Be it resolved . . .

      At this turn of the year, I was pleased to be reminded of a meditation by my first professor in seminary, the philosopher/theologian/activist Howard Thurman: "The Growing Edge".

 “Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit.

Such is the growing edge. It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men and women have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. Such is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge.”

Therefore, be it resolved . . .

Best wishes for 2018,

Do not go gentle . . .

      Dinosaurs seem to everywhere these days in Denver! Well, not wandering down Broadway or Colfax, of course. But when I open the newspaper or check my Facebook feed, I can be certain I will find an advertisement for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science exhibit "Ultimate Dinosaurs".   An article, "Remember Thornton’s triceratops, “Tiny?” Turns out he’s a another dinosaur entirely" appeared last week in the Denver Post. And just the week before, the Post printed another article about dinosaurs: "Denver Museum of Nature & Science just received its largest fossil donation of more than 6,000 bones".
      All this talk about those ancient lizard-y things seems to raise the on-going question of WHY dinosaurs went extinct?  While Gary Larson's famous cartoon (above) posits one theory, the most widely-accepted theory is that of my friend, UC-Berkeley geologist, Walter Alvarez. In his book "T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" (Princeton, 1997), Alvarez argued, based on the geological record, that a huge asteroid hit the Yucatan peninsula 65 million year ago, and the resulting dust cloud choked out almost all life on the planet. (Alvarez's theory came readily out of my son's mouth when he was in Middle School!) This "Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction" (or KT extinction) was the last of five mass extinctions the planet has suffered, according to geologists.
       Planet scientists and biologists assert that earth is now in the process of going through its Sixth Mass Extinction. The statistics are staggering:  "Nearly half of the 177 mammal species surveyed lost more than 80% of their distribution between 1900 and 2015", according to the above-linked article in The Guardian. And that's just among the mammals! Taking into account birds, fish, reptiles and insects, we're losing a LOT these days. And, the more that one reads about it, the more hopeless the situation can seem . . . because we humans are also mammals on the earth, subject to the same pressures!       But is it hopeless? Certainly we cannot bring back all of the extinct species (well, not at least currently, despite what the "Jurassic Park" franchise might suggest). On the other hand, we have an advantage that the victims of the earlier extinctions did not have. Those earlier extinctions were all the result of "natural" causes -- either geological (i.e., volcanic and/or tectonic) or astronomical (as in the asteroid creating the "Crater of Doom") Whatever was alive at those points in our planetary history could do NOTHING to stop, or mitigate, the effects of the extinction.       And, that's where the difference lies. The Sixth Mass Extinction is clearly "our" fault. But, as cell-biologist Bruce Lipton argues, we can address the situation; we have agency. In this podcast, Lipton challenges his listeners to let go of the fear we experience when faced with such a looming catastrophe, because we are NOT powerless. We can bring to bear all of our collective wisdom and experience to make a change . . . if we have the will to do so.       I certainly believe that in the areas of climate change and pollution. But as I thought about it a bit more, the issue of bringing one's will to bear when faced with almost any adverse situation can bring a little hope into a dark space. Dylan Thomas' famous poem says it well:

Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at end of day
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I''m not sure it's only those of "old age" who should "rage". The message is appropriate to us all.

Namasté

Gary

Fabricating a Case

     
       A man went to his lawyer and asked him, "My neighbor owes me $500 and he won’t pay up. What should I do?"
     "Do you have any proof he owes you the money?" asked the lawyer.
     "Nope," replied the man.
     "Okay, then write him a letter asking him for the $5,000 he owes you," said the lawyer.
     "But it's only $500," replied the man.
     "Precisely. That’s what he will reply and then you’ll have your proof!"

     This joke showed up in my inbox yesterday. It's funny (at least to me) on so many different levels.  But it also, to me, highlights a fairly human tendency: exaggerate in order either (a) to make a point, or (b) to get what one wants. Both of those "reasons" suggest that the "exaggerator" feels somewhat helpless in his/her situation.
     I've been thinking about that phenomenon--dealing with helplessness--over the last week. I had reason to re-read some ancient gnostic texts, and re-do some background checking. Gnosticism was a philosophical/religious movement that arose in late antiquity (and some would stay still exists today). it took on several different forms, on of the main tenets was that there was some kind of esoteric knowledge that, if one was initiated into the fold, would "save" the believer from a future/afterlife peril. When I looked back at the background of gnosticism, and who was most likely to be attracted to it, one of the answers (of course, scholars won't always agree!) was the folks who were already marginalized, mostly socio-economically. Finding refuge in "being in the know" gave them some comfort that their "betters" would not be better off in the age to come.
     The same phenomenon, although spelled out differently, is found in apocalyptic literature in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. "Apocalypticism" presupposes a set of "hidden" facts that are revealed (the root meaning of apocalyptic) to believers, especially about the end of the world. Anyone who has read the biblical books of Daniel or Revelations will recognize that the "underdog" (primarily a religious minority in a repressed situation) will come out the "winner" at the end of the age, and that the oppressors will get their just desserts (usually burning in hot lava forever). Again, believing this way provides some comfort for those found in trying situations.
     It seems to me that we're seeing the same phenomenon playing itself out again. Only this time rather than appeal to some special, or recently revealed, hidden knowledge, we're seeing exaggeration to make a point. And here I would point to conservative Christians in the U.S. who are claiming that they are the most persecuted group in the country. Alan Noble, in an article in The Atlantic, "The Evangelical Persecution Complex", points out many of the problems of this position. One of the "results" is that "Being a 'loser' in the world's eyes for Jesus [is], paradoxically, cool". They may believe that to be the case, but, as is/was the case with gnostic and apocalyptic beliefs, it does little to change realities. Or, as Valerie Tarico points out, "When we cultivate the sense that we have been wronged, we can’t see the wrong that we ourselves are doing. We also give up our power to make things better. If people keep being mean to us through no fault of our own, then we’re helpless as well as victims, at least in our own minds. You can’t fix what you can’t see."*
       I've had all of these thoughts swirling through my mind this week as I've been teaching my interterm course "Angels in the Architecture", where I take a group of students to a dozen different places of worship, from Buddhist to Orthodox Christian, New Thought to Krishna Consciousness, Protestant Christian to Jewish. The students always come from a variety of backgrounds, but few have ever been into the kinds of buildings we visit, or talk with members of those congregations. As they do, barriers of misunderstanding are clearly broken down. My hope is that they, once the class is over, will not have to find refuge by fabricating a false truth, or a false hope, but that they'll seek out diverse points of view in order to find a common, better, solution to the problems that face us all.
          

Namasté

Gary