gases released into the atmosphere from activities that support your daily life.

Second, organic gardening can help reduce and even reverse the negative affects of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere by collecting and retaining carbon in organic soil. The Rodale Institute determined after a twenty-three year-long study that organic soils help retain carbon, reducing and even reversing the overabundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. [Sullivan, Dan. “Organic Gardens Help Fight Global Warming.” Organic Gardening. Jan/Feb 2004, 51(1)]

The UN estimated that in order to stabilize the climate at the current levels of warming (the planet has already heated a degree or more in the last decade from greenhouse gases), we would need to immediately reduce our fossil fuel use by sixty percent. [McKibben, Bill. Maybe One: A Case for Smaller Families. New York: Plume Books, 1999.]

If every neighborhood had a community garden, and we grew at least some of our food in our own backyards using organic principles, we could go a long way towards this goal. Yes - industry needs to change. Yes - we need to drive less and ride our bikes more. But we can begin to do that literally in our own back yards by planting the seeds ourselves.









For more on how gardening can change the world, check out my book Sacred Land. (Thanks!)