The Return

The return [from the journey to the center of being] is seeing the radiance everywhere. ~Joseph Campbell

Back To the Future

[T]he Crow [Native Americans] parallel the tendencies of both Alfred North Whitehead and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (and Thomas Berry) who situated their thought in cosmological contexts. ~John Grim

Humans Are Part of the Natural World

[T]he vast majority of scientists, including earth scientists, has not yet truly focused on the human phenomenon as a natural, terrestrial and cosmic, development. Even more puzzling is the fact that each of us experiences directly our own subjectivity, or what Teilhard calls our "insideness," and yet science also leaves this datum off of its map of the natural world. ~John Haught

The Divine in the Earth and Evolving Universe

[M]any of the authors [of Teilhard in the 21st Century] are . . . drawn toward a more sacramental approach to life, in which the sacred is found in the material dimensions of life itself. This leads the authors . . . to find the divine in the palpable dimensions of the earth itself and beyond that . . . in the evolving universe. ~Jay B. McDaniels

Is this the same as "pantheism"? I don't think so. I'd prefer to say spirit is at the heart of creation in its every evolving dimension. Why? "Creation" is more inclusive to me than "universe," or our universe is part of creation. ~jpc

Context for "The Task Before Us Now"

[T]he only truly natural and real human Unity is the Spirit of Earth. . . . [I]n the process of gathering the elements of a new and better body [earth] . . . in this crisis of birth . . . the rapid emergence of the soul . . . can only be a "conspiracy" of individuals who associate themselves to raise to a new state the edifice of life. . . . The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to shake off our ancient prejudices, and to build the earth. . . . ~Teilhard de Chardin, who died in 1955, fifty years ago, ten years before his little book Building the Earth (source of this quote, pp. 61-71)

Happily Incompatible

When asked his secret of love, being married fifty-four years to the same person, he said, "Ruth and I are happily incompatible." ~Billy Graham on "Oprah"

Threefold Reconciliation

A question that has plagued me for many years is whether Christianity can conquer meaninglessness -- the feeling of emptiness, cynicism, of radical doubt. . . . It is possible for two reasons. First, in the feeling of meaninglessness there is always an element of hostility against the world, not just against particular persons but life itself. And the reconciliation of which Paul speaks is a reconciliation with the ground of our being: thus with our world, with life universally, and with ourselves. Since Christianity has in itself this threefold reconciliation, it has one step towards overcoming, along with hostility, also the feeling of meaninglessness. ~Tillich

Objective Value in the World

Losing [the] meaning of the human heart, losing the feeling component of knowing, science easily becomes scientism and easily leads to the belief that there is no objective value in the world. And this in turn leads to moral relativism that has become the source of despair in our culture and especially in our younger generation. ~Jacob Needleman

Only One Earth

As one astronaut said, "The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were aware of only one Earth." ~The Home Planet

Photograph of Our Identity

. . . Fred Hoyle said in 1948, "Once a photograph of Earth, taken from the outside, is available ... a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose." ~The Home Planet

The Photograph 

Our Identity

We need a forest of new images, a blizzard of new symbols of what we're about. . . . We must move beyond our identification with a particular region, culture, religion, or work. Our new identity is in terms of the planet as a whole. . . . We are [primarily a] mode of Earth. All other modes -- Muslim, Republican, lawyer, etc. -- are secondary. . . . Our major task is to reinvent the major forms of human presence on the planet. ~Brian Swimme a la K. Lauren de Boer

Hope

Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency. . . . [H]ope should shove you out the door. ~Rebecca Solnit a la K. Lauren de Boer

A Scientist's Understanding

[E]verything, everything with no exception, is a manifestation of an eternal unity, a transcending ubiquitous consciousness, which many label as God. When you touch that unity, you perceive and also experience the wonder within which you and all the rest of creation are embedded. ~G. L. Schroeder a la Randy Williams

A Zen Teacher's Understanding

Every grain of matter, every appearance is one with Eternal and Immutable Reality. Wherever your foot may fall, you are still within [the] Sanctuary for Enlightenment. ~Huang-Po a la Andrew B.

Her Prayer

I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness. ~Mother Teresa

Fulfillment Is Much More

To alert you that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can use a simple criterion. Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn't, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle. . . . As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love -- even the most simple action. ~Eckhart Tolle

After seeing the movie "Hotel Rwanda" the other night, I'd say Paul acted out of care and love, risking his life over and over, but I'm pretty sure he perceived the butchering of family and tribe as burden and struggle. All said, he was certainly in the moment . . . of decision after horrifying decision. I didn't see joy, ease, and lightness in what he was doing during the genocide of about a million Rwandans. He honored the present moment, but unhappiness and struggle hardly dissolved. Fulfillment is much more than the above quote indicates. ~jpc

The Heavens Are Telling . . .

Be exalted within and beyond thy heavens, creative power of the universe:

http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811-hubble.htm

                                            ~a la Jerome Hunter

This Darkly Beautiful Earth

[T]his darkly beautiful earth, upon whom our imagination depends for all its succor and sustenance, will continue to be physically insulted, assaulted, ever more of her wild voices falling silent, choked off in mid-howl. ~David Abram

Sing Us Back

Sing us back to who we were and what we may become again, each of our lives a splendid note in the one chord of peace and love reverberating across a universal sky. ~C. Owens a la Carol Walters

On Sunday night in Tampa, after we had mailed a couple of hundred books, we celebrated with a fine Indian meal and sang for over an hour -- as George played the piano -- from the "Songs of the Spirit Movement." We were rediscovering who we were, who we are, and who we may be on our universal journey. ~jpc

Heretics

There a few of us were privileged to sit over a beer with Friedrich Gogarten, one of the three founders (along with Karl Barth) of the so-called Neo-Orthodox movement. Gogarten said that heretics are those who think the thoughts we later find it impossible to do without. ~from e-mail of a friend of David Pope

Be It

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. ~Gandhi a la George Walters

Quotes While We Move

2/6 Sun     Bombs to the Moon

Even if we transported all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the reasons for bombs would still be here, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we would make new bombs. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

2/7 Mon     Blue Dot in the Cosmos

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. . . . Every saint and sinner lived there. . . . The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. ~Carl Sagan a la George and Carol Walters

Our Hearts

[O]ur hearts are not pure; our hearts are filled with need and greed as much as with love and grace; and we wrestle with our hearts all the time. The wrestling is who we are. How we wrestle is who we are. What we want to be is never what we are. Not yet. Maybe that's why we have these relentless engines in our chests, driving us forward toward what we might be. ~Brian Doyle

Spirit Journey

We think and act as though we're primarily on a personal journey. Yet, the journey is not so much about me as a person as about me in relation with all others. Spirit happens in the relation between the other and me. Since creation is one big set of relations, spirit is happening to me all the time. If I am unaware of all this, I am living in illusion and am dispirited. ~jpc

Happiness Is . . .

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~Gandhi a la Paula Philbrook

Four Freshmen Changed History

February 1st, 2005, marks the 45th anniversary of the day when four A&T State University freshmen changed the course of the civil right's movement by asking to be served at the Greensboro Woolworth's whites-only lunch counter. . . . [D]rive by the International Civil Rights Center and Museum (site of the former Woolworth's lunch counter) and you will see they have completed the front of the building, where they had a special unveiling yesterday.

All Is Vanity . . . Not

Not in God’s wilds will you ever hear the sad moan, "All is vanity." No, we are paid a thousand times for all our toil, and after a single day spent outdoors in their atmosphere of strength and beauty, one could still say, should death come—even without any hope of another life—"Thank you for this most glorious gift!" and pass on. ~John Muir