By
Gregory Wilson
The future and our youth.
Chris Jordan asks, creator of the film Midway, both Elegy
and Warning asks, “Do we have the courage to face the realities of our time and
allow ourselves to feel deeply enough that it transforms us and our future?”
[Here is our decision point.] Come with me on a journey through the eyes of
beauty across an ocean of grief and beyond.
My words are to us in relation to how we live our lives,
realizing the youth—children are watching and the how we might awaken those
still sleeping.
First let share the theological understanding that shapes
the expression of my faith.
Theology
I call it a healthy theology. Theology celebrates life and
listens for the cries of the suffering, upon locating those who are suffering
seeks to comfort the suffering, works to heal those who are suffering, discover
the origin of the suffering and then develops a plan to alter the causes of the
suffering and then takes action to change the societal patterns that cause the
suffering and then works toward transformation of society so that society moves
toward life and the fulfillment of the life for all humans and all the
participants on earth and indeed the earth her self.
Listening for the cries of those suffering
Cormac Cullinan author of Wild Law, teaches the the economic
and militarily dominant cultures are moving to all parts of the world imposing
a model of the world in which exploitation and extraction of resources and the
culture that develops to support this exploitation has primacy over all life.
Local communities are pressured to abandon their way of life, their traditions,
languages, values and become consumers and producers in the exploitation
culture.
Bruce Alexander the author of The Globalization of
Addiction, observes that the imposing of this same system: the exploitation of
the planet for power and profit called the free market system has torn people
away from “ the close ties to family, culture, and traditional spirituality
that constituted the normal fabric of life” which results in dislocating them
psychologically and spiritually from the earth, normal social life, one another
and themselves. This dislocation results in the normal human coping response of
this type of pressure and objectification; addiction of some sort.
Signs of Addiction as a way of life
Why in 1999 In the United states alone places the annual
cost of substance abuse to the Nation to be $510.8 billion. This is a thread in
the tapestry of our culture.
We can see the outcome of global agriculture on the small
farmer in India- 200,000 farmers in India committing suicide in the last
decade, in the increasing of poverty in this country, the denial of and absence
of any real attention to over population, and more directly related to this
conference the injustice caused by the dominate exploitation/extraction culture
continuing and intensifying the same economic, energy development patterns and
now the resulting climate disruption.
Climate Disruption and Culture
Climate disruption is an outcome of the intertwining of our
economic, political, theological, religious, and social institutions over the
last 400 years. It is an expression of these power structures joining forces.
Climate disruption is an inevitable character in this story. We can not simply
stop the patterns that produced climate disruption. We must change the entire
story and value structure.
Globalization of Addiction and Recovery
Who would have written the story in which we now live?
nobody. Yet here we are, Dead Zones are normalized -- over 400 and increasing,
climate disruption, floods, droughts, oil catastrophes/spills normalized, wars
normalized, poverty normalized, pollution normalized, anxiety and depression
has been normalized and the practices that produced these patterns which govern
our lives are also normalized.
We face the greatest challenge to human survival, climate
disruption and our children are watching, excuse me for my candor, a bunch of
intoxicated men blowing up mountain tops, poisoning pristine Canadian forest,
killing the gulf of Mexico, blowing good water and toxins in the earth which
shift the ground enough to cause earthquakes and poison the aquifers, all to
get more of the stuff that is heating up the planet. And no group with enough
power to call an intervention. As Thomas Berry said “we are blinded by the
dream of manifest destiny.” We live a dream while cutting off the branch we are
standing on.
From Theology to Recovery Spirituality
And the cries of the earth increase and we are calling upon
the faith communities to act and enact a healthy theology. A theology that
moves us to confront the evil of our day, the movement of life toward death.
The core and central space of spirituality can be seen not
in the actions of people, of Jesus in Jerusalem, of Siddhartha in the forest
after leaving his future kingdom, of Eve Ensler in the Congo, of Will Allen
protesting Vietnam and spending a year in jail, of Amelia Himes Walker, Alice
Paul and 14 other women, standing in front of the White House demanding the
right to vote and ended up tortured.
The heart of spirituality is in the decision making process
of Jesus standing on the edge of Jerusalem and deciding to cross the line to
enter Jerusalem, of the living room conversation in which that group of women
finally said let's go to the White house, when Siddhartha saw the poverty and
suffering and realized even as King because of the power structures he would
not be able to end suffering and poverty, he had to leave his power and wealth
to find another way, create another story. It is the inner workings of making a
decision to do what is right, moved by compassion and integrity for the other
that is the heart of the mature spiritual life. Which moves us to feel the
connection to all living beings including the earth.
Revelation
What Jesus showed us by his decision to enter into Jerusalem
is that empires and religious structures designed for power join together to:
murder innocence. Is this not what Thomas Berry points to when he describes the
worldview of the Europeans 400 years ago landing on the North American
continent. For them it was not a land to be loved and held in sacred trust. But
a land of abundance waiting for exploitation by the sacred chosen people. To
quote: "We saw a continent awaiting exploitation by the chosen people of
the world... In reality, we were a predator people on an innocent
continent." It is clear that the power structures will murder innocence in
order to continue this extractive culture. They will move us toward death
squeeze life from every tar sand, every oil and gas hidden deep within, and
then discard the remaining poisons into the air, nicely labeled as
externalities. The addiction is driven by a blinded commitment to the myth of
manifest destiny, A dream became the real and the real a shadow.
Waking Up
Too many of us humans as Jean Houston would say have been
mesmerized by the hypnotic trances forced into the air waves and in our
imaginations, and many of our heroes are in a slumber living in the shadow land
of the dream of manifest destiny, the dream of progress.
We need places and spaces to help others awaken. Yes we are
called to protest, gathering in events like this to learn and gather strength
and encouragement, to run for office, stand in front of the machine, abandon
our lives of quit desperation, we are also called to move toward those who are
asleep and to wake them. To stimulate their inner curiosity that has been
numbed.
Good People
They are good people. They are not paying attention to where
their food comes from, where their water flows from, to the meaning of the
storms and droughts. They hear the scientist and believe the charlatans. In
their dreamlike state they are not able to see the incongruity between
political speak and the tangible world in which they live. They are good people
who have eaten the poisoned apple of sleep.
An aspect of our calling is to call attention to climate
disruption, its causes and possible alternative ways of being in this world, in
such a way that their minds become stimulated and they begin to listen.
We need some form of recovery groups to break us out of this
addictive cycle to reinvigorate the human spirit so that we can sense that we
are part of the spirituality of this planet. And feeling our connection to
being a participant of this great and wonderful living being we call Earth, we
will garner the strength to intervene in this march toward death.
In these spaces we must speak gently but the truth, and
provide comfort for the despair that will come when people wake up and face for
the first time the realization that the planet is moving toward lifelessness.
And help them move through that stage of grief and awakening. We offer support
and then we offer relationship to heal and to act against those oppressive
forces and participate in a way of life that moves us toward life. To join the
vision many of us have of loving this Earth and loving life and doing what it
takes to ensure that we continue into the future. When we do this young people
would hear the new voices of the adult world and they will see a different way
of being.
Groups
In these recovery groups, "we must recover our
vision" our ability to move out of the dream of being the chosen people to
be in the reality of being participants in and on this wonderful planet. We
need to begin to see the whole of this land, of this Earth and that we are part
of the whole. Our health as humans is directly related to the health of this
planet.
We need to come to the realization that “the planet Earth is
a one-time project – there is no real second chance. We need to understand that
the land's primordial powers have been debilitated and we must be involved in
the future of bringing health to this planet in some comprehensive manner.”
In this recovery process we need to change deep within our
souls so that we once again develop the capacity to have communion with this
living being Earth. When we take this action youth will see us and they will
know there is an alternative. They will see that there is a choice not to be in
the dream that moves toward death but to be with a community that recognizes its
place as an expression of this marvelous planet. And that community will work
to transform this culture into a culture of life. When they see that they will
know that they are cared for and that their future is cared for and we will be
bringing up fine mature adults for the next generation.
