Brian McLaren
Wednesday, April 20th, 2022
April 20, 2022The theme of the lost Feminine Value weaves like a golden thread through the mythology, poetry and literature of Western civilization, waiting to be redeemed at this present time when so much is at stake. Over the last sixty years there have been certain events which have healed a change of consciousness comparable to that which took place in 11th century Europe.
Like a multi-faceted diamond, there are many aspects to the merging influence of the Feminine. All are contributing to the healing of the long-standing dissociation between spirt and nature during the solar era. Each is intrinsic to a psychic impulse which might be called the recovery of the soul, an evolutionary impulse arising from the very heart of humanity and perhaps even from the heart of the Cosmos.
The influence of the Feminine is responsible for the growth of the Environmental Movement…
-Anne Baring
We’ve allowed our spirit to be poisoned [Merton].
Desmond Tutu:
The principle of transfiguration says nothing, no one and no situation, is untransfigurable.
“The Spirit of the Infinite will provide; not bare necessities, but everything.”
-Christian Larson, metaphysical author
“I firmly believe everything humanity could ever ned is already here, ready for us to discover. It seems as if Spirit has created a gargantuan puzzle for human beings to assemble over the course of millennia, slowly discovering all that is needed and the answers to any challenges we encounter.”
-Joanne McFadden
According to the first creation story, you are part of creation. You are made from common soil…dust, Genesis says; stardust, astronomers tell us…Together with all living things, we share the great of life, participating in the same cycles of birth and death, reproduction, recycling and renewal. […] It’s a good and beautiful thing to be an image bearer of God. But it’s also a big responsibility.”
-Brian D. McLaren, ‘We Make the Road by Walking’
‘The joy of welcoming the birds back and the bees and butterflies in the early morning is the Creation, the Creator, the returning…’ ღ
“Yet they are in us, those long departed ones (our ancestors), they are in our inclinations, our moral burdens, our pulsing blood, and in gestures that arise from the depths of time.” -Rilke
~
“If we could not see the sacred in nature and creatures, we soon could not see it in ourselves and, finally, we would not be able to see it all day. There is nothing that is not spiritual for those who have learned how to see.” -Fr Richard Rohr
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On Gaia’s day, ‘We are thus ‘co-operators with God’, joining in the ‘repairing of the world.’ -Fr Richard Rohr
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D A Y 🌏
H U M A N S
We conscious folk have watched with compassion in our hearts and tears in our eyes and as our Mother Earth is disrespected for the comfort and profit of humans beings.
The Mother Earth Delegation of United Original Nations is bringing together original peoples from many different nations to share the wisdom of ancient prophesy and messages from the Earth herself.
THEY SAY:
“It’s time for us to listen to the direction available through Nature’s Laws. It’s time to step out of systems that are failing to sustain life, and step into solutions collaboratively designed to sustain all life.”
To find out more about the incredible work that’s being done to support our beloved planet, you can visit www.motherearthdelegation.com.
If you’re looking for an amazing way to celebrate this Earth Day, why not make a donation to the elders stepping up to save the world?
Incompetent judicial decisions, a political Supreme Court, and decisions yet to be made. Missing Ruth.
The world will keep turning
I hope I leave this place
Better than I found it
To be the lightning in the dark
Hold on tight you’ll be alright
You know it’s time
We’re comin’ of age
This is not a phase
Here comes, here comes, the change…’
You belong.
January 29, 2022Fellowship is a kind of belonging that isn’t based on status, achievement, or gender, but instead is based on a deep belief that everyone matters, everyone is welcome, and everyone is loved, no conditions, no exceptions.
—Brian McLaren
Center for Action and Contemplation
People on all parts of the continuum of gender identity and expression, including those who are gay, bisexual, heterosexual, transgender, cisgender, queer folks, the sexually active, the celibate, and everyone for whom those labels don’t apply. Response: I belong.
People of African descent, of Asian descent, of European descent, of First Nations descent in this land and abroad, and people of mixed and multiple descents and of all the languages spoken here. Response: I belong.
Bodies with all abilities and challenges. Those living with any chronic medical condition, visible or invisible, mental or physical. Response: I belong.
People who identify as activists and those who don’t. Mystics, believers, seekers of all kinds. People of all ages. Those who support you to be here. Response: I belong.
Your emotions: joy, fear, grief, contentment, disappointment, surprise, and all else that flows through you. Response: I belong.
Your families, genetic and otherwise. Those dear to us who have died. Our ancestors and the future ones. The ancestors who lived in this land, in this place, where these buildings are now . . . we honor you through this work that we are undertaking. Response: I belong.
People who feel broken, lost, struggling; who suffer from self-doubt and self-judgment. Response: I belong.
All beings that inhabit this earth: the two-legged, the four-legged, winged and finned, those that walk, fly, and crawl, above the ground and below, in air and water. Response: I belong.
2021’s last day. Exhale.
December 31, 2021She isn’t letting us go gently as she finally releases her grip. Colorado. ♡ -dayle
From Marianne Williamson:
“I embrace each moment as an opportunity for a miracle.
Infinite opportunity is built into the nature of the universe.
It is not lack of opportunities, but rather the ways I have sabotaged them, that has obstructed the flow of miracles into my life.”
December 31, 2021
A Revelation of Heaven on Earth
“We return today to CAC teacher Brian McLaren, who illustrates how one of the Bible’s most challenging books—Revelation—can be a source of wisdom and hope for us today:
There’s a beautiful visionary scene at the end of the Book of Revelation that is as relevant today as it was in the first century. It doesn’t picture us being evacuated from Earth to heaven as many assume. It pictures a New Jerusalem descending from heaven to Earth [see Revelation, chapter 21]. This new city doesn’t need a temple because God’s presence is felt everywhere. It doesn’t need sun or moon because the light of Christ illuminates it from within. Its gates are never shut, and it welcomes people from around the world to receive the treasures it offers and bring the treasures they can offer. From the center of the city, from God’s own throne, a river flows—a river of life or aliveness. Along its banks grows the Tree of Life. All of this, of course, evokes the original creation story and echoes God’s own words in Revelation: “Behold! I’m making all things new!”
Rather than giving its original readers and hearers a coded blueprint of the future, Revelation gave them visionary insight into their present situation. It told them that the story of God’s work in history has never been about escaping Earth and going up to heaven. It has always been about God descending to dwell among us. . . . God wasn’t a distant, terrifying monster waiting for vengeance at the end of the universe. God was descending among us here and now, making the tree of true aliveness available for all.
Earlier in the year, Richard shared the shocking hopefulness of the Bible’s apocalyptic literature:
God puts us in a world of passing things where everything changes and nothing remains the same.
The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. It’s a hard lesson to learn. It helps us appreciate that everything is a gift. We didn’t create it. We don’t deserve it. It will not last, but while we breathe it in, we can enjoy it, and know that it is another moment of God, another moment of life.
People who take this moment seriously take every moment seriously, and those are the people who are ready for heaven.
Brian offers this final encouragement:
What was true for Revelation’s original audience is true for us today. Whatever madman is in power, whatever chaos is breaking out, whatever danger threatens, the river of life is flowing now. The Tree of Life is bearing fruit now. True aliveness is available now. That’s why Revelation ends with the sound of a single word echoing through the universe. That word is not Wait! Nor is it Not Yet!or Someday! It is a word of invitation, welcome, reception, hospitality, and possibility. It is a word not of ending, but of new beginning. That one word is Come! The Spirit says it to us. We echo it back. Together with the Spirit, we say it to everyone who is willing. Come!”
-Brian McLaren
-Father Richard Rohr
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‘We’ve been studying war for centuries, we must now study how to create peace…conditions for a deep and lasting peace.’ -Brian McLaren
Plan for U.S. Department of Peace
Ending the scourge of violence in the United States and across the planet requires more than suppressing violence. Lasting peace requires its active and systematized cultivation at every level of government and society. The U.S. Department of Peace will coordinate and spur the efforts we need to make our country and the world a safer place. Nothing short of broad-scale investment and government reorientation can truly turn things around.
Both domestically and internationally, we must dramatically ramp up the use of proven powers of peace-building, including dialogue, mediation, conflict resolution, economic and social development, restorative justice, public health approaches to violence prevention, trauma-informed systems of care, social and emotional learning in schools, and many others.
“I believe our country’s way of dealing with security issues is increasingly obsolete. We have the finest military force in the world, however we can no longer rely on force alone to rid ourselves of international enemies. The planet has become too small for that, and in so doing, we overburden our military by asking them to compensate for the other work that we choose not to do. We are less effective, and less secure, because of that,” said Williamson.
As its mission, the U.S. Department of Peace will; hold peace as an organizing principle; promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights; coordinate restorative justice programs; address white supremacy; strengthen nonmilitary means of peacemaking; work to prevent armed conflict; address the epidemic of gun violence; develop new structures of nonviolent dispute resolution; and proactively and systematically promote national and international conflict prevention, mediation, and resolution. In short, we must wage peace. “Large groups of desperate people,” said Williamson, “should be seen as a national security risk.”
The Department will create and establish a Peace Academy, modeled after the military service academies, which will provide a 4-year concentration in peace education. Graduates will be required to serve 5 years in public service in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution.
The Secretary of Peace will serve as a member of the National Security Council and will be empowered to coordinate with all Cabinet agencies – including the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Justice, and State, and the new Department of Children and Youth.
In 2022, let’s pledge to making this our reality. -dayle
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be free from disease.
May auspiciousness be seen everywhere.
May suffering belong to no one.
Peace
Shanti~Shanti~Shanti
Final days. #2022
December 30, 2021‘I regret nothing.’ -Edith Piaf
‘I’ve learned a great deal this year. What kind of year did you have? No matter how many challenges you’ve had, no matter what pain you’ve endured, did you do your very best? Then have no regrets.’ -A. Stoddard
As a collective we should have so many, and we can do so much better. We must. -dayle
Brian McLaren from the Center of Action and Contemplation:
“Something beautiful lies ‘unveiled’ on the other side of complexity and perplexity.”
Gatekeepers have long built razor-wire fences around us with
- beliefs
- rules
- policies
- controversies
- budgets
- programs
- activities
- rituals
- offerings
- inquisitions
Spirituality, though, is available to everyone, like wind, rain, and sun. [Brian McLaren] This is what we harness and share, and protect. “In politics, we’ve been studying war for centuries. We must now study how to crate the conditions for deep and lasting peace. We must now cherish life on earth and engage with it by focusing our best energies on learning to love neighbor, self, earth, and God…Gaia…who is Love.”
LATimes
What LA astronomers and diviners have in store for you in 2022.
-Deborah Netburn, staff writer
‘Spend time dreaming about the world in which you want to live…get specific about what real-life steps you can take to make it a reality. Ask, what does it mean to you to release the Earth, working with others to help the land rest more?’
Full piece [paywall]:
‘These are scary, uncertain times. The pandemic has thrown our lives into chaos once again. Global warming has upended the predictable flow of the seasons. The political climate is divisive and volatile. With all this anxiety swirling around us, is it any wonder that tarot readers, astrologers and other divinatory practitioners say they’ve never been busier? All of us want to know what will happen next.
From the Oracle at Delphi to the Yoruba practitioners of Ifá, there are myriad ways to approach divination and myriad reasons for wanting to see into the future. These tools can be seen as a framework to make sense of the events in our lives. Through this lens, divinatory practices encourage believers to pay attention to the patterns in their lives and the cycles of nature and to move through time with intention.
Los Angeles is among the most spiritually diverse cities in the world; we live alongside thousands of divinatory practitioners from a wide range of traditions — many of whom have devoted their lives to the study of ancient practices that go back thousands of years. As we enter a new calendar year, I asked a handful of them what archetypal energies they expect we’ll encounter over the next 12 months and how we might prepare.’
[Posted on twitter, as seen outside a pub in Europe.]
Eric Holthaus, The Phoenix:
“Any time a climate movie breaks through, it’s worthy of celebration. But this isn’t an ordinary climate movie. #DontLookUp
is special.”
In the last days of 2021, a year in which Texas froze and the freakin’ ocean caught fire, the number one movie in the world on Netflix is a star-studded climate movie that’s not about climate.
Let me be super clear: Any time climate breaks through, it’s worthy of celebration. But this isn’t an ordinary climate movie. Don’t Look Up is special.
Watching it last night for the first time, I was legitimately blown away by how much I felt like I could relate to the main plot — well-meaning scientists being ignored because their message wasn’t pleasant or profitable. I was scared to watch it because I was worried it would make me feel even more depressed than I already do about being a climate communicator during these decades of climate delay, but it’s just the opposite. This is the climate movie I was waiting for.
“The reason I think Don’t Look Up works so well is because the film’s creators did their homework. There are so many Easter Eggs thrown in throughout that it’s like a love letter to climate activists. There is a massive, waiting audience for authentic climate movies like this that speak to the deep, existential anxiety of being alive at this profoundly terrifying moment in history. We know how to solve the climate emergency — stop burning fossil fuels, build up a circular, caring society, and shift political power so that nothing like it ever happens again — and yet our leaders are staring us straight in the face and saying no.
Director Adam McKay wrote that his own climate anxiety after reading David Wallace-Wells’ The Uninhabitable Earth helped inspire the film, and screenplay co-writer David Sirota wrote that empowering the climate movement was a primary goal of the film.
I reached out to McKay and Sirota, and they both confirmed this hunch I had that the movie wasn’t just a political satire, it was a gift for battle-weary activists after several long, hard years of struggle. “We literally made Don’t Look Up for the climate community,” McKay told me.
When I asked Sirota about the movie’s lack of a preachy, prescriptive call-to-action takeaways at the end, he said that was intentional.
“We want it to be a clarion call for the movement,” Sirota said, “But also respect that the movement should decide its tactics.”
The movie isn’t perfect. There’s too much of a focus on the United States, and there’s a valid criticism that seeking action from corrupt politicians during a time of crisis is counterproductive. We know that climate action at the scale and scope we need will only come from collective movements.
But that’s exactly our job now — tell more climate stories that build on this one.
This isn’t a movie that could exist without the decades of failures that have happened so far. But it’s also a movie that finally FINALLY acknowledges that the lynchpin to taking action on climate isn’t about data or carbon or graphs, it’s about finding our shared humanity.
That part is working:
Authentic climate action is way easier than shooting nukes at a comet — it’s treating each other and the Earth better. It’s listening. It’s building systems of power to replace the systems that have been built to kill us.
It’s up to us, the climate movement, to redirect the energy that Don’t Look Up gives us.”
David Wallace-Wells:
“Globally, 250 million people live within three feet of high tide lines. Ten feet of sea level rise would be a world-bending catastrophe. It’s not only goodbye Miami, but goodbye to virtually every low-lying coastal city in the world.”
“Thwaites Glacier is the size of Florida. It is the cork in the bottle of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 10 feet.” The great Jeff Goodell on the scary signs from the “Doomsday” glacier.
Rolling Stone
by Jeff Goodall
‘The Fuse Has Been Blown,’ and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All
New data suggests a massive collapse of the ice shelf in as little as five years. “We are dealing with an event that no human has ever witnessed,” says one scientist. “We have no analog for this”
“Given the ongoing war for American democracy and the deadly toll of the Covid pandemic, the loss of an ice shelf on a far-away continent populated by penguins might not seem to be big news. But in fact, the West Antarctic ice sheet is one of the most important tipping points in the Earth’s climate system. If Thwaites Glacier collapses, it opens the door for the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet to slide into the sea. Globally, 250 million people live within three feet of high tide lines. Ten feet of sea level rise would be a world-bending catastrophe. It’s not only goodbye Miami, but goodbye to virtually every low-lying coastal city in the world.”
Power in disorder (Joan Didion). Let’s reclaim it now.
Order, disorder, reorder (Father Richard Rohr).
Pandemic life.
Climate Emergency.
Pari Center, Italy.
Action & Contemplation
January 16, 2021‘The story we believe and live in today has a lot to do with the world we create for our children, our grandchildren, and our descendants one hundred thousand years from now (if?).’ -Brian McLaren
And.
‘We are all looking for a larger and more loving story in which to participate.’
‘The deepest truth is our union with the Absolute, Infinite Being with God. That’s the root of our reality.’ -Beatrice Bruteau
‘We experience liberation from
panicked
frantic
desperate
incoherent
fruitless, or counterproductive action.
We will no longer be “just” anything,
homemaker,
laborer
accountant
kindergarten teacher.
No, whatever our work we will do it as agents…builders…of a new world.
Then, we will
vote differently,
buy differently,
invest differently,
eat differently,
volunteer differently,
treat our neighbors differently,
and so much more.’
-Center for Action and Contemplation
We are falling on our face because we are jumping high.
A dash of perspective in a dark hour.
Anand Giridharadas
It’s scary out there right now. It’s going to be scary for some time to come. What has been unleashed, what has been revealed, is ugly. It is what makes democracies die.
In the despair, it is easy to lose perspective. I certainly do all the time. But from time to time, I step back and try to remember where we are as a country on the arc of things.
And I see then that this is both a very dark time and, potentially, a very bright time. It’s important to hold these truths together.
When I look down at the ground of the present right now, I feel depressed. If I lift my head to the horizon, I see a different picture.
This is not the chaos of the beginning of something. This is the chaos of the end of something.
Because the 40 years of this plutocratic takeover — of the ideology that said if you’re torn between doing what’s good for money and what’s good for people, always do what’s good for money; these stories about lazy workers and welfare queens; and any number of other fraudulent tales that were meant to justify life in the Hamptons — if I allow myself to feel this way on a good day, it all actually feels like it’s burning down.
And on matters of race and identity, likewise, the Trump era doesn’t have the crackle of a launch. It has been a mourning. A mourning for white power. A mourning for a time when simply to be white and show up was enough. A mourning for an era in which simply to be a man, and not necessarily an especially capable one, could get you ahead of other people. A mourning for a time when you could be the default idea of an American and not have to share your toys.
We must understand that what we’ve been living through is backlash. Backlash.
It’s not the engine of history. It is the revolt against the engine of history. Then we might remember — just to pat ourselves on the back for a second — that what we are actually endeavoring to do right now is to become a kind of society that has seldom, if ever, existed in history. Which is become a majority-minority, democratic superpower.
I have a lot of love for my friends in Europe, but actually none of you all have your immigration rates and naturalization rates at a high enough level to get there anytime soon. And you all may never get there.
Look at India and China. I love India. My parents are from India. India is never going to be a nation of immigrants. It’s never going to be a country of people from all the world. It can barely get unity with people just from India. China is never going to be a nation of immigrants. No shade. That’s just not their history. It’s not who they are.
We are falling on our face because we are jumping very high right now. We are trying to do something that does not work in theory.
To be a country of all the world, a country made up of all the countries, a country without a center of identity, without a default idea of what a human being is or looks like, without a shared religious belief, without a shared language that is people’s first language at home. And what we’re trying to do is awesome. It is literally awesome in the correct sense of that word.
And, therefore, that we are having insurrections on the Mall or four years of an autocratic attempt or racism oozing through the television and social media portals is both terrifying and a completely predictable, inevitable result of people in power exploiting these transitional anxieties for their own pecuniary gain.
And what we have to do is get smarter than powerful people. Get more organized than them, and understand that there is a different story to tell those who mistakenly went to the Mall and the 12 percent of Americans who actually supported that terrorist attack, and everybody else — a story to tell them about something great we are trying to do.
We will actually create a country that’s better for every single person. But we have to be willing to tell that story forcefully. We have to be willing to fight those people tooth and nail, and we have to fight to win.
We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail.