Climate justice - How do we manage our guilt?

By the time my father died, in 2016, weeks after the desperate signing of the Paris Agreement, the climate system was tipping toward devastation, passing the threshold of carbon concentration—400 parts per million in the earth’s atmosphere, in the eerily banal language of climatology—that had been, for years, the bright red line environmental scientists had drawn in the rampaging face of modern industry, saying, Do not cross. Of course, we kept going: just two years later, we hit a monthly average of 411, and guilt saturates the planet’s air as much as carbon, though we choose to believe we do not breathe it.

Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth (p. 5). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition.

David Wallace-Wells in his book, The Uninhabitable Earth, pulls no punches and states it like it is.

We have done it and crossed the threshold set by scientists for carbon emissions to mitigate the negative effects of climate warming. Wallace-Wells writes that "guilt saturates the planet's air as much as carbon, though we choose to believe we do not breathe it," although of course we do.

Denial, avoidance, attack of truth tellers is promulgated by the 1% who have a vested interest in the profits from fossil fuels and the fossil fuel based capitalistic economy from which they benefit while we foul our own nest and create our own hell.

We are told we are now in the "anthropocene," the human influenced ecology of the planet. The question is one of moral responsibility. Will we, as a conscious species inhabiting and influencing this ecology, take responsibility for our own behavior and policies? How do we manage our guilt if we are willing to recognize and acknowledge that we have some? Will we work together to rectify the harm we have done or will we blame one another and carry on with our destructive behavior?

What we choose, and how we behave, is the gravest moral question of this age. Will our religious institutions take the lead or secular institutions or a combination? What part do we, as indiviudals, have in influencing the organizations and groups we participate in to engage in moral activity to mitigate the damage and enhance the respect and support for the interdependent web?

Daily Reflections, Day Sixty one, Clearing the way for amazing grace

Day Sixty one

Clearing the way for amazing grace

“God has kept your Kingdom for you, but He cannot share His joy with you until you know it with your whole mind. Revelation is not enough, because it is only communication from God. God does not need revelation returned to Him, which would clearly be impossible, but He does want it brought to others. This cannot be done with the actual revelation; its content cannot be expressed, because it is intensely personal to the mind that receives it. It can, however, be returned by that mind to other minds, through the attitudes the knowledge from the revelation brings.” ACIM.T-4.VII.7:1-5

Sometimes people will tell a story about how their life was changed by a near death experience where they glimpsed heaven and returned with their consciousness changed and their lives will never be the same again. People listening to this kind of story can perceive that the person’s life has changed and yet the listener can only guess at what the teller’s experience has been like.

Similarly, people have revelatory experiences which they may attempt to describe to others but this attempt to convey the experience is difficult and rarely understood by the listener and so often the teller stops telling others and just keeps such experiences to oneself.

While the revelatory experience is kept to oneself, the person’s attitude toward life, the way the person conducts oneself and interacts with others is different and people around this person sense this. Often the other recognizes that something is different in a positive way, and the positive attitude has a calming and warming effect that is extremely pleasant. There is no fear, no tension, and a kind of relaxation that is soothing.

Revelatory experiences change people from fear, guilt, anger, resentment in the world of the ego to Love, forgiveness, peace, and bliss in the world of the spirit.

Revelatory experiences are nothing the individual can control. All the individual can do is remove the obstacles and obstacles of the ego to make way for the awareness of Love’s presence which is always with us, but, in the world of the ego, forgotten. All we can do is make way for the awareness of God. The revelation is experienced as an amazing grace.

Today, I will clear the way by removing the idols of the ego for the awareness of Love’s presence in my life. I will take several moments throughout the day to ask the Holy Spirit to help me be willing to do God’s will and open my heart to God’s amazing grace.

Climate justice - Will we take responsibility?

Will we take responsibility for human impact on ecological systems or continue with our human exemptionalistic thinking?

“Writing in the late 1970s, William Catton and Riley Dunlap, early environmental sociologists, wrote an oft-cited paper that argued that virtually all sociological theories were anthropocentric; that is, they view society as the center of the natural world, with humans controlling and using the environment without regard for the human resource-based limits to social growth. They termed this sociological worldview the “human exemptionalism paradigm” (HEP).” P.6, Gould, Kenneth A, Lewis, Tammy L,. “An Introduction to Environmental Sociology” in Twenty Lessons In Environmental Sociology, 2015, New York, NY, Oxford University Press.

While the sociologists note what they call the “human exemptionalism paradigm,” the theologians noted the “human domination paradigm” with oft quoted verses from Genesis in the Old Testament where God tells Adam and Eve to go an multiply and dominate the earth.

These narratives from sociology and theology are both at odds with the spiritual teachings of the Earth Centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature which is considered one of the six sources of the Unitarian Univeralist Living Tradition.

While UUs pay lip service to this Earth Centered tradition, their daily lives rarely exemplify the teachings of this source, but rather exemplify the teachings of a capitalistic consumer based society..

Human beings in the United States have seen themselves as the conquerors of nature and have lived their lives based on a nationalistic ethic of manifest destiny by taming the wilderness, domesticating the indigenous savages to comply with the norms of western, white civilizaiton, extracating the earth’s resources for personal and capitalistic enrichment without considering the ramifications for the interdependent web of which they are a part.

Americans consume and then “throw away” naively ignoring the understanding that there is, ultimately, no “away.” We are only beginning to understand that our exploitation, taking for granted, and ignoring consequences of our behavior on the ecosystem which we inhabit may have dire consequences for our survival as individuals and as a species.

With this dawning awareness will we work together to rectify our relationships with one another and nature or will we continue our irresponsible ways, and turn on each other where it will be a matter of the survival of the fittest and richest?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the respect for the interdependent web of which we are a part. How are we as a denomination of religious people impacting the systems that promote improved balance between our social systems and the ecological systems of life?

To be continued

Daily Reflections, Day Sixty, The power of choice.

Day Sixty

The power of choice.

“Against this sense of temporary existence (offered by the ego) spirit offers you the knowledge of permanence and unshakable being. No one who has experienced the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. How can its (the ego’s) meager offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?” ACIM.T-4.III.3:6-8

We know in our unconscious that we have come from God and it is in God that our real home is to be found. It is a matter of remembering and returning. The socialization and conditioning of the ego does not constitute our real home. The world of the ego is a classroom which provides us with learning which has made the unconscious conscious.

Through the socialization and conditioning process by the world of the ego we have lost our innocence and naivte, and through pain and suffering, fear and guilt, resentment and attack, we come to realize the hell which the world of the ego has made for us and which for a long time has seemed so real.

Having served the idols of the ego we have in our despair come to realize that there must be a better way, there has to be more than what the ego has offered us and so we begin to search, and the search takes us within, back to the altar of our essence, our very being, and the world of the spirit is revealed to us and now we know that we have a choice. We can choose the world of the ego or the world of the spirit. Would we have guilt, fear, anger and attack or forgiveness, peace and Unconditional Love? Our power resides in our ability to choose. We realize that we have free will to choose the world of the ego or the world of the spirit..

Today, I will take several moments and reflect on my ability to choose the path of the ego or the path of the spirit. Do I want to attack or love? Do I want fear and guilt or love and forgiveness?

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.