planet
Spirit & Money
September 19, 2021
Fr Richard Rohr, Center for Action & Contemplation:
I’m convinced that money and soul are united on a deep level.
Money and soul have never been separate in our unconscious because they are both about human exchanges, and therefore, divine exchange, too.
From my perspective, when money and soul are separated, religion is the major loser. Without a vision of wholeness that puts money in its soulful place, religion “sells out.”
Commerce uses the metaphors of religion far more than it realizes: we purchase bonds and trusts, enter into covenants, forgive debts, are granted grace periods for repayment, enjoy indemnity, reconcile accounts, and redeem coupons.
All four Gospels in some form speak of “turning over the tables” of buying and selling. [2] Even with this forceful gospel teaching, our faith became transactional instead of transformational, calculating instead of consoling.
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[2] See Matthew 21:12–13, Mark 11:15–18, Luke 19:45–46, John 2:13–17.
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Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money Institute
“Our relationship with money can become a place where, day in and day out, we can engage in this meaningful spiritual practice.”
‘We are but one thread within it.’
August 2, 2021‘To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee.’
-Emily Dickinson
“I used to think that environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are
- selfishness
- greed
- apathy
and to deal with these, we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
-James Gustave Speth, environmental lawyer and advocate
Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
World Resources Institute
Since 1989 David Suzuki has been calling for action and urgency.
“Transformational paradigm shift:
That respect for nature and interdependent with it must be our top priority.”
Nature was our touchstone and our reference pint and dictated the way we interacted with it. But as economics and politics have increasingly come to dominate our decisions and actions, we have lost our sinse of place in the world and our reverence for nature.
-David Suzuki
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
-Chief Seattle, 1854
Our Planet. 🌱
April 3, 2021
How can we not do everything in our power to keep her safe?
G
A
I
A
[200-year-old Wisteria in Japan.]
COVID, CLIMATE & COMPASSION
January 2, 2021We need to focus and fix all three.
From Eric Holthaus:
Original art for The Phoenix is by Laila Arêde.
Our time here on this beautiful planet is so temporary.
If there’s anything that 2020 taught us, it’s that while time is fleeting for everyone,
it’s the way society is structured
that determines how fleeting it is, and for whom. The overlapping tragedies of Covid-19, police brutality, and the climate emergency don’t fall equally on everyone, and
it’s up to us to change that system
to ensure everyone here gets the chance to thrive that they deserve.
That’s the heart of climate justice.
Our window for revolutionary repair of our planet’s atmosphere and biosphere – caused by centuries of excesses brought by capitalism, patriarchy, misogyny, imperialism, and racism – is bound by physics. We can (and should!) argue about the best ways to get to a zero-carbon world as quickly as possible, but we can’t argue with the fact that current global policies will deliver a planet that’s incompatible with a safe future for billions of people who did the least to cause the climate emergency.
This is what we’re fighting for: Indigenous sovereignty, regenerative care of the land, shelter, equity, joy. All the basics that people need to live a good life. A vision for a bread and roses future for everyone.
Getting started with that journey isn’t hard.
The point is only that you show up.
We need everyone to be a part of this transformation in their own way.
At the same time, becoming a Climate Person isn’t easy. But it’s some of the most important work in the history of the world. You don’t get to give up, but you do get to ask for help.
If living your best life includes making the world more life-sustaining for every creature we share this beautiful planet with, the rest of this post will help you get started.
Meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus describes himself as “a meteorologist who strives to foster understanding of humanity’s connection to the atmosphere.” Here he delivers a monologue on climate change and his mission to remind everyone that we are all in this fight together. Eric wants to change the narrative of climate change from being “one of inevitable disaster to one of possibility.”
Author Allysha Lavino and a thought for 2021:
And what do we want to bring with us?
Courage?
Wisdom?
Tenacity?
This is the year we feather our nests – it’s time to take care of ourSelves, our families, our communities, and our environments.
❀
Care & Action
March 26, 2018
”…it’s about caring for our shared world, lest we let it sleep away through inattention and neglect. […] The active threats to that world have multiplied many times over. There’s a new urgency about paying attention and responding to what we see. The Powers that Be are intent on ‘disappearing’ so much that million of Americans care about—pristine wilderness, clean air and water, affordable health care for all, the social safety net, and mutual respect in the midst of diversity.”
Parker Palmer/On Being
What can a person do to help bring back the world?
We have to watch it and then look at a each other.
Together we hold it close and carefully save it, like a bubble that can disappear
if we don’t watch out.
-William Stafford
[full article: https://onbeing.org/blog/parker-palmer-to-watch-the-world-and-then-each-other]
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Reclaiming this nation starts with reclaiming our attention.
The next time you open up the newspaper or sit down in front of your computer or open an app on your phone to inform yourself about the day’s news, take a moment to set an intention of reading majority non-DT-related news. If you do read a piece related to him, attempt to privilege the information that is about his actions, not his style. When you are in a conversation with someone and it veers down the path of deconstructing something DT has said, intentionally steer it away. Take something you learned while de-prioritizing him and offer it up to your conversation partner. Be part of the solution — highlighting the world around us that has been deeply and poisonously overshadowed by the political climate of the last year and more.
Media obviously has a role to play here, but so do all of us. Our consumption patterns determine what media producers focus on during the next cycle. What we talk about with our friends, neighbors, families all contribute to either feeding or starving this obsession with big politics, as opposed to science, art, our communities, and so much more.
I’m not advocating for disengagement. There’s never been a more important time, at least in my lifespan, for citizens to lean in hard to our duty — to be aware, to be awake, to take action. But obsessing over tweets doesn’t count as civic duty. It’s rubbernecking, not awareness building, and it’s making us feel more disconnected than ever before. Reclaiming this nation starts with reclaiming our attention, our daily media practices, our everyday conversations.”
-Courtney Martin, Columnist