In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. She was in the beginning with God. All things
came to be created through Her, and without Her nothing came to be. (Gospel of John, Chapter 1)
The Holy is consciousness of the
created and that awareness results in Love, the Spirit of life, care and new
creation.
The earth is under siege and there
are apocalyptic trumpet calls for action.
Pope John XXIII faced a similar
crisis. In the 50’s and 60’s the world was
confronted with a strong possibility of nuclear war. In 1963 Pope John pleaded for peace in his
Encyclical, Pacem in Terris. The Encyclical was addressed not just to Roman
Catholics, but the entire world. The
Ecumenical (world wide) Council, Vatican II, was launched on October 11, 1962. A radio address by Pope John before the official
opening stressed the establishment of peace through social justice. The Council
Fathers rejected a condemnation of communism in the opening message of the
Council. Then on October 22, the world
was confronted with the Cuban missile crisis.
The Council concluded in 1965.
The thrust of the Council was to convince all to achieve peace through
social justice. Vatican II extended an
olive branch to traditional enemies of the Roman Catholic Church in an effort to
gain peace through world cooperation.
The current crisis of global warming,
with nuclear destruction lurking in the background, calls for a response not
only of institutions but of all humanity. The challenge is from a false
god. Pope Francis writes, “whatever is fragile, like the environment,
is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which has become the
only rule.” (Laudato Si,
para. 54)
A practical response is a radical
change in life style, but fear dictates the status quo. Change threatens personal status and a world
view that has successfully explained life for the comfortable.
ORDER OF THE SACRED EARTH, by Matthew Fox, Skyler Wilson, and
Jennifer Listug; Monkifish Book Publishing, N.Y. 2018.
This is an important book that
suggests focus and commitment and an oath that looks to community success in
defending the living and creative earth.
To become a member of the Order of
the Sacred Earth, requires making a commitment, an oath: ‘I promise to be the
best lover and defender of Mother Earth that I can be.’ (p. vll) The oath is
the basis for the formation of a community of action. A Socratic rather than a dogmatic approach is
used in the discussion of the need for such a community and for effective
actions for justice.
All are accepted in the effort to
defend the Sacred Earth. The Order of the Sacred Earth suggests that
there is no need to create an alternate reality to explain causes or justify action. Negative judgment of discovery indicates that
not all that exists can be physically accounted for. Spiritual phenomena are natural and
immediately experienced. Judgment depends
on logic, the logic of poetry and sensitivity to righteousness – justice. Revelation is from and to nature which is alive
and sacred.
St. Paul wrote:
…for creation waits with eager expectation the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it is in hope, that creation would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; …(Romans, Chapter 8)
An anthropocentric world view forgets
where we are from and its focus is on the person and the personal. A cosmocentric view recognizes creation and
the creator, not humans, as the core of being.
Frank Zeidler, in the following poem, helps us become aware of our
relation to creation.
Ode to a Trilobite
The stone mason who split the limestone block
With lucky stroke of hammer left quite whole
The imprint that you gave the Nagara rock
When you met death in open sea or shoal.
He little thought, that workman did, when he
Began to pound the stone to make it square
That ancient bodies of Silurian time
Did die to make a stony bottomed sea,
While later years exposed to open air
The creatures that had died, as massive lime.
I found your mark before the weather wore
The stone too smooth; I cut you from your grave;
I took you home to swell my fossil store;
Now your diatomaceous corpse I save.
To look at you inspires profound thought:
You represent a million years!
What countless lives have suffered since your day!
What trials of life has Nature slowly wrought!
What struggles to survive! What deaths! What fears!
What agony and pain since your decay!
(The Poetry of a Young Frank Zeidler, Milwaukee Public Library, 2002, “Ode to a Trilobite.”)
Five hundred years of
oppression have not diminished our faith in our creator. We bear witness in our struggles and in our
hope to our faith in a God of life who is also the God of the poor…the struggle
for justice opens our eyes so that we recognize the creation for what it is: our
home and the home of all people, the source of life.
(Julia Esquivel, The Certainty of
Spring, Poems by a Guatemalan in Exile, EPICA, Washington, D.C. 1993.)
The Order of the Sacred Earth community
is dedicated to cooperating in the salvation of
Pacha Mama – Mother Earth.
