cairns

Friday Afternoon: We have been without power, Internet, land line phones, or cable since the ice storm came through the first of the week. Finally drove over to my daughter Ashley’s apartment to check emails and get ready to submit IWU grades tomorrow.

Sunday Afternoon: Power is finally back on, trees cut out of driveway, new generator and power cords put away, and I have to admit that I am a child of my culture.  I want to do something about greenhouse gasses and global warming.  But, if they said, “OK, we will shut the power grid back down until we find something cleaner!”  I would decline.  I want the power company to run cleaner equipment and methods, but I can barely pay the bill for my utilities now…

“Life ain’t easy.  Whoever said it should be?” Dr. Hook

peace

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or anybody else more widely read in the frontiers of man’s impact on the rest of life,

Here is the latest and maybe strangest thing my mind has been chewing on lately:

(Wait, first promise not to actually have me committed, OK:)

Over the past couple of years, I have been puzzled by some disturbing articles on animal behavior. One concerned chimpanzees, not just fighting over a particular food source or area, but going to war against other groups of chimpanzees. The other dealt with a group of male dolphins repeatedly having rough sex with a female dolphin trapped near the shore.

I had never seen anything of this sort before. Of course, we have always known that carnivores kill animals and herbivores kill plants in order to eat and live. But, do these represent a whole new level of cruelty, of depravity, of human like commission of violence? I wonder what has happened.

Have we observed long enough to get past our childlike view of “cute” animals living in an idealistic pseudo-Eden so that we are finally recording newly observed but old truth?

Or is it just possible that the evil of man is spreading further and further though creation? Either by powers of animal observation and mimicry we only recently have come to appreciate, or by the general conditions of evil, are we doing more than kill the animals? Are we teaching them to be rapists and murderers in our likeness?

OK, remember I asked you not to have me committed, but is there scientific evidence that the fall is deepening?

peace

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Do you have a place in the world where your soul and body know they belong– to each other, to this planet, to this creation and creator?

Last night my daughter was telling me of a conversation with a teacher surprised to find that she knew of Chafee County, had been there, had summited Mt. Princeton as a twelve year old.  And it swept over me like a wave.  Thank you Chafee County for every moment I ever spent within your borders.  Thank you for the Young Life years and the trips with my daughter, and earlier with my father.  Thank you for Goldbrick Delaney’s, Seven Thieves, and the ice cream shop.  Thank you for the small town fireworks, the history, and the fun.

If heaven turns out to be here, not ‘out there’, look for me in Chafee County when I am gone.  My soul rests just by allowing my mind to travel to the slopes my body remembers so well.  If I could transport myself to anywhere on earth tonight, you would find me now sitting on a rock in the collegiate peaks and I would breathe, oh deep sweet breath, I would breathe deep and long.

peace

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I have been thinking about all of the Biblical emphasis on elders — elder children, patriarchs, Christ as elder of all in creation.

What if we look again at the creation images without our lenses of triumphant man?

What is our proper response to the rest of life when realizing that every other life form predates us?

If we put aside our traditional view of man as summit and user abuser of all, what is the Biblical standard for treatment of all these elders?

What if we read even the “rule over” verses in the context of the servant leadership we preach for dealing with other people?  Is not the younger biblically the servant?

peace

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This quote popped out of my reading last week partially because it reminded me of T’s work.

The basis for a theology of the cross’s view of the Spirit is found at the very beginning of the Bible, where the Spirit is described as God’s agent in creation (Gen. 1:2; 2:7). Far from being set over against the material world, the Holy Spirit was active in the creation of it. But the Old Testament never thought of creation as something that was past and finished. All existence depends upon God’s continuing creation. Psalm 104 expresses this faith very well. God’s creation is seen as active in the present, making the grass to grow for cattle to eat and plants to grow for humans to cultivate. Through God’s activity people have food to eat and wine to gladden their hearts. Just as in the original creation, the Spirit is seen at work also in this creative activity as we read, “When thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created…” (Ps. 104:30). The Spirit may be in the extraordinary and unusual events, but this does not make the time of such events a unique “outpouring” of the Spirit, for it is God’s Spirit is not being outpoured at all times, there would be no existence at all.

Pp 89-90. “4 The Holy Spirit and the Theology of the Cross” by William Hordern in The Holy Spirit Shy Member of the Trinity, Bruner, Frederick Dale and William Hordern, 1984, Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon. ISBN 1-57910-822-9

It makes me wonder –

Is the way forward from our constant stalemate of political hate statements, blame, and denials over the environment somehow found in this ancient interpretation of God’s work in creation?

Would we stop arguing blame and move forward if we saw with new eyes the miracle of continuous creation?

Would our near despair over current conditions and trends become more hopeful with this view of God’s continued work? Would we find hope in His power vs our stupidity? Or would we fear we have finally pushed Him to withdraw his Spirit and leave us to die?

While I still believe that the human story is Christo-centric, what if our greatest hope is that creation’s story is not human-centric anyway?  What if God’s plans for his continuing creation are about all of creation, including as opposed to only about us?

I wonder. They are questions worth living in for a while.

peace

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By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of “new” sins such as causing environmental blight.

The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican’s number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.

Asked what he believed were today’s “new sins,” he told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics.

“(Within bioethics) there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control,” he said.

The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning.

Girotti, in an interview headlined “New Forms of Social Sin,” also listed “ecological” offences as modern evils.

In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.

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Well, the anniversary of Roe v Wade is upon us again.  So this morning’s sermon on Mathew used the Christmas story as a discussion of pro-life.  It was reasonably done as such things go and did in fact mention the significance of the males listening or not listening to the angelic messengers.  I think that idea deserves to be taken much much further.

Are we pro-life as men if we fail to raise our sons (individual family or church sons) with a less than Biblical call to responsible adulthood?  Are we pro-life if we fail to raise our daughters with a full understanding of their worth as equal children of God, not as maid servants of any variety?  Are we pro-life when we allow questions of choice v life to be women’s issues argued mostly among those wealthy enough to have choices?  Are we pro-life when we fail to show the same fervor for raising children that goes into insisting that they be born?  Are we pro-life when we are silent about a society that leaves large segments of the population unable to earn a decent wage or obtain health care? 

Are we pro-life when we ignore the poisoning of the planet — or make that a partisan political issue rather than one of divine mandate to care for the Earth? (One of today’s songs actually included a line about trees being valued more than babies — whatever that was supposed to mean!)  Are we pro-life when we accept warfare as an option for dealing with troublesome foreign rulers — or make those decisions based on partisan politics and/or ethnocentric and imperialistic assumptions of power rather than faith and prayer? 

I do not believe we are pro-life as long as we fail to engage the difficult issues and take the difficult measures required to protect and honor ALL life.  If I do not believe in abortion as a man, good for me I suppose, but as a physical being, I will never need one.  Even as a mating partner the greatest accountability my society will demand of me is to contribute funds – not an eighteen year minimum commitent of my time and person to provide care, nurture, and parenting. 

I cannot call this narrow area of politicized rhetoric alone pro-life if it does not include children after birth, children of all places and races, the total human population of the planet, and the planet itself with all of its life forms.  This is a difficult and dangerous time to be truly pro-life.  It will require real and deep counter cultural reflection and action.

So back to the Christmas story.  If I see myself in the role of Joseph, Magi, or shepherd, then isn’t it time to ask, “What message does the angel have for me?  Am I man enough to obey?”

peace

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I was in church this morning and the pastor was explaining to the congregation why he was not at all sure he supported a return to prayer in public school considering the politically correct non-specific kind of prayer that would be taught.  He quoted the ACLU as saying they might support, “a neutral moment of silent reflection.”  He followed with, “I do not even know what that is.”

I know what it is because Indiana school’s have it.  First we watch the morning announcements, then recite the Pledge, then a well meaning and enthusiastic staff member in charge of such media things speaks in what must be to her a reverent or spiritual voice (maybe its just her quiet voice) about the scene will view today during the moment of silence.  Her comments are usually longer than the moment of silence.  Usually the scene is some nature picture viewed through a slightly wobbly handheld camera.

But, several days lately the voice has declared that today we will be viewing Stonehenge.  Why Stonehenge?  They would never show a cathedral or a manger, a menorah, or a Buddha.  But we are viewing Stonehenge! 

And I am offended.  Not because I think anyone is trying to glorify druidism or the like, but because we are standing there celebrating mindless attention to nothing!  She is putting up Stonehenge because of some uninformed assumption that it represents some feeling of something or other kinda sorta spiritual and old.  And the kids stand and try not to fidget or talk during the ten or less seconds that the quiet lasts… Then we are back to ‘don’t cheetah yourself outta an education by missing school’ and ‘give somebody the gift of a smile.’

Have a nice day indeed –as long as you are comfortable in our brain dead fuzzy warm spiritual sorta kinda touchy feely world of believe whatever you want as long as you don’t express it to me while the environment gives off warning after warning that we are on the edge of eliminating life as we know it — then enjoy your neutral moment of silence and smile, smile, smile.

peace

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