The One Planet endeavor has originated because we are facing an ecological crisis. We cannot go on as we have.
I think the place of greatest contribution toward this crisis in my faith tradition is the integration of religion and science. I will look at three people in my tradition that have influenced me over these years.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) Jesuit priest and scientist, Thomas Barry, a RC priest(1914 – 2009) and a cultural historian, and Pope Frances and his recent encyclical, Laudauto Si, Care for our Earth Home, June 2015*
The ecological crisis that we are facing is the degradation of life as we know it. Our vary survival is at stake. It raises questions of meaning for us. Who are we, where did we come from and why are we here? These are questions that are central to all religious communities.
Imagine for a minute meeting someone new and asking them where they are from? The person responds, “I am from Earth, I am an Earthling, an Earth being.” Some of you might find this puzzling or humorous. In a recent podcast of On Being, guest Rev Angel Kyodo Williams, a Buddhist sensei would hear this response as good news. She says, “We need to recognize our origins and stare straight at them. We are strangers here on earth our home, our origin.”
Thomas Barry would also be pleased with this response. When he saw all the destruction that was happening with the Planet he would say, “We must be stark raving mad. We don’t know who we are.” This was a major question for Thomas Barry.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s work included understanding the evolutionary dynamics of the universe. He saw evolution as the unfolding of the universe, which he called cosmogensis. Namely, a process of ever increasing complexity and consciousness, eventually giving rise to multi-cellular life, fish, birds, animals, and humans. Mathematical Cosmologist Brian Swimme would say, the earth was once molten lava and now sings Bach. Evolution is a movement from lesser to greater complexity and consciousness. In his observations Teilhard saw that the universe from the beginning had both a physical and psychic component, that is, matter and spirit evolved together over time. For Teilhard human consciousness is not an addendum but rather a continuity with the unfolding universe. While humans manifest a special mode of self-reflective consciousness, we are increasingly aware that other species have their own mode of awareness. For Teilhard everything has an essence, an interiority.
Thomas Barry was greatly influenced by Teilhard and set his work within the context of evolution, the universe story as told by science. He co-authored the book, The Universe Story with Brian Swimme a Mathematical Cosmologist. In this book they tell the story of how the universe, the earth, the living world and the human community emerged into being. Humans came out of the earth, we didn’t just arrive here and everything was for our use. It is from the perspective of this larger community, the universe itself that Barry saw as a way for humans to discover their proper role.
One of the most important contributions of Berry’s thought is the sense of the subjectivity of Earth. When Thomas speaks about earth he is talking about everything on our planet. He saw each creature, each ecosystem as well as the whole planet as subjects. He says “we are a community of subjects not collection of objects”. This idea of subjectivity provided a context for Berry to speak about the sacred dimension of Earth, a dimension of earth that evokes awe and wonder.
Thomas understood that our knowledge of God comes to us not only from our scriptures but from our acquaintance with the earth. He would say, “God has revealed God’s self first of all in the sky and in the waters and in the wind, in the mountains and valleys, in the birds of the air and in all those living forms that flower and move over the surface of the planet.” He saw humans in deep communion with universe and Earth processes. Just as life has emerged from these processes, so human spirituality emerges in relation to the Earth community. Our spirituality is a spirituality of Earth because we came out of earth we derive all that we are and all that we have from earth. At its core, our spirituality is Earth derived. The human and Earth are totally implicated, each in the other. If there is no spirituality of Earth, then there is no spirituality in us.
For this reason, he felt that what is needed is a new spiritual, even mystical, communion with Earth. We especially need to recognize the sacred qualities of Earth. He saw this lived out in the ritual expressions of indigenous peoples. Many earlier peoples saw in nature spiritual phenomena, for example in the wonders of the sun and clouds by day and the stars and planets by night, they saw a world that enfolded the human in some profound manner. This other world was guardian, teacher, healer—the source from which humans were born, nourished, protected, guided, and the destiny to which we returned. Above all, this world provided the psychic power they needed in moments of crisis. They invoked these powers and spirituality to manage the demands of life through rites of passage, losses, and suffering. This intimacy is what Berry wishes to reawaken in us. He saw the task of shifting to this perspective is a change of consciousness. He saw this task as a religious and spiritual task.
Today with the insights from science we are in a new position where we can appreciate the historical and the cosmic as a single process. This is the vision of Earth-human development that will provide the sustaining dynamic of the contemporary world. We must nourish awareness of this vision. Our language and imagery need to acknowledge both the physical and psychic dimensions of this organizing force. It needs to be named and spoken of in its integral form. Just as we see the unified functioning of particular organisms, so too Earth itself is governed by a unified principle in and through which the total complex of earthly phenomena takes its shape. When we speak of Earth, we are speaking of a sacred maternal principle out of which all life emerges.
In my religious tradition we looked for God out there somewhere, God was transcendent. Now we are saying we need to develop an earth consciousness. We need to be conscious of God in everything. It is a communion experience with nature. Only with communion can we have community. Only through an integral community can we survive. Our religious doctrine’s need to assert that the human is an integral component of the earth community. While this seems obvious and even simplistic in its statement it is a principle that has within it the power of radical transformation of all basic human issues as these presently exist in the western society.
Laudato Si, Care for our Earth Home Pope Francis
Elaine Lasida gave a insightful overview of the Laudato Si:
She spoke about 3 pillars or themes that run through Laudato Si
- Everything is related
- Everything is gift
- Everything is fragile
1. Everything is related – A common theme though the whole encyclical is our relationship with with nature. “Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it.”(138) Nature is in danger and it is not just a matter of respect for nature but he calls us to establish relationships of interdependence. What it means to be interdependent, is that our life depends on the life of other beings and other beings depend on us. The first and most important relationship that he emphasizes is our relationship with earth. Which means that what ever we do, our decisions, we need to ask the question of how this will affect the relationship, with soil, with birds, trees, air, etc. How does what I am doing build relationship. What do I need to do to build relationship.
2. The second theme that runs through the encyclical is that everything is gift. Earth does not belong to us and it is not here for our use. It is first and foremost a gift. He calls us to rediscover gratuitousness to earth. Or to engage in an “ecological conversion”, touching the earth is a spiritual experience; we are in communion with all living things. It is a spiritual relationship. It is where we experience awe, beauty, wonder.
3. The third theme is that Everything is fragile. He relates The cry of the Earth and the Cry of the poor as the same thing. Of course we as humans want to fix everything. If it is broken then lets fix it, repair it, reconstruct it. We have not done well with poverty and we are not doing great with earth. Pope Frances calls to create something new – it is an invitation into creativity and into dialogue. Chapter five focuses on dialogue between different groups. Dialogue for him means to be displaced by the life of the other. We are challenged to think differently. It is only in these places of dialogue that we will learn our way forward. Another aspect that he invites us into is what he calls sobriety. Sobriety – not just living with less – an experience of liberty, freedom, freedom of things – detached from things – ideas.
In closing I would say. Our relationship with Earth involves something more than practical use, academic understanding, or aesthetic appreciation. A truly human intimacy with Earth and with the entire natural world is needed. Our children should be properly introduced to the world in which they live, to the trees and grasses and flowers, to the birds and the insects and the various animals that roam over the land, to the entire range of natural phenomena. . . . By engaging in the long view, the evolutionary story we move into a more intimate relationship with our earth. We now experience ourselves as the latest arrivals, after some 14 billion years of universe history and after some 4.6 billion years of Earth history. Here we are, born yesterday. We need to be present to the plant in a mutually enhancing relationship rather than a dominating relationship. There is need for a great courtesy toward Earth.
Many mystics and naturalists help us into this relationship through their poetry.
*Resources:
Thomas Barry and Teilhard de Chardin resources were taken from Thomas Barry’s Riverdale papers.
Elaine Lasida’s overview of Laudato Si was from a talk delivered at the Canadian Religious Conference, Montreal May 2018.