ecology

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A Bridge to Somewhere

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The late Senator Ted (the Internet is a "series of tubes") Stevens once tried to push a bill through Congress that would have built a $398 million bridge in his home state of Alaska between the towns of Ketchikan (population 14,000) and Gravina Island (population 50) because the existing ferry service was considered inadequate. It became known as "The Bridge to Nowhere". Recently I listened to an Easter sermon by Dr. Jim Rigby in which he said that the Easter resurrection story only makes sense when we see ourselves as an evolutionary bridge between the life that came before us and the life that will come after and through us. In other words, the deeper message of Easter is that we are an evolutionary "bridge to somewhere".

A bridge is not the destination. My life goes into a tailspin faster than Herman Cain's presidential campaign when I forget this truth: The unfolding story of the universe is not about me. It is about the universe, about Life itself. If my molecules, my kindness, my work, my relationships in this brief lifetime bless some form of life beyond myself, then my body is, in a very real sense, resurrected.

A central failing of American Christianity (and of most spiritual practice in this country) is that we don't care very deeply about anyone or anything beyond ourselves. We talk about heaven and the afterlife but show little concern for those going through hell here and now. We get our inner bliss on by meditating, aligning chakras, and pretzeling our bodies like yogis until we become oblivious to the pain in dilapidated apartment complexes across town. We worship superstar spiritual teachers but lack the humility to learn from a wise African-American cleaning woman we see every day. Such a religion/spirituality will always be characterized by fearful, narcissistic grasping. It is a self-centered bridge to nowhere.

Whatever our beliefs are about the afterlife, we can experience a bridge of connection that spans our differences and links us with life everywhere. Such a universal connection would include:

  • Placing our individual lives in the context of the ongoing story of Life itself. Otherwise, talk of the afterlife is simply a glorified ego trip.
  • Revolutionary, evolutionary practices done individually and in supportive communities where we break the trance of myopic navel-gazing and get real with each other.
  • A mindful awareness about how our daily choices affect the people we live and work with, cashiers and waiters that serve us, impoverished women in Latin America who make our clothes, children yet unborn in Asia, and species in the Pacific Ocean yet to emerge.

In this kind of spirituality, anxious grasping for the afterlife transforms into a conscious connection with the Spirit of LIfe here and now. The isolating hell of "me, myself and I" becomes a resurrection in which I find myself by losing myself in something grander than myself.  The tragedy of my finite existence becomes a celebration of my unique chapter in life's everlasting story. A bridge to nowhere becomes a bridge to somewhere.

Thank you for reading this post. If you would like to explore together (either online or in person) what a down to earth, LIfe-serving spirituality will look like in the 21st century, please provide your feedback and also sign up below for email notification of future posts. Let's get the conversation started. Thank you!

A Bird in the Hand

Monday night I went outside to water a few plants.  In the front yard under our redwood tree I noticed a small, gray, fuzzy blob. A baby Mourning Dove had fallen from its nest some twenty feet above. We had been watching the past few weeks as the devoted parents incubated the eggs and then as tiny beaks appeared in the nest. Monday night I looked up and saw the remains of a disintegrated nest. My partner Herb and I took the little squab inside and put him/her in some soft towels under which we had a heating blanket set on low. We decided to call our little visitor Francis. While I was tempted to become a foster parent and raise Francis myself, I realized that a wildlife rehabilitation center offered our friend a much better chance of survival. So the next morning, Francis and I went to Wildcare, a fantastic nonprofit that rehabilitates over 3,000 injured wild animals each year.

After one last look, I closed the shoe box and entrusted Francis to the compassionate woman at the desk. She took Francis into the animal hospital for a brief examination and then to a cozy incubator. She told me Francis would join a nest with other rescued baby doves, who are cared for by adult doves recuperating from various injuries. The adult doves will show Francis what it means to be a dove and how to survive in the wild. Meanwhile, parenting Francis and the other babies will speed the healing of the adults.

Tears came to my eyes as I considered this beautiful arrangement in which babies and wounded adults nurture each other. As I left, I was given a number with which I can track Francis' progress. Wildcare will also notify me when Francis is released back into the wild so that I can attend.

In caring for this avian infant, I felt so much tenderness, purpose and connection to Life that it became impossible to tell who was really helping whom.  Francis reminded me that every being, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, in some way affects every other being on the planet.  Now I know just how much a bird in the hand is worth.

May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor!

In The Hunger Games, the ruling leisure class subjugates their starving fellow citizens, who are confined to several districts, each of which provides an essential natural resource for the Capitol.  In an annual contest, a male and a female adolescent is taken from each district to fight to the death in “games” that are part gladiatorial entertainment and part brutal reminder that the government can and will crush any semblance of resistance. Adolescents are chosen by lottery, before which the mantra of the games is broadcast: “May the odds be ever in your favor!” I can’t help but wonder if the odds are in our favor. Let’s take a look at the game board. Economic upheaval. 1% vs. 99%. Overpopulation. (Despite claims by the Duggar family, it’s real.) Political and religious extremism. Irreversible environmental degradation. Looming termination of the petroleum era. The odds seem dicey, at best.

In The Great Work, Thomas Berry wrote, “The distorted dream of an industrial technological paradise is being replaced by the more viable dream of a mutually enhancing human presence within an ever-renewing organic-based earth community.” (p. 201) In other words, your odds, my odds and the odds of all life on the planet are linked.

What’s needed is a shift in pronouns: May the odds be ever in our favor, where “our” includes the 99% and the 1%, documented Americans and undocumented immigrants, Christian children in Iowa and Muslim children in Afghanistan, humans, trees, bees, whales, oceans, and air.

Our odds of survival rise when we see ourselves not as Masters of the Universe plundering every district of life for our own temporary satiation, but rather as one expression of a vast evolutionary story that precedes, exceeds and yet includes us.  In that story we do not see things, people, or even the Earth itself as belonging to us, but rather everything, including us, belonging to Life. It is in the service of Life that we can consciously choose to write a new chapter in the history of the emerging Universe, an era in which each of us becomes a fierce practitioner of justice, sustainability, and community.

The challenge before us is immense. Eventually, it will require birthing a new way of being human on the planet. We need more than tinkering with policies and developing a few renewable energy resources. We need a new lifestyle that is simpler, less industrial and more organic, less driven by global corporations and more community-driven.  One that respects and synchronizes with Life on the planet.

Where do we start? Once this week walk, ride a bike, or use public transportation when you would normally drive. Replace one supermarket trip with a visit to a local farmer's market.

On a more political note, become an unrelenting squeaky wheel for the cause of a more inclusive and sustainable Earth community. For instance:

Will we continue to decimate the very ecosystem upon which our survival depends? Or will we become a "mutually enhancing human presence" for humanity and the rest of our Earth community? Our chances of survival depend on the choices we make. May the odds be ever in our favor!

Please take a few moments to post below your thoughts, suggestions and steps you are taking to move us toward a “mutually enhancing human presence”.

"Prayer for the Earth" by Scott Quinn

(Have a candle and match, dirt or a rock, water in a bowl, and a feather or incense.)

We pray for our planet.

We look East and remember the air.

(Face east and wave the feather or light the incense.)

Without air there is no breath.

Without breath there is no life.

All existence is giving and receiving,

Respirations of taking, metabolizing, and giving back.

May we guard against the held breath of over-consumption.

May the inhale of wisdom precede every exhale of material progress.

May we inhale hope, renewal and imagination.

May we exhale a simpler lifestyle that lets the planet breathe freely.

 

We look South and remember fire.

(Face south and light the candle.)

Fire illuminates and warms.

It also incinerates and disfigures.

Fire reminds us to act judiciously and in moderation,

May we burn with unquenchable love for our planet.

May we rekindle compassion for all living things.

May we learn to restrain our blazing lust for more

Until we reignite the consciousness that all which we need is already present.

 

We look West and remember water.

(Face west and hold the bowl of water.)

Our bodies are mostly water.

The planet is mostly water.

That makes us kin.

Our mutual family treasure is the water that sustains us.

May we bathe ourselves in the knowledge that everything is interconnected and interdependent.

May we be baptized into a planetary family committed to clean water.

May we conserve and reclaim the pure flowing waters as our heritage and responsibility.

May every drink of water fill us with gratitude for the gift of life itself.

 

We look North and remember the earth.

(Face north and hold a rock or piece of dirt.)

From the dust we came

And return to it, we must.

This is the only certainty of life.

May we recall that we are but dust,

That the earth does not derive from us; we derive from the earth.

Thou shalt honor Mother Earth so you may live long on the Earth.

What affects her affects us all.

May we change our self-image from masters to caretakers,

From feudal lords to children filled with awe,

Until we once again live in harmony with the ground that has birthed us.

 

Air, fire, water and earth,

May we honor, protect, and live with you in peace.

We pray for you.

We are you.

Amen.