Foundations of Integral Ecology

With the gift of years, I have worked to make sense of my experience and discern how it has culminated in how I live my life. I hope to continue to be attentive to the promptings of the spirit and to imagine what is still possible for me to do. I remain confident that it is by responding to the lure of the future that engagement in tomorrow is revealed.

When I studied chemistry as an undergraduate, I thought the periodic table was where all life began. Later, I saw that the first chapter of galactic history can be studied through the lens of physics, whereas the next chapter can be studied as biological, marking the emergence of life. The culminating chapter marks the emergence of humanity and culture, which we study as anthropology and sociology.

For decades, I worked to express and understand the religious quest for justice, which attempts to ensure that the basic necessities of life are available to those who are less privileged. My work was based on the notions of social justice I encountered in my years of study and practice of the writing of community organizer Saul Alinsky. With hindsight, this approach seems limited by its focus on the have-nots becoming the haves. Although admirable in itself, this approach creates at best only a temporary improvement.

As a result, I felt the need to explore the deeper roots of the injustice that deprives people of life’s basic necessities. It became clear to me that the problem is a crisis of life on this planet. We are in a struggle to create a viable relationship between humanity and the Earth. In this ultimate struggle for survival, we need a theological reflection on the human-Earth relationship that includes not just cultural history but an exploration of the origin and unfolding dynamics of life itself.

Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote that “divine goodness” cannot be adequately represented by one creature alone. The divine produced many and diverse creatures; thus, that which wanted to be one in the representation of divine goodness might be supplied by another. Goodness is simple and uniform in God, but in creation it is manifold and divided. The whole universe together participates in divine goodness more perfectly and represents it better than could any single creature.

As a child I grew up in a church that focused more on redemption than creation. The term crucifixion Catholic would be accurate. Our worldview was dualistic at its core. It was a static dogma that separated mind from matter, and humanity from environment. The call to resacralize the Earth was absent from our life purpose.

The challenge before us now is to embrace the two revelatory sources available to us. The first is the revealed word in the sacred text. The second is the natural world, which can be seen as the primary source of divine revelation.

Such a theological vision empowers us to see our vocational destiny as the call to resacralize the Earth. When we internalize this call, we join the great chorus of creation; we focus on the sacredness of the natural world. With this in mind, we can fully and gratefully take up the privileged task to “reinvent what it means to be human.” 

In this regard Brian Swimme writes, “To speak of the cosmic dawn of the universe… is to treat questions that every culture throughout history has confronted.” We can now move into the future with what Brian calls “stories that serve to mediate ultimate reality to the larger culture.”

In these early years of the new millennium, we are able to embrace the prophetic and creative vision of Pope Francis’s “integral ecology.” We move forward to both heal and celebrate the work of justice, seeing it as work that is both social and environmental in nature.

(originally published July 17, 2016)

An MRI of the Soul

One year ago,

a young white man

knelt and prayed with nine black people,

then shot all nine and took their lives.

What might be revealed by an MRI of his soul?

Just days ago,

a man stepped into an Orlando club,

began to shoot.

Forty-nine lost their lives,

others were wounded.

What would be revealed by an MRI of his soul?

Today we ask,

“How is peace possible when love is denied?”

The Golden Rule is not kept

when terror rules the soul.

Perhaps we need

another Selma moment for the soul.

(originally published June 30, 2016)

Thoughts on Our Great Work

When I reflect on what Thomas Berry called “the great work,” my heart is moved with gratitude for his life and his vision, which remains with us today.

Thomas reminds us that to participate in the great work is to align our energies with the dynamic, unfolding energy of the universe. When this happens, God’s work becomes our work. As we align our personal destiny with the larger destiny of the universe, we are carried into the future by the creative energy of the divine that flows in and through our lives.

Thomas sheds light on his great work by recounting an experience that took place when he was eleven-years-old.

One day in May, he ventured beyond the family home to the meadow across the creek. As he gazed at the while lilies and at the clouds in the blue sky, saw the water glistening in the sunshine, and listened to the crickets in the meadow, he was moved to ecstasy.

The beauty of this experience touched his soul; it was as if this moment of grace left its sacred imprint on him. From that day forward, his work was guided by a simple principle: What was good for the meadow was good for the world. And what was not good for the meadow was not good for the world and should be avoided.

My own meadow is the St. Clair River—the beautiful body of water that connects Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair in the Great Lakes region. The river bears the name St. Clare of Assisi because it was discovered on the feast of St. Clare, well known for her love of God’s creation.

As a boy, I grew up on the shores of the St. Clair River and learned to swim in, skate on, and fish in its sacred waters. It was a poultice for my soul when I was sad and often a source of joy and celebration.

On one occasion, after I had been away from the St. Clair River for some time, as I approached the river, my mouth began to water. As a result, I became aware that I had a cellular relationship with the sacred waters of the St. Clair.

I often think that this body of water can be viewed as a metaphor for what unites us all and holds our world together. This uniting force brings together two countries (Canada and the United States), as well as heaven and earth, God and the world, and each individual and the larger community.

When I go to sleep at night, I sometimes remember its beauty as a sacrament of my soul and as a guide for living: That which unites is good; that which separates is not good. This principle informs the great work.

On many occasions, I have invited the participants in classes I taught to reflect on their childhood experiences of nature and to identify their own meadow experiences. They can then trace how their meadow experiences have guided their great work and influenced their destiny in the world. I invite you to do this reflection yourself now.

As we discover the focus of our great work, it also behooves us to think about how we can move away from this time in which humans are devastating the planet and move toward a time when we will be present to the planet in a more mutually enhancing way. Combining our personal work with the larger concerns of our epoch is our common task, our overarching great work.

(originally published June 24, 2016)

Remembering Muhammad Ali

On a recent Friday evening, the news broadcast I was watching was interrupted by an announcement: “Muhammad Ali, prize fighter, peace maker and a person who was bigger than life, has left us.”

I walked away from the television and picked up a book from the shelf; the title was Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. I opened the book and read, “Best wishes, Muhammad Ali.” I had purchased it at what was then Cody’s Books in Berkeley one memorable night when Ali visited the area to launch his biography.

Now, my mind was flooded with memories about boxing and the amazing person who had just left us. I recalled going with my father and some neighbors to watch a Gillette Cavalcade of Sports boxing match on television. We did not have a TV in our home at that time, prior to 1960.

I also remembered a group of us cramming into a closet at the seminary to listen to the Cassius Clay become the heavyweight champion of the world by defeating Sonny Liston in 1963. We had to huddle in the closed because the seminary rules did not allow us to listen to the radio.

And there was the time that Ali lost his boxing license after refusing to participate in the Vietnam War. He famously said, “I ain’t got nothing against no Viet Cong.”

I went to Chicago’s Navy Pier to watch him train after that ban was lifted. I also watched him in theaters, which had showed pay-for-view matches in those days, and gathered in friends’ homes to watch him on TV toward the end of his career.

I looked again at the signature in my book. It was on a piece of paper placed there by Ali, not signed by his hand. Even then, the Parkinson’s that eventually took his life did not permit him to sign his name.

As I went to sleep that Friday night, familiar phrases such as “float like a butterfly,” “sting like a bee,” and “you can’t hit what you can’t see” wafted through my mind.

Today I remain grateful for the life of a man who transcended boxing. He was a man of courage, heart, and conviction. This grandson of a slave refused to be a “white man’s Negro.” Through unimaginable contests—including the Thrilla in Manila in the Philippines, and the Rumble in the Jungle in Africa—boxing introduced this remarkable person to the world. As a result, we came to know and revere a man of spiritual greatness, and true American hero.

Thank you, Muhammad Ali.

(originally published June 17, 2016)

All I Have to Say

I want to tell you about the world

we hope to live in.

A world that’s welcoming,

where we all belong.

Not a world that is static and stuck,

full of abstractions and ideas;

rather a world of compassion and love.

A place of belonging and hope,

where every puppy, plant and person

awakens each morning to a wondrous day.

(Originally published June 1, 2016)

A world full of enthusiasm and zest.

This is all I have to say.

Integral Ecology

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is well known for its progressive culture, and many programs dedicated to uplifting the poor and saving the Earth. One such program is St. Mary’s Center, a courageous beacon of light in Oakland that promises a better, healthier life to the homeless, recovery for the addicted, and food for the hungry. Another project is the Ecology Center in Berkeley, which for decades has been a resource for a broad spectrum of ecological concerns, including making wholesome food available through community-supported agriculture (CSA) and farmers’ markets. Yes, good work—both social and ecological—continues to take place in Oakland and Berkeley, and now in many others towns and cities around the country and beyond, as well.

There is a long and noble Catholic tradition focused on the care of the poor, homeless, and hungry. Religious communities of women, especially, have dedicated their lives to the care of the anawim—the most poor, the powerless, and those without a voice in society. A response to the cry of the Earth has been a less significant priority for most Catholics. However, in recent years, a few voices have begun to arise. Fr. Thomas Berry, CP, priest and scholar of cultural history, sought to bridge the divide we have maintained between the human and other-than-human worlds. With a courageous and prophetic voice, he proclaimed, “You can’t have healthy people on a sick planet.”

Berry’s often quoted phrase “the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects” speaks directly to his vision of an integral ecology. In this statement, he emphasizes how we exist in relationship with the Earth, as people of the Earth, and stresses the depths and interconnection in all our relationships. This spiritual-physical communion can be understood as foundational for integral ecology.

Another leading voice is that of Leonardo Boff. In The Cry of the Earth, the Cry of the Poor, he unites his concern for those overwhelmed by poverty in the barrios of Brazil with his concern for the parched, arid lands of his home country. The first to use the term “integral ecology” in print, he writes about the need to connect our spiritual vision with the needs of the people.

The work of Berry and Boff is foundational to the vision of integral ecology named by Pope Francis in his letter to the world, “Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home.” In his encyclical, he writes, “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.” And he says, “A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach … so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”

Integral ecology implies a departure from the prior emphasis on social over ecological concerns, and instills a new relationship between society and nature that will hopefully result in the preservation of the planet.

As I contemplate the words of Pope Francis, I look back on my own personal journey and how I explored social and ecological justice through my own writing. When I first was introduced to Thomas Berry’s creation spirituality and the new cosmology, I was confronted with a challenging question: how could I integrate my background in community development and organization with what I was learning about the universe and the three dynamics principles named by Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry? These three principles are differentiation (nothing in the universe is the same) communion (everything in the universe is interconnected and interdependent), and interiority (there is a deep subjectivity in each expression of creation).

I coined the term geo-justice to represent the dynamic integration of my past experience with what I was discovering about spirituality and cosmology. Specifically, differentiation became the context for justice in the local here-and-now of our lives; communion became the global dimension of our planetary reality; interiority became the psycho-social component. I went on to develop the geo-justice vision and ground it in additional components of dialogue and theology. I called this further development engaged cosmology, borrowing from the vision of liberation theology and the Catholic Action method of “see, judge, and act.”

Geo-justice provides an opportunity to explore what we observe going on in the world through the eyes of the Christian gospel. This reflection can lead to actions through which we are able to heal the discrepancy between our vision and our practice, to heal the divide between the world as it is and the world as we would like it to be, between the social and the ecological.

Pope Francis writes, “We are part of nature.… It is essential to seek comprehensive solutions which consider the interactions within natural systems themselves and with social systems…. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.”

The tenets of integral ecology forecast in the writings of Leonardo Boff and Thomas Berry have now been powerfully announced to the world by the pastor of the planet, Pope Francis. We have reason to hope and anticipate a time when the poor can be fed and housed and the natural world protected and celebrated. I envision a time when Rachel Carson’s “silent spring” bursts forth in song, when the melodies of the winged ones transform that spring into symphony of song, when children of every species prosper and our love renews the face of the Earth.

It will be new time of conversion at every level, a time of spiritual, theological, structural, and organizational construction. A new world will become possible—a world where we experience “God in all things, and all things in God”; a world that is inclusive, interdependent, and interrelated.

(originally published May 24, 2016)

Max Comes Home

Springbank Retreat is a sacred place where women from around the world gather to renew their spirit, refresh their energy, and reflect on the beauty of creation as they drink in the divine creativity that infuses their souls and all of life.

Among the Springbank community are a number of four-legged friends that Thomas Merton referred to as saints. One member of this canine community is a shy, beautiful creature called Max.

On occasion, Max likes to wander off the property. Once while I was staying at Springbank, Max disappeared on Easter Sunday. He did not return the next day. When he still had not appeared after several days, we began to wonder if some harm had befallen Max. We feared it was possible that he would never return.

On the Wednesday after that Easter, several of us were working on the community’s prayer lodge. At the end of the day, I suggested we pray for Max and send out our energy for his safe return.

There were five of us. We joined hands and formed a circle, and began to pray. As energy flowed from hand to body to hand, we imagined a cone of energy surrounding us and extending to Max, wherever he might be. Our prayer was to cleanse, purify, and protect him. We imagined the energy surrounding Max and inviting him home.

One member of our group said she could sense Max. She assured us that he was alive. We concluded our prayer circle and went off into the night.

The next morning we received good news: Max had come home and was enjoying an abundant breakfast. It seemed that our prayer had been answered. Our prayer for Max had invited him home.

Discovery

I want to tell you about discovery,

tell you about who I am,

about what I believe,

about faith, about justice,

about what I hope to say—

whether you believe it or not.

Justice is all I have to say.

When you tell me about sorrow and joy,

about the wound inside,

about organizing as your first act,

about recognizing others,

justice is all I have to say.

Justice making creates good companions

who eat common bread,

consume the food of freedom,

celebrate what is not to be found in books,

peer into silence and solitude.

Discover the wilderness

you dare to call your life.

Describe the scribe of your spirit,

the spirit who guides your uncertain pen

and reveals secrets yet untold.

(originally published May 20, 2016)