grateful

The holidays can be tough. Bad memories and good memories alike can stir ones heart to grief. For many, it is the time where it is most clear that they are alone and lonely. We opened our house to friends and a few strangers that had nowhere to go to celebrate thanksgiving and feasted. It was beautiful to see a 67 yr old vietnam vet sitting with a young punk rocker, a local black minister preaching to a white college student, to see one man who lives on the street serving everyone else while another fell asleep on the couch. What on earth are these people doing together? In what world do these people celebrate holidays together? I am a citizen of the world in which it happens all the time, a member of a communtiy that has embraced this counter culture, and a student of a master that has been growing us in his image each step of the way.

Ecological Consciousness

Our concern for nature recognizes mans place within the environment. Mankind and the societies that we develop are as much a part of nature as the trees and rivers. Mankind however has demonstrated throughout time our capacity for standing as an antagonist in this relationship. We have historically imagined in building our modern society that natural resources were infinite and that the road to the future was paved with infinite development. As Leonardo Boff has pointed out, these two presuppositions have proven themselves to be illusionary. We now know that natural resources are not infinite and that they are actually rapidly diminishing. This depletion of the earths resources directly, negatively and most severely affects the poor of the earth. Social injustice, which finds itself at the heart of our ecological mindfulness, is the manifestation of a violence against the most complex being in all of creation, the human being. Ecology should be both environmental as well as social and advocate sustainable development that attends to the basic needs of human beings without sacrificing the earth’s resources. We must also consider the needs and rights of future generations as well as the current needs of the earth today.
Because the society that has been developed over recent centuries is all consuming, it values humans based on there consumption, makes indulgence our modus operandi,  and also inhibits sustainability. There is a mental conversion needed in each individual for us to move toward sustainability. We have been brought up to consume and we also have within ourselves instincts of violence and a desire to dominate. In most cases our culture has only echoed these instinctual drives and in worst cases encouraged them. Many environmentalists disregard man as part of nature because we have set ourselves up as its enemy and sought to destroy and consume the earth. This is little more than a pendulum swing from our anthropocentric way of seeing the world to the opposite extreme. Mankind is as much a part of this world as any other element in nature. We must attend to the needs of man as well as other beings in nature such as plants, animals, or microorganisms, because they are all part of the delicate and valuable system of this planetary community. All beings are interdependent and live within an intricate web of relationships. Anthropocentric culture considers humans to be the rulers of the universe. We must repent of this idea, culture, and lifestyle. Jesus Christ is the only ruler of the universe and we are responsible for stewarding creation and are responsible for the deterioration of this planet and are paying dearly for our sins. It is imperative that we recapture an attitude of respect, adoration, and care for the Earth.

Revolution is here....

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