sustainability

Barkly and Mitts: Who Will Lead the Pack?

Below is a short story without an ending. Read it and notice what your gut reaction is. What do you think happens next? There’s no right or wrong answer, but your first response is likely the most honest and the most instructive. Your response may reveal something about the lens through which you are processing life. Whether or not it provides any insight, have fun with it! The story:

Once upon a time there was a pack of dogs, purebreds and mutts, living together. The pack had just come through a difficult period. Their former alpha, a cocker spaniel named Georgie, had made a mess everywhere he went. For instance, he let his fellow purebreds eat almost all the food, leaving only scraps for the mutts in the pack. Unfortunately, the unmitigated gluttony of the purebreds caused a collapse in the food supply so that all the dogs suffered. To make matters worse, Georgie had taken on a pack of nasty Chows claiming they had hidden bones in their territory, which proved to be untrue.

Licking their wounds after the Chow episode, the pack decided to change leaders. The new alpha was Barkly, who was the first mutt ever to become pack leader. He reined in the purebreds' excesses and ended the ongoing spats with the Chows.  Barkly claimed that it took the work of the entire pack to secure food. Mutts served as scouts, pack protectors, puppy nurturers and territory markers, all of which were essential for the survival of the pack. Under Barkly's leadership the purebreds who led each hunt still got first dibs, but the rest of the pack got a greater share of the food. Because they were better nourished, the mutts became even more adept and committed to their pack duties. As a result, food became more prevalent for all the dogs. In fact, even though the purebreds were receiving a smaller percentage of the packs' GDP (Gathered Doggie Provisions), they actually ate more overall because the healthier pack was securing much more food.

While times were still hard, the future looked promising until...along came Mitts. Mitts was a pampered Pekingese, who nonetheless enjoyed instant status because he was a purebred. He started to complain about Barkly's leadership. True, the pack was getting healthier, but Mitts yiped that it was taking far longer than it should.

Mitts also howled at Barkly's idea that everyone in the pack should take turns licking a seriously injured dog's wounds in order to maintain the wellbeing of the whole pack. Mitts said it's a dog-eat-dog world, and each dog should tend to his own wounds. Mitts snipped at any starving, stray mutt who tried to join the pack, telling them to self-deport back to their own territory.

Above all, Mitts whimpered that Georgie's approach had been right all along: purebreds should be allowed to devour all the choice food and let everyone else beg for scraps. This was the natural order of things according to Mitts. Oddly, a number of mutts even began to believe Mitts' claim that they too would be better off if they let the purebreds do as they pleased.

Things came to a head. Mitts challenged Barkly for leadership of the pack. Mitts met secretly with the purebloods to line up their support, where he harrumphed that 47% of the pack were lazy, dim-witted mutts mooching off the feasts of hardworking purebreds.  In public, however, Mitts tried to woo everyone with his double-bark and platitudes about the pack's greatness. He even made a play for the support of female mutts by referring to his "binders full of bitches".

The day of reckoning has finally arrived. Barkly and Mitts face off surrounded by the rest of the pack. What happens next?

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Fat Cat and the Kibble-Shaker

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Below is a short story without an ending. Read it and notice what your gut reaction is. What do you think happens next? There’s no right or wrong answer, but your first response is likely the most honest and the most instructive. Your response may reveal something about the lens through which you are processing life. Whether or not it provides any insight, have fun with it! The story:

Once upon a time in Catlandia, there was a very rich tabby named Fat Cat. He had made his riches in Kitty City years ago and now lived high on the mouse in his kitty castle. How he had made his riches was somewhat of a mystery. He had more frozen mice and rats in his freezers than 1,000 cats could eat in nine lifetimes, but he always hissed when taxed two rodents a year by the Internal Ratting Service.

Catlandia was not without its problems. Over--mousing had led to a dangerous decline in the rodent population. The same was true of the fish population.

Once two intrepid reporters, Tiger and Hairball, began working for CMN, the Catlandia Mews Network. They reported on the impending food crisis and tried to keep tabs on Fat Cat's friends who ran the Cat Council. One day Tiger and Hairball decided to investigate how Fat Cat got so rich...and thus so fat. When Fat Cat caught a whiff of their plans, he put a stop to the whole endeavor by purchasing CMN. Tiger and Hairball were reassigned to covering stories about the lives of kitty celebrities. They never reported on anything of significance again.

One day an older cat named Shadow arrived. She had lived in Kitty City and knew how Fat Cat had become wealthy. Shadow wanted Tiger and Hairball to broadcast the truth, but they were preoccupied with the breakup of "TomCat", a famous kitty couple.

Shadow was born near a stream in Kitty City. There she frolicked all day, catching fish and rodents, just like her mother had taught her. One day Fat Cat arrived. He convinced the people of Kitty City that they could have more food with less effort if they paid him to use his new invention: The Kibble-Shaker. The Kibble-Shaker, though Fat Cat never revealed the full details of how it worked, essentially created underground explosions forcing rodents out of their holes and fish out of their streams. Sure enough, within a short period of time mice, rats and fish were popping up everywhere for easy catching. Fat Cat took his pay (mostly in frozen rodents) and left town.

Shortly afterwards, however, things went terribly wrong. Because the rodents were forced out of their holes before they could raise their young, there was no next generation of vermin to feed on. Even worse, the underground explosions had polluted the water. Not only did most of the fish die, but the cats had to travel great distances to find something to drink. When they tracked down Fat Cat, he claimed it was all a coincidence and that they couldn't prove The Kibble-Shaker had anything to do with their plight.

Shadow shared the story throughout Catlandia, but no one seemed interested.  Not only were they wrapped up in the "TomCat" drama, but they had also bought into the Cat Council's propaganda that the best way to keep safe and fed was to make sure Fat Cat kept as many of his frozen rodents as possible in the hope that a few tidbits would trickle down to feed the rest of the cats. If anyone held him accountable for past infractions, they feared they'd have even less food than their already declining supply.

One day Shadow happened upon a hidden structure just outside of Catlandia. A stealthy kitty if ever there was one, Shadow slinked around a corner and peeked inside to see Fat Cat and his friends eating a grand feast of Rat Souffle and Trout with a Mouse Reduction. She listened carefully as Fat Cat caterwalled to the clowder of cats: "Mewwwww..... Now that I have all those felines eating out of my paw, I can introduce my greatest invention. The Kibble-Shaker is coming to Catlandia!"

What happens next?

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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!

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You Say You Want a Revolution? Read Leviticus

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The Biblical book of Leviticus is a tedious read, and so, with the exception of homophobic rants about a man not "lying with a male as with a woman", the text is quoted about as often as President Warren Harding's Inaugural Address. Recently I attended an event at a nearby seminary where the topic of discussion was Leviticus 25:

Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan...Everyone is to return to their own property...The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers...If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. Do not take interest or profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you.  Leviticus 25:10, 13, 23-24, 35-36.

So, let's see if I get this right. God's command is that every fifty years there's a total economic "do over".  And here are the tenets of God's economic platform:

  • No matter what happened in the previous 49 years, everyone gets back their historic family property. (Socialism?)
  • Land is never permanently sold, because it really belongs to God and the entire community. (Communism?)
  • If, for whatever reason, someone becomes poor, the nation is called on to support them. (Welfare state?)
  • The poor are to be helped just as foreigners and strangers should be supported. (Immigrant rights?)
  • Don't take interest or profit from the poor so that they can prosper. (Not even sure what to call this other than a violation of every principle of the market economy.)

Anyone running for president on this platform wouldn't stand a chance in hell (perhaps heaven?) of winning.  Of course, outside of a few isolated attempts, these words were never taken literally. They were simply too revolutionary. So much for a nation based on Biblical principles.

What if, however, the spirit of these words challenged us to evolve our economics and our spirituality until we could not consider one without the other? What if the measure of our spirituality included not only personal salvation/enlightenment but also a shared responsibility for the wellbeing of all the inhabitants of our community: rich and poor, native and immigrant, human and other species? What if "we" became just as prominent as "me" when talking about economics and spirituality?

While a literal year of Jubilee is unlikely, we can catch the spirit of Jubilee and put our spiritual energy to use for the public good. A start is to educate ourselves about how "the public" is actually doing,

"The Human Development Report" provides census-driven data to analyze longevity, income and access to education, healthcare, and affordable housing. Reports have been generated for 161 countries, three states in the U.S. (Louisiana, Mississippi, and California) and for the first time ever, a local community: Marin County, California. We get a better understanding of how people are doing from a tool like this than we do from the distant rumblings of the stock market. To learn more, go to http://measureofamerica.org/

While I don't expect that many of us will pick up Leviticus for a light summer read, I do believe that it is time for us to evolve our spirituality so that our individual Jubilee is not complete without including in our hearts and actions those for whom Jubilee is a distant dream.

 

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.