Mary Pipher tells an endearing story in the fourth
chapter of her book the Green Boat about her granddaughter, Kate. “I asked, ‘Kate,
you are the big sister and the oldest. Why can’t you be as brave as your sister
and brother?’ She wailed, ‘Nonna, they are little. They don’t know enough to be
scared.’” P.73-74 And there in is the rub as they say. Ignorance is bliss.
Knowledge in the short term can sometimes be a curse because our inappropriate
sense of security and comfort is disturbed.
Social Activist Mother Jones is reported to have
said one time, “My business is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
And the question when it comes to climate change is how to do both.
Those
greatly distressed, depressed, pessimistic, filled with a sense of impending
doom need understanding and then comforting by standing in solidarity not with
their dysphoria but with their knowledge of what is happening on our planet.
Human consciousness and science at this point is to be celebrated for it is a
great blessing which gives us the evolutionary advantage of being able to
influence the life of the planet. We become aware that we, human beings, are
not just pawns and victims in God’s creation but co-creators who have the power
to influence our own evolution.
Pipher recommends transcendence as the means of
comforting the afflicted in the sense of rising above and moving towards
wholeness or what Unitarian Univeralists call in their seventh principle, the
interdependent web of all existence. It is a comfort to know we are not in this
climate change thing alone but have the company of all other living creatures
and with a healthy respect we can, as Pipher puts it, revive ourselves in our
capsized culture.
Unitarain Univeralists who are not just church goers
but people who have made the faith a way of life are in an especially positive position
to not only save themselves, but others, and the planet, based on the values
articulated in the seven principles. Unitarian Universalist values while
counter cultural in the United States provide a travel plan as it were to get
from our current state of affairs to a more desirable society and planet in the
future.
Different Unitarian Univeralist thinkers advocate
for different virtues as a basis for an ethical imperative for Unitarian
Universalism. Rev. Galen Guengerich advocates for gratitude as being the basis,
while Rev. James Ford advocates for the inherent worth and dignity of every
person, and respect for the interdependent web. As a student of A Course In
Miracles, I advocate for forgiveness as the basis of an ethical imperative for
until we can acknowledge the brokenness and suffering of human beings and
animals we can’t be grateful, or respectful or see the goodness in other
beings.
There are many things that can provide solace in the
face of a sense of impending doom, and while there are no silver bullets or
magic keys, probably one of the most important antidotes to depression and despair
is forgiveness, first for ourselves and then for others who have offended and
hurt us. As the palliative care physician Ira Byrock has written, the four most
important things that need to be said to a dying person are: I hope you can
forgive me. I forgive you. Good bye. I love you.
Ignorance can be bliss but sometimes short lived, and while awareness can be disturbing it usually is the grace of God afflicting us when we are too comfortable letting us know that God needs us to get to work.
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