Hello again to all, especially Tj, anne dashiell, Paige B., Doug
Henwood, and H. Ellis, who have all contributed to the spirituality
debate running around this network over the last 48hours. Rather than
responding to each of your comments (that would take pages and pages
and none of us has the time for that), I think I'll just begin a
stream of consciousness exercise based on my reflections on what many
of you have said.
Actually, I'll begin with Doug's 64 million dollar question, What
is spirituality? Assuming that it wasn't rhetorical, Doug, I'd really
be interested in hearing your comments on what _you_ think
spirituality is. This is really the challenge in discussions of this
type, isn't it. For those of us who have what we believe is a
spiritual orientation toward life, there is no question of what we
"believe" spirituality is. But is it in fact THE spirituality that
everyone else talks about? Or is it an entirely subjectively inspired
concept that has arisen in our consciousness based on our personal
experiences? Or is it something transcendent in human consciousness
that anyone and everyone could tap into if they were so inclined. I
tend to favour the latter perspective. Especially in terms of the
environment and the human relationship with the rest of nature. I
know or at least feel in my heart that the often overwhelming
emotions that I experience when I view a magnificent landscape or a
beautiful painting, or hear an exquisite piece of music are a result
of something that I can't explain using "normal" science. I have
talked to people who see the world from within the positivistic
paradigm who would say that what I'm experiencing is completely
explainable in terms of chemical and hormonal changes, but as far as I
know neuropsychology or physiology or whoever else explores this kind
of stuff hasn't yet explained the exact point of transference from
the sensory input and the emotional/spiritual reaction.
So where does that leave us? In my mind, we are left with
something unexplainable by human knowledge at this stage of our
evolution or on this plane of existence. Representatives of various
religious institutions have tried to convince the rest of us that
their way of explaining these unexplainables is THE truth and, to a
very limited extent, they may have had a few insights, but the
message gets a little weakened by the trappings of power and the
greed as they vie to "save souls." There have also been contributions
from philosophers and theologians over the years that have also been
enlightening. But, I think humanity has a great lesson to learn here.
Despite being the so-called pinnacle of evolution as far as we know,
there is a vast universe of stuff that we don't have even the
remotest clue about. That calls for a little bit of humility on
the part of everyone and especially those who feel they have a
monopoly on truth.
To try to bring this back to more central themes driving this
network, I offer the following:
We need everybody, regardless of your concept of spirituality or
politics or whatever drives you. But the most important thing is that
we need everyone to be UNITED. Isn't that the challenge though? We
all have so many different ideas about how we think the world should
be run and we have so many bad experiments going on that are promoted
as THE best way to run this or that society and none of them are
working. Spirituality might not be THE EXCLUSIVE way toward finding
solutions to global problems but we certainly have a massive wealth
of evidence that the secular approach ain't working. So maybe we have
to look really deeply into the systems that currently run human
society and examine the fundamental ethical and spiritual principles
that are guiding them. Do they have the best interests of all of
humanity at heart? Do they ensure that Earth will not be damaged as
civilization progresses? Are scientists keeping a firm vision of (what
I call) "the big picture" in their minds even when they are off in
some remote area of North America or the Himalayas examining the
geomorphological transformations of the landscape or are sequestered
in some lab looking at microscopic organisms? How much does the
"average" person question the images that bombard us everyday? Are we
allowing ourselves to be Hollywoodized just because someone has told
us that life should be like that?
As usual I pose more questions than provide answers. But I've
learned as I have progressed in academia that I know a lot less than
I used to think I did when I knew a lot less. So, maybe when we think
we have a pretty good idea that solutions to contemporary
environmental problems can only be found in social transformation or
political upheaval or economic reform or whatever the latest and
greatest solution is, we need to look deeper into the sources of the
problems. Much of what we see is merely a symptom of a very widespread
disease. Perhaps we could practice a little more preventative
medicine instead of the pill pushing we've become used to.
Well, I've droned on long enough. I am delighted to find a forum
for interacting with others who are interested in these ideas. Of
course, I haven't gotten any of my "assigned" work done since I
arrived on campus this morning. You guys are much too distracting!
A la prochaine,
Roxanne
