Climate justice - Will we take responsibility?

The United Nations established its climate change framework in 1992, advertising scientific consensus unmistakably to the world; this means we have now engineered as much ruin knowingly as we ever managed in ignorance. 

Global warming may seem like a distended morality tale playing out over several centuries and inflicting a kind of Old Testament retribution on the great-great-grandchildren of those responsible, since it was carbon burning in eighteenth-century England that lit the fuse of everything that has followed. But that is a fable about historical villainy that acquits those of us alive today—and unfairly. 

The majority of the burning has come since the premiere of Seinfeld. Since the end of World War II, the figure is about 85 percent. The story of the industrial world’s kamikaze mission is the story of a single lifetime—the planet brought from seeming stability to the brink of catastrophe in the years between a baptism or bar mitzvah and a funeral.

Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth (p. 4). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition.

Inadvertently, we boomers have brought this climate warming about. We have known now for almost three decades now but awareness has been slow to occur. It is the young people who have woken us up. How will we leave our planet to our succeeding generations? What moral responsibility do we have to rectify the damage our life styles and social policies have done?

As Unitarian Univeralists be covenant together to affirm and promote a respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part. Our behavior, often unconsciously, has been very disrespectful. As we learn more about the damage being done primarily with fossil fuels the more incumbent it is on us to work to rectify the situation. How?

We need to get systemically smart and elect politicians who will legislate based on social policies to limit or eliminate carbon emissions. We need to no longer support fossil fuel industries by changing our life styles, developing and using renewable energy, and withdraw our investments in financial institutions which still invest our money in fossil fuel companies.

To be continued

Daily Reflections, Day Fifty nine, Thought system or a way of life?

Day Fifty nine

Thought system or way of life?

“Knowledge is the result of revelation and induces only thought.” “Knowledge comes from the altar within and is timeless because it is certain. To perceive the truth is not the same as to know it.” ACIM.T-3.III.5:10,12-13

Some people say they believe in God and others say they don’t believe in God and whether people say they believe in God or don’t believe in God, their statements beg the question of what god it is that they do or don’t believe in.

To know that one is One with God is a knowledge which has nothing to do with perception. This knowledge comes from an experience within. This knowledge some people call “grace” because it does not depend on any external perception but rather on an experience of deep Love and peace.

This experience of Love and peace is timeless because it does not depend on the perception of any external event. This experience is all encompassing and is transcendent because it is not of this ego world.

Francis David, the Unitarian pioneer, said we need not think alike to love alike. David is pointing to the difference between thoughts and beliefs and internal experience. This idea of being in Love together is fundamental to the Unitarian Universalist faith tradition. At its core, Unitarian Universalism is a mystical faith which depends not on a thought system but on a way of life.

Today, take several moments during the day and shut off the mind and go within. Go to the altar which is the ground of being and experience the timeless Love and peace. The more one does this, the more the experience of Love becomes one’s experience of life.

What kind of an issue is climate justice?

What kind of an issue is climate justice?

 It certainly is an environmental issue based on biological and physical science, but in terms of how we manage the human caused changes we are seeing in our climate it is a political, economic, and most importantly, a moral issue.

What is the right relationship for humans to develop and maintain with the interdependt web or existence within which they find themselves living?

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote a respect for the interdependent web and is this respect to be demonstrated?

By intention and engagement and the personal, community, and global level.

Where to start? Start where you find yourself in the present with your vision on the future creating justice and right relationship with all  things living and nonliving.

 

Daily Reflection, Day Fifty eight, Human being or human doer?

Day Fifty eight

Human being or human doer?

“I said before that only revelation transcends time.” ACIM.T-2.V.10:5

We say, “Where did the time go?” “It seemed like time stood still.” “It seemed like I was somewhere out of time.” “I felt timeless.” We are describing an altered state of consciousness where we lose our sense of ego boundaries. We experience ourselves as pure spirit without a body. We are pure being.

If you are a Buddhist, you would call this state of mind “bodhi” or enlightenment, if an Hindu you would call it “moksha” or freedom or “sahaja samadhi” or ongoing oneness, if a Sufi you would call it “baqa” or abiding in God, if a Christian you would call it deification or union with God. These are the descriptions of the mystical experience of spiritual awakening.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and if one were to engage in such a search where would one look? The path of the ego takes us outward in search of external things while the path of the Spirit takes us inward in search of union with the Transcendent.

Today, I will take several moments to relax and look within for the “no mind.” I will clear away the clutter of external cares and concerns which the ego populates my consciousness with. I will relax into the Oneness of timelessness and just be. After all, I am a human being not a human doer.

Climate justice - It's worse than you think.

Chapter one

 It’s worse than you think

It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn’t happening at all, and comes to us bundled with several others in an anthology of comforting delusions: that global warming is an Arctic saga, unfolding remotely; that it is strictly a matter of sea level and coastlines, not an enveloping crisis sparing no place and leaving no life undeformed; that it is a crisis of the “natural” world, not the human one; that those two are distinct, and that we live today somehow outside or beyond or at the very least defended against nature, not inescapably within and literally overwhelmed by it; that wealth can be a shield against the ravages of warming; that the burning of fossil fuels is the price of continued economic growth; that growth, and the technology it produces, will allow us to engineer our way out of environmental disaster; that there is any analogue to the scale or scope of this threat, in the long span of human history, that might give us confidence in staring it down.

Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth (p. 3). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition.

The biggest moral issue of our age is climate change. Those using a geological model for cosmology call it the “Anthropocene” meaning that the planet Earth is being shaped by human activity.

For all of human history, human beings have seen climate as a “force of nature” or as is written into our insurance policies “an act of God.” We have been in denial with our extraction technologies to enrich ourselves at Mother Nature’s expense and our naive practice of throwing “away” our garbage and the unwanted remains of utilization processes without being aware that there really is no “away.”

We human beings are coming to realize due to the consequences of our own actions that we are fouling our own nest. We are coming to realize that we have been arrogant, prideful, exploitative, and disrespectful of the interdependent web of existence which has given us life and sustains us here. We have taken the interdependent web for granted and lived with a grandiose sense of entitlement and Mother Nature has been very kind and supportive of our childish behavior until now when we have gone too far.

Mother Nature is telling us we need to grow up and take responsibility. We can’t just suckle at her breast forever. It is time for us to be responsible for ourselves and to treat her with gratitude, respect, and cooperation which she deserves. How long, after all, can we continue to take advantage?

The greatest moral issue of our age is stewardship and humble cooperation with the interdependent web. No faith tradition states this responsibility more clearly and visibly than the Unitarian Universalists who, in their seventh principle, covenant together to affirm and promote a respect for the interdependent web of which we are a part.

The question is: “How do we affirm and promote this respect for the interdependent web?” How are we doing? If we were to grade our performance what grade would we get?

To be continued.

Daily Reflections, Day Fifty seven, The Choice between two paths

Day Fifty seven

The choice between two paths.

“Revelation is literally unspeakable because it is an experience of unspeakable love. Awe should be reserved for revelation, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable.” ACIM.T-1.II.2:7,3.1

Some people call revelation a mystical experience. While we use the word mystic to apply to saints of the past, it is rarely applied to people in contemporary times. Are there mystics among us and should mysticism be something that a person should aspire to?

The mystic aspires to have their consciousness united with God on a permanent basis while living in the world of the ego. Jesus taught that we can be in the world but not of the world.

The awakening process of spiritual development goes through five stages according to a scholar of mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, which are: the awakening of Self, purgation, illumination, dark night of the soul, and union with God.

This spiritual development of awakening is an intentional process that the seeker engages in voluntarily once the seeker realizes they have a choice between living on the path of the ego or the path of the spirit. Will I choose forgiveness and Love or fear, guilt, and attack?

Few, in our contemporary times, choose the way of the mystic because they don’t know such a path exists. It is a shame that the mystical tradition of the world’s religions is not taught as a choice that one has in how to live one’s life. If the mystical path is mentioned, it is described as an esoteric practice of old that is beyond the reach of “normal” people in our society. Seekers, though, often stumble across information about the mystical life. It is the choice of a small percentage of the population who have been seduced by the idols presented by the ego.

It is good to know that you have a choice: the way of the ego or the way of the Spirit. The way of the mystic, seeking revelation, is the path of unspeakable love that fills one’s awareness with awe and bliss.

Today, I will take several moments and reflect on my choice to pursue the idols of the ego or the path to God. One way is involved in fear, guilt, anger, and attack, and the other is involved with Love, forgiveness, peace, and compassion.

Topic of the month - Revelation

The topic for this month, February, 2020, on UU A Way Of Life is Revelation.

Revelation is direct experience of the Oneness which some call God and leaves one with overwhelming sense of peace and well being.

In order to experience Revelation one must completely shed one's ego and turn one's will over to the Higher Power. This is terrifying for most people and they are unable to do it on their own.

One can always ask for help from the Holy Spirit who is the mediator between the Oneness and us, the one's who have separated ourselves from the Oneness.

The first step in achieving an experience of the Oneness is to forgive ourselves and others for our egos, our separateness which we cling to with the tenacity of idolatry.

When we become one with the All, all doubt and fear are suspended and we experience abiding bliss.

Revelation, the Oneness with God, is the foundational belief of the Universalists. The Universalists have taught that this is an experience not a creed or thought system.

There are many paths to the experience of Revelation. Some call this enlightenment and others call it cosmic consciousness. Steve Taylor calls it the leap meaning the step from our ordinary state of being in the ego world to a more expansive state of wakefulness experiencing Oneness with our Source and Essence of our being.

Revelation has nothing to do with belief, but it has to do with knowing. Carl Jung said that he didn't believe in God, he knew there was a God. Have you ever had a time of confidence and experience in this knowing? Some people call this Grace. It is a harmonious combination of thoughts, feelings and intentions.

Colloquially, we sometimes talk about learning something which has come as quite a revelation. There is no greater revelation than to experience the Unconditional Love of God and realize that the world of the ego is an illusion and the only thing real is the Unconditional Love which sometimes we call "God" or the Tao, or the Unspeakable.