Brian McLaren shares his vision of a restored Earth where humans live equitably with the Earth, other humans, and the more-than-human world:
This is my dream, and perhaps it is your dream, and our dream, together: that in this time of turbulence when worlds are falling apart, all of us with willing hearts can come together … together with one another, poor and rich, whatever our race or gender, wherever we live, whatever our religion or education. I dream that some of us, maybe even enough of us, will come together not only in a circle of shared humanity, but in a sphere as big as the whole Earth, to rediscover ourselves as Earth’s multi-colored multi-cultured children, members of Team Earth.
I dream that the wisdom of Indigenous people, the wisdom of St. Francis and St. Clare and the Buddha and Jesus, the wisdom of climate scientists and ecologists and spiritual visionaries from all faiths could be welcomed into every heart. Then, we would look across this planet and see not economic resources, but our sacred relations … brother dolphin and sister humpback whale, swimming in our majestic indigo oceans, with sister gull and brother frigate bird soaring above them beneath the blue sky. We would see all land as holy land, and walk reverently in the presence of sister meadow and brother forest, feeling our kinship with brother bald eagle and sister box turtle, sister song sparrow and brother swallowtail butterfly, all our relations.
In my dream, the reverence we feel when we enter the most beautiful cathedral we would feel equally among mountains in autumn, beside marshes in spring, surrounded by snow-covered prairies in winter, and along meandering streams in summer. In my dream, even in our cities, we would look up in wonder at the sky, and a marriage between science and spirit would allow us to marvel at the sacredness of sunlight, the wonder of wind, the refreshment of rain, the rhythm of seasons. At each meal, we would feel deep connection to the fields and orchards and rivers and farms where our food was grown, and we would feel deep connection to the farmers and farmworkers whose hands tended soil so we could eat this day with gratitude and joy.
In my dream, our life-giving connection to each other and to the living Earth would be fundamental, central, and sacred … and everything else, from economies to governments to schools to religions … would be renegotiated to flow from that fundamental connection. In my dream, we would know God not as separate from creation, but as the living light and holy energy we encounter in and through creation: embodied, incarnated, in the current and flow of past, present, and future, known most intimately in the energy of love.
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John Chaffee; 5 For Friday
1.
“We are not the avatars we create. We are the light that shines through.”
- Jim Carrey, Canadian Actor and Comedian
Jim Carrey’s personal transformation from being the goofball we all loved, whose movies we all watched, into something of a philosopher-painter has been fascinating to follow. It is clear that in more recent years he has become a student of religion, spirituality, and consciousness and it has led him to be able to make such comments as is shown here.
Curiously, I wonder if he has come into contact with Thomas Merton’s teachings on the True Self and the False Self…
Merton taught that we all develop a False Self, a version of ourselves that is not quite evil but is a shadow or a fragment of our True Self. We put on this False persona because we believe it is the version of us that is most loveable and able to navigate the world.
In Jim’s vocabulary, it is our “avatar.”
The only solution to the False Self is the True Self. To give up the vain pursuit of impressing one another, ourselves, and even God. To be Truly Ourselves is the work of a lifetime and worth every effort to do sooner rather than later.
2.
“Tragedy and trauma are not guarantees for a transformational spiritual experience, but they are opportunities. They are invitations to sit in the fire and allow it to transfigure us.”
- From Caravan of No Despair by Miribai Starr
Miribai is a respected teacher of interfaith dialogue and spirituality. I had the good fortune to meet her several years ago and found her to be a humble and warm person to be around.
On the day that she released her translation of St. John of the Cross’s famous work, The Dark Night of the Soul, she lost her daughter, Jenny, in a car accident. The paradox/synchronicity/mystery of those two events happening on the same day is heart-ripping.
That said, she is most able to speak about tragedy and trauma and its potential transformational power.
3.
“In this world, with its modern ‘sickness unto death’, true spirituality will be the restoration of the love for life – that is to say, vitality. The full and unreserved ‘yes’ to life, and the full and unreserved love for the living are the first experiences of God’s Spirit, which is not for nothing called the fons vitae, ‘the well of life.’
If we wish to resist the cynical annihilation of what is alive in the world of human beings and nature, we must first of all resist in ourselves the tendency to grow accustomed to this annihilation…
The spirituality of life breaks through this inward numbness, the armour of our indifference, the barriers of our insensitivity to pain. It again breaks open ‘the well of life’ in us and among us, so that we can week again and laugh again and love again.”
- From The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation by Jurgen Moltmann
This coming Sunday is Pentecost, the day upon which the Holy Spirit descended on “πασαν σαρκα/pasan sarka (all flesh).” As a result, I found time this week to look back through my favorite book on the Holy Spirit… The Spirit of Life by Jurgen Moltmann, a former WWII POW and revolutionary theologian.
It is fair to say that Moltmann completely reframed how I understand the Holy Spirit, how it is a universal experience that transcends traditions, and how tightly interwoven it is with living life abundantly and overflowing with zest, joy, and vitality.
4.
“Joy and sorrow are this ocean
And in their every ebb and flow
Now the Lord a door has opened
That all Hell could never close
Here I’m tested and made worthy
Tossed about but lifted up
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God.”
- From The Love of God by Rich Mullins
I was driving in my Jeep this week and something brought up within me the phrase, “The love of God is a reckless raging fury.”
Of course, this meant I had to revisit Rich Mullins’ song that lyrically borrows from GK Chesterton.
The song itself reflects the time it was recorded, 1999, but its lyrics are timeless.
5.
“I swear to you, there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.”
- Walt Whitman, American Poet and Essayist
Human language will never fully name reality.
