By Beatrice Bruteau pt.4 : Ecological Spirituality

[Guest guest]

I said earlier that the second thing we could do with a deepened

sense of ecology is to use it as a metaphor for certain human

concerns. I propose now to apply it to the possibility of a planetary

spirituality.

 

We can see ecology as spirituality and again we can see spirituality

as ecological. Taking the first way first, we can see, for instance,

that concern for the ecology, for the welfare of the planet, may be

functioning at the present time as an avenue for development of a

global spirituality. Earth Day is celebrated all over the world, and

environmentalists everywhere preach much the same doctrines: rescue

from pollution, recycling, thinking as a bioregion, respect for the

dignity and beauty of the Earth, identifying with the planet as a

whole, setting aside human in-group greediness to reach out to the

needy and to other species. There are common spiritual values, common

spiritual insights in all these movements. They are bound to grow

stronger and more explicit, because the problems that provoked them

are real everywhere and are also growing.

 

Is this a sign of the coming of something like a generic

spirituality? By generic I mean without a brand name--the same real

thing but without a label identifying it as coming from a particular

source. Or perhaps we should say without a label limiting it to a

particular source, because people who are speaking and writing on

these issues often quite naturally and comfortably quote from several

traditions and do name them: Christian, Buddhist, Native American,

and so on. And then they mingle these words of wisdom with those from

contemporary science and from poets and other artists. But what gives

the message its power to move is not the citation of its tradition of

origin but its perceived truth for our times. We recognize our own

voices in all these texts. They do/not sound nearly as alien as we

had thought they would. Sometimes we think that they are saying the

same thing in different ways.

 

Economic development and its ultimately global interdependence have

led to the ecological disasters we are now facing on a planetary

scale. Divisions into tribes with their own unique and exclusive

traditions do not help us much with these new worldwide problems.

When we get off the planet, as the astronauts and cosmonauts did, we

can see that there are no boundaries marking out the ranges of

nations, or races, or religions. Different approaches to spirituality

have developed among the diverse peoples of the Earth in the same way

that variants and distinct species have developed biologically: by

separation. Each tribal unit had its own representation of deity and

its own customs. But when these separations are overcome, then

sharing takes over more and more--even while conflicts are still

going on--and hybrids begin to appear.

 

Today, the same information--about science, about history, about

anthropology--is, to a great extent, available to everyone on Earth.

We all know a good deal about one another, and every day we are

coming to know more. It is increasingly an information world. It is

going to be harder and harder to preserve the doctrinal and ritual

purity of particular spiritualities in a world that is becoming so

intimately interconnected.

 

Hybridizing is not unknown in the history of the traditions we

already have. The Jews were influenced by their neighbors, and the

materials we have in the Bible represent gatherings from Egypt,

Babylonia, and Persia, as well as Hebrew experiences. Christianity

grew out of Judaism but was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy,

Roman polity, and maybe even Hindu spirituality. The Western church

adopted first Platonic and, later, quite different Aristotelian

philosophical concepts, and each time declared them to be orthodox

teaching. Look at what happened to Buddhism in China, when it

intermarried with Taoism, and later in Japan where it was adapted to

fit the indigenous culture. Islam acknowledges that it has built its

house on Jewish and Christian foundations. And Hinduism simply

absorbs every spiritual nutrient set before it and assimilates it

into its own identity.

 

Each of these broad streams of tradition is itself faceted into many

sects and schools of thought. Some of these internal dissensions are

sources of intense antagonism. Adherents may have their fiercest

loyalty to their most local identity. Nevertheless, if pressed, both

Shiite and Sunni will proclaim, " We are Moslems. " Orthodox, Catholic,

and Protestant will declare, " We are Christians. "

 

The question is, what shall we mean when we say " we " ? What is the

scope of the context? Where do we position the horizon of our domain?

In particular, if--let us say--Catholics can draw from Benedictine,

Franciscan, Dominican, and Carmelite sources without feeling that

they have gone outside the borders of their appropriate " we, " why can

not all of us expand those borders? Why can we not, as human beings,

draw from all the traditions on Earth? The question is: How big is

our " we " ?

 

The old borders are being perforated by global life activities. All

our walls are going to suffer the fate of the Berlin Wall. Nations,

languages, lifestyles, religions are sharing their genes and their

life energies. Provoked by transnational economics and planetary

ecology, ecumenism is growing apace. Some people call these three " Eco

[3] " and see them as the dimensions of our gateway into the future.

[13]

 

Now, I think that our future can be talked about in terms of the

large themes of the Trinity, The Incarnation, and the Incarnation of

the Trinity, the Holy Community: unity, diversity, and dynamism.

Besides the basic spiritual sense that I have called generic

spirituality, there is ecological spirituality in which the diversity

is celebrated in harmony with the unity represented by generic

spirituality. Variety is also important to life: from it come the new

creations of evolution. If we sink into uniformity, we will not grow.

 

At the same time, we must go beyond ethnocultural chauvinism. We are

still tempted in this direction, although sometimes in a covert way.

While we speak politely to one another in the council halls of

ecumenical discourse, when we are at home, in the privacy of our own

received teachings and practices, each of us securely knows that,

although other traditions may now and then say something quite good,

they are acceptable only after being fitted into our own tradition,

which is the one really true God-revealed spirituality. The others

are, perhaps, preparations for the revelation that was given finally

in the form of our tradition. Or perhaps they are later, fallen-away,

versions of the original truth. Or, the others are variations on the

general theme that is best enunciated in our spiritual philosophy. If

any universalizing is to be done, we have the best umbrella, or the

divine mandate, for doing it.

 

Of course, we have to use some language, and when we address an

audience familiar with a particular traditional language we may be

justified in making use of it, as I am doing here in building a whole

argument around the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and

the Holy Communion and citing Gospel texts. But what we say by means

of this language should be, in the new ecological ecumenism, that the

sacred concepts, doctrines, images, practices of this tradition

themselves point beyond any exclusivist claim for themselves.

Every " world-class " spiritual tradition has a way of talking about

universal unity. But if it is a truly self-transcending spiritual

tradition, one that is rooted in the apophatic experience, then it

will not insist that its way--good way though it is--is the only

acceptable way.

 

Taking a privileged viewpoint--choosing one traditional spirituality

to be the umbrella, or the master form, for the planetary soul--is

not an ecological way of proceeding. The ecological paradigm shows

all parties collaborating with equal dignity and constituting jointly

the " we " of the ecosystem.

 

Another metaphor suggests itself, a musical metaphor: polyphony. Why

should any of us insist that our particular history/doctrine/practice

is the major theme, the melody, to which others can be considered

harmony, counterpoint, accompaniment, back-up group? Why should we

not each sing our own melodic line, interweaving it with all others

so that the whole composes a living, moving harmony? Why not be a

jazz band and improvise, with each musicial creating--within the

general, the generic, universal, planetary themes--a unique

contribution? Why not all the Earth pray a polyphonic prayer?

 

Something like this may be the way we are naturally tending, despite

the upsurge of fundamentalisms in several traditions. Planetary

intercommunication is so inescapable now that themes of general

concern and consensus are bound to emerge, even if they are initially

overshadowed by conflicts. We may expect to grow into an ecological

spirituality in the same natural--groping--way any ecosystem finds

its balance among a variety of species, each in its own niche.

 

This will be a new thing for the planet, for the history of

humanity's efforts to interpret its experience in spiritual, or

ultimate, terms. And we will need stories even about how this new

thing has arisen and what it means. But those stories will come. The

time of revelation is not past. Revelation is what the whole history

of the world is. If the time of revelation were past, God wouldn't be

creative and the universe would be dead.

 

A new revelation is coming, and many threads from the past will be

woven into it, drawn from all the old traditions. But some of

the " former things " will " pass away " (Rev 21:4)--whatever is

incompatible with planetary peaceful life together. The new

revelation will not come from a chosen people that excludes other--

unchosen--people. As Rabbi Nahum Ward says in " Judaism in the

Planetary Era, " all people are chosen. The most important piece of

traditional lore that is passing away, he says, is the notion, " My

tribe is right. Your tribe is wrong. " Indeed, " We can no longer

afford such polarization .... This challenge, to give up our subtle

and oft unspoken sense of superiority, goes to the core of our

identity as a people. " But, " as we prepare to enter the twenty-first

century .... our world needs people who can maintain their sense of

identity without denigrating others. " [14] We can all sing our own

proper melodies while listening to those of others.

 

And then he says a very interesting thing, something that many people

are saying these days: " The model for the future is not the pyramid,

but rather the circle, the community .... New forms, new ideas, new

possibilities will emerge from all of us, working together. "

 

This is the kind of metaphor that comes from the new information

technologies. The pyramid model of social organization, so

familiar ,to us from the corporation, the military, and some

religious organizations, is like a circuit wired in series: it has a

distinct top and bottom, few connections, and high vulnerability to

attack or evolutionary change. The alternative is parallel wiring,

which corresponds to the circle of the community, to what is often

called the network, or the system. Heinz Pagels, in his last book,

The Dreams of Reason, on the new sciences of complexity and their

significance for the next stage of human culture, has some excellent

discussion of this difference. " A network, " he says, " has no 'top'

or 'bottom.' Rather, it has a plurality of connections that increase

the possible interactions between components of the network. There is

no central executive authority that oversees the system. A network

has lots of redundancy, " therefore very low vulnerability to' attack

or evolutionary change.[15] It can adapt. It is ecological. It is

polyphonic. It is even, in the traditional Christian language I am

adopting here, Trinitarian, because it is essentially communitarian.

 

This is, I believe, a typical new model for community and

communication. We are not to be forced into a choice between

uniformity on the one hand--everybody exactly alike--and alienation

on the other hand--everybody divided into different groups

antagonistic to one another. We can behave like an ecological

network.

 

Raimundo Panikkar says, in The Silence of God, " No culture, and no

religion, can solve the human problem all by itself .... Hence the

need for a mutual fertilization of human traditions " .[16] This mutual

fertilization he now sees as including not only the various religions

and spiritualities, but also the relations between humanity as

religious (whether theistic or non-theistic) and humanity as secular.

So even our ecumenism is expanding and evolving. We are shifting and

adjusting, mutating and suffering extinctions; the human ecology is

in motion, groping for adaptation.

 

This motion itself is a finite expression of the divine dynamism, the

expansion and elaboration of Being in the Incarnation of Trinitarian

Love. Can we recognize the Real Presence of the Absolute in these

movements? Can we see ourselves as Eucharist? Can we know what is

going on as the Bread of Life is broken in new ways, into new shapes,

and distributed to all?

 

When we contemplate the Resurrection of the Body, our new

appreciation of the Incarnation of Trinitarian Life in the whole

cosmos, we need also to remember that the Resurrection takes place,

not on the Sabbath, but on the First Day of the week, when the cycle

begins again. It is an ongoing process.

 

pt 4 in total and fini (except notes)

 

 

 

.......bob

 

 

 

 

 

......bob