@mbdowd
Active 5 years, 3 months agoForum Replies Created
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Beautiful, Laura, and a perfect contribution to this conversation thread. Thanks! (And yes, a most beloved woman in my life is taking responsibility for Thanksgiving dinner; I do the clean up. 🙂
Among other things, these videos celebrate the evolutionary (survival!) significance of our brain’s propensity to personify — that is, to give human characteristics to what is, in fact, more-than-human.
All eight “Nature Is Speaking” videos reflect something I wrote a couple of years ago for my HuffPost blog. (Substitute the word “Universe” for “God” and the parallels become obvious):
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Another major attribute of living systems is that they all have GRACE LIMTS. For anyone on this thread who might be interested, this is the main thing I’ve been involved in over the last year: http://thegreatstory.org/grace-limits-audios.html
My most important contribution to this “Grace Limits” body of work (indeed, the main message I’ve been working on over the past year and, by far, the best articulation to-date of my Connie’s and my core values, priorities, and commitments), can be found in this amazing “Buddha at the Gas Pump” interview. Connie spent two days editing this and adding all kinds of cool visuals:
Thanksgiving love and blessings to all,
~ Michael
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Look at the attributes of living systems and ask whether those are attributes of our universe.
To me, the evidence points increasingly in the direction of aliveness and this has truly enormous implications for the foundational nature of reality and the human journey.
Trust me, I’m with you, brother!
Big love and cyberhugs,
~ Michael
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fyi…near the top of Connie’s and my “What’s New?” page on our main website is a link to some great videos of Thomas Berry on YouTube:
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Thomas Berry was quite careful, Duane, to only use language that could be embraced by the vast majority of mainstream scientists. You, by contrast, consistently take the opposite approach. I knew Thomas personally over a period of 20 years and counted him as a dear friend as well as my main mentor. Between August 1988 (when I first met him and spent the weekend at his home in Riverdale, NY) and November 2008 (when Connie and I saw him for the last time, at his nursing home in Greensboro, NC), Thomas and I saw each other a dozen or more times and had probably engaged in 50+ hours of conversation. (He even visited my home and stayed with me and my family in Ann Arbor in 1994.) Never, in all that time, did Thomas say what you seem to be implying he said. “Close, as they say, but no cigar”; and the difference is huge in terms of how it lands on others! I suggest that you can use Jon Cleland Host as a litmus test. I can say confidently that Jon would celebrate and fully align with virtually all the language Thomas used. But Jon hardly celebrates your wording, and there’s a good reason for this. Regarding the nature of the Universe/Solar System/Earth, what Thomas said often, publicly and privately, are things like this:”The Universe, the solar system, and the planet Earth in themselves and in their evolutionary emergence constitute for the human community the primary revelation of that ultimate mystery whence all things emerge into being. “Earth, within the solar system, is a self-emergent, self-propagating, self-nourishing, self-educating, self-governing, self-healing, self-fulfilling community.” “The Universe is the only text without a context.” “From its beginning the Universe is a psychic-spiritual as well as physical reality.” “The three basic laws of the Universe at all levels of reality are differentiation, subjectivity and communion. These laws identify the reality, the values and the directions in which the Universe is proceeding.” “The human is that being in whom the Universe activates, reflects upon and celebrates itself in conscious self-awareness.” In any event, Duane, I truly applaud your passion for inviting all of us to relate to Nature in a loving, respectful, mutually enhancing way. And I guess that’s really the bottom line for me. Big Love and Thanksgiving Blessings to you and Coleen, ~ Michael cell: 425-760-9941 PS. Here are some of my favorite quotes of his: Thomas Berry: Gems of Deep-Time Wisdom
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Connie and I fully and wholeheartedly agree with Angela (and Thomas Berry) on this point!As I said in my only previous contribution to this discussion, what truly matters, it seems to me, is NOT whether or not we all agree that “the Universe” is “alive”, or “a living system”, so much as this… If we don’t treat NATURE with the same respect and honor that we would naturally give a human person we consider part of our “in-group”, we will self-destruct and bring about a literal hell on Earth. Can we agree on that? I think so (at least those on this DTJN list) 🙂 Love to all,Together for the future, ~ Michael (and Connie)
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Howdy, All!
I sincerely apologize for not entering this conversation (and others in the DTJN) more fully. I’m on a writing retreat this summer in Ludington, Michigan (trying to complete my new book) and I am a fair bit behind schedule, with a hard deadline in mid-August.
For me, the important question is NOT, “Is the universe conscious?” or even “Is the universe a living system?” but, rather, “How shall we relate to Nature if we hope to survive and not condemn our children, grandchildren, and countless other species to hell and high water?”
I consider the single most important scientific discovery about religion made over the past hundred years to be: “personification”. (See Stuart Guthrie’s masterful 1994 Oxford University Press volume: “Faces In the Clouds”): http://www.amazon.com/Faces-Clouds-New-Theory-Religion/dp/0195098919
Our brains are inherently relational. When we attribute human characteristics to what is more than human (or non-human, or other than human), we tend to survive and thrive in ways that we just don’t when we treat Nature as an “It” to be exploited or used for our benefit. Martin Buber spoke forcefully about this in his classic book, “I and Thou”.
I highly recommend (in addition to reading Terry and Ursula’s excellent chapter on the Sacred Emergence of Nature), do watch a few of these short “Nature Is Speaking” videos — especially Julia Roberts (Mother Nature), Harrison Ford (The Oceans), and Kevin Spacey (The Rainforests): http://natureisspeaking.org/home.html#Films
Our answer to the main question this forum thread is seeking to address depends on how we (and those we admire) define “universe”, “living” “living system”, “conscious”, “sentient”, “aware”, etc. Whether humanity can re-claim a respectful and honorable relationship to Nature *without* thinking of the cosmos as alive is an interesting question. I’m honestly not sure.
For those interested, I get into all this in much more depth in the main message I am now preaching and evangelizing: https://youtu.be/K_1UxXV17rM
The Future Is Calling Us to Greatness: Right Relationship to Reality in the 21st Century and Beyond:Alternate title: Reality Is Lord: A Scientific View of God (and Why This Matters on a Rapidly Overheating Planet)Co-evolutionary love and blessings to all,~ Michael -
Howdy, All!
I sincerely apologize for not entering this conversation (and others in the DTJN) more fully. I’m on a writing retreat this summer in Ludington, Michigan and am behind schedule, with a hard deadline in August, trying to complete my new book.
Bottom line: I love the Pope’s Encyclical. He’s wrong on population, of course (see William R. Catton’s book, “Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change”, which Connie and I both now hold as the single most important book in print…truly!), but, other than that, the Encyclical is timely, prophetic, and grounded in our best evidential understanding of the nature of Reality and how we must learn — rather rapidly — to live in right relationship to Reality, if we wish to avoid condemning our children and grandchildren (and countless other species) to hell and high water.
I hope and pray that this Encyclical can make a huge difference. It deserves to, IMHO.
Together for the future,
~ Michael
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