Odd Word – Oikos – Good Word

February 19, 2010

Complex issues need bridge builders, persons who can take the esoteric and often complicated ideas and simplify them, so that the common folk, like most of us, can understand the issues more easily. Two people along my path, Dr. John Cobb and Mary Nichols, helped me begin to crystallize my ideas about the collapsing of creation. Today, with all the phony trumped up charges against legitimate science, we certainly need bridge scientists and bridge ecologists who can clarify the complex crisis you and I have helped create.

Dr. John Cobb wrote several important books, but the one he wrote in 1970 with the prophetic title Is it Too Late? got my attention immediately. I discovered Cobb in the early 80’s, but after his 1989 lectures at my parish of St. Matthew’s in Pacific Palisades California I was forever in his debt. His profound yet simple approach captivated the early adopters in our parish community. I have tried to emulate this man of the cloth who saw that the preservation of creation was the most important theological issue of our, or for that matter, any generation.

He began (and I paraphrase): Economics and Ecology come from the same Greek word oikos; meaning household. Economics is the management of the business side of the household as ecology is the understanding of the biological side of the household. Our only house is mother earth and sound management practices are essential. The practice of business must always take into account the impact on the biological if we are to maintain planetary balance. Respected scientists point to the increasing disequilibrium, that is the un-balancing of the natural in our world, in part because we have favored economics over ecology to the detriment of the whole. Balance is beauty, and as we pollute the skies, sully the waters, and destroy the forests the balance disappears with the beauty. We see it, we smell it, and we taste it and all because the management of the household has not taken into account the link between ecology and economics.

As awareness grows, and as we become more in tune with our complicity in the loss of the beauty of creation we will recognize and accept that all business practices will of necessity be measured against the environmental consequences of our actions. All endeavors can not be separated from the earth’s story and one day soon all decisions will be made based upon this awareness. Currently we are beginning to hear concepts like thru-put cost, closed loop manufacturing or farming, sustainable business practices, and resource management; each indicating that ecology management is working alongside sound business models.

This was all reinforced at lunch one day with leading environmental policy maker and nationally prominent leader Mary Nichols. In her charming direct way she looked at me and intoned: “Peter if your focus is going to be on the environment, eventually you will have to deal with our economic systems.”

All of us have scales that cover our eyes, and occasionally as we age some fall to help us see more clearly. Thankfully, over 20 years ago Cobb and Nichols helped me realize that corporations, companies and the capitalists who run them must not put profit ahead of protection of our fragile island home; - this message should be preached and promoted passionately. The greening of business is starting to take hold, yet the paradigm shift that will place preservation and protection ahead of profit is only beginning to be acknowledged. This, the only business model that is truly sustainable, does not deny profit, but places an emphasis on the balance between ecology and economics – this can be the guiding light for the 21st century and beyond.

Oikos, a strange word indeed, but one that brings into focus how all aspects of life on our fragile island home are interrelated; especially economics and ecology; or as the jingle goes: “You can’t have one without the other.”

Prayer Breakfasts

February 12, 2010

Prayer is not going to get the job done, yet once again the religious community gathers in Washington DC under the pretext of lobbying whoever will listen, that climate change is an important issue. No problem with the premise, but the strategy is the old paradigm, too late. Prayer breakfast as a way of showcasing talent has been the strategy of the conservative, albeit reactionary religious community for years. Many marquee names of the stalwarts of the so-called and self labeled ‘moral majority’, which was neither, would offer their particular list of grievances at the breakfast held every February and then ask God to make sure they get their wish by advocating for a particular political candidate. Yes, this was how it worked. What was interesting, besides this inappropriate melding of church and state, was that the President would attend, thereby legitimizing something that in its very name speaks of lobbying God? As hard as people may pray, God is above the efforts of lobbyists, regardless of their religious stature or following or eloquence.

The God I worship is present at every breakfast, and if you believe that God is omnipresent the mere invocation of God’s name at a designated breakfast says more about the participants than God. I have been invited to The Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC on numerous occasions and this week the religious community for ‘climate change action’ (my italics and emphasis) is meeting in Washington while honoring the pioneering NASA climatologist James Hanson. This week they are debating how many prayers to have at the beginning of the breakfast. (I might suggest they also limit the words each prayer giver can use for my fellow clergy are not known to be brief when a pulpit is extended to them for advocacy.) This style of breakfast is more in keeping with my personal beliefs, I know several of the key organizers and I respect their progressive and thoughtful religious agenda, yet I can’t legitimately point the finger at one prayer breakfast contingent while honoring the other.

I admire this group of clergy working hard on key environmental issues like forest preservation and climate change, and they are representing many different denominations, and religious communities. I joined with them in Washington DC a couple of years to lobby the World Bank, and I appreciate the direction they have taken to awaken fellow people of faith communities to the seriousness of the issues. I have also lobbied them, albeit without much success to put teeth into their rhetoric. I have implored them to consume less, eat lower on the food chain, give up beef altogether and become noisy – radical advocates for God’s creation are needed because the old paradigm of being ‘nice clergy, priests and rabbi’s’ is not getting the job done. Once again, I am afraid, is that the safe approach seems to be more comfortable for most. Radical activism has been negated by more pressing issues such as who should give what prayer at the breakfast; a bit of tongue in cheek, but the time for prayer has come and gone.

I smile inwardly knowing that over 20 years ago a broad spectrum of religious communities began to pray, sing, dance, and preach about God’s garden and what the human family is doing to exploit it for short term gain and long term pain. Like many others, I drafted worship services with environmental themes, wrote new creeds with an environmental focus and promoted prayer on behalf of all God’s creatures. Many across religious lines wrote resolutions for conventions, offered specific guidelines to churches for retrofitting to save energy, crafted environmentally focused and thoughtful Sunday school curricula, and honored Earth Day with congregational participation on many levels; yet, when all the smoke clears from our frenzied activities one can not see any more clearly today than 20 years ago, for the potential for a sustainable future is still way up in the clouds someplace.

The time has come to stop praying, or praying with a different focus, so that our energies are released to be more Jesus like, if we are Christian, or Moses like if we are Jewish, or Buddha like or Mohammed like if we are from the Buddhist or Islamic traditions. Look at their lives - when synthesized we see an over-throw of the ruling elite, the criticism of the establishment where corruption rules, and a revolution of thought that places equity and justice above all else should be our prime focus as religious people.

As a Christian priest my prayer is that we wake up and be more Christ like (in the sense of an archetypical role model) and not emasculate the message to fit our political agenda. Jesus used parables to teach, parables with nature as the context, and revolution to awaken a new paradigm for the modern world. Without question, the models, the archetypical human expression of the divine is not represented in any one figure but in the collective, and when we put the collective together, adding in perhaps Mother Theresa, the Dalai Lama, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King (with all their human shortcomings and frailties) we get a sense of what we are called to be. Each stepped out from their culture to challenge with love in their hearts.

Prayer breakfasts were probably not high on the agenda of those who have walked a path wide enough for millions to follow. Pick a person, know their story, and build personal confidence that revolution is a viable answer and methodology – for in each of the above, revolting against something defined their mission, as did our ancestors around, oh say 1776. Oddly enough, all cited had a different approach or relationship with the One to whom everyone prays at Prayer Breakfasts.

Think Now or (Just Perhaps) For Ever Hold Your Peace

We are a nation dependent on the automobile, a convenience that has benefited our culture in many wonderful ways; however, with several un-intended consequences the ‘back story’ is very prominent today:

1. pollution
2. endless lines of cars choking our highways and by-ways and slowing commutes across America to a crawl.
3. and, we have grown to worship that which in its present form stifles freedom and limits the quality of life.

However, our millions of cars could be moving bill boards; daily reminders of the job we all have at hand. The idea: Let’s turn lemons into lemonades and plaster bumper stickers, made out of recycled hemp on our bumpers, slogans that educate and motivate all of us to become pro-active on behalf of creation. You know: Give a hoot, don’t pollute. Earth day every day! Only you can prevent forest fires. Reinforcing the validity of systemic behavioral change is essential; and if everyone is on board change will happen.

Think globally and act locally was indeed one such auto adornment, a bumper stick I still see on the Prius or electric vehicle; and a bumper sticker and slogan that has endured the test of time. However, as rainforests rapidly disappear, fish stocks are over-drawn, water supplies diminish and the global atmosphere changes we need to both think and act globally, now – today and not tomorrow for tomorrow will be too late.

A few weeks ago the intrepid defender of whales, Captain Paul Watson, had one of his ships rammed and sunk by the illegal Japanese whaling fleet. Relentless in their baloney scientific justification scam, the Japanese should be held accountable for diminishing the quality of the global family as they exterminate whales for no reasonable purpose. They hunt in protected waters thousands of miles from home and thankfully, Captain Watson is acting globally, on our behalf. Blessings to this man and his international crew. I think about a planet without whales, and Watson is acting on their on our behalf on a daily basis.

Nearer home, yet far away, the Amazon and Congo rainforests are still under siege. Out of sight, out of mind, yet these lungs of the planet when gone will dictate the quality of air living creatures breathe across the globe. It is no longer a ‘so what’ if another acre is lost to cattle crazing to grow burgers for the fast food outlets. The global loss of these fragile eco-systems demand action. I act local and have eliminated beef from my diet. Is that enough?

My dad lost a lung to lung cancer at age 51. He died at 89 so I knew him for many years existing on one lung. Besides the diminished quality of life, he was never the same after that operation. Let’s say the globe loses one of the two lungs – the Congo rainforest goes; or the Amazon, or God forbid, both – what will the quality of life look like on planet earth?

We have to “sink” the man made carbon (that is put it someplace) from our fossil fuel addiction, and the zooplankton and phytoplankton in the sea, coupled with the soil and trees of the land have been the Creator’s gift for consistent absorption; but taking away ‘the carbon sinks’ at the rate we are doing it is courting disaster. (At this point someone always says ‘you are all gloom and doom’ – not so – we can give up eating at fast food restaurants, eliminating cattle consumption all together; eliminate soil contaminants on our lawns and gardens and plant trees – yes, we can make a difference – this is a way to act globally).

Back to the magnificent whales: I have been privileged to watch gray whales cavort in the Baja, pods of Orca’s in the San Juan’s of Washington and Canada, right whales off Cape Cod at Stellwagon Bank and breaching whales off Maui. A few years ago I was privileged on Earth Talk Today to host Captain Paul Watson. We watched video he supplied, watched with tears in our eyes, as the slaughter was documented – innocent creatures of the deep symbolic of the majesty of all creation slaughtered for no reason other than sushi satisfaction at home.

Is it time to say no more Japanese cars in our garages, Japanese cameras in our hands, Japanese TV’s on our walls, or Japanese computers at our desks? Does that really mean no Sony, Honda, Nikon, Mitsubishi, etc. etc. etc? Think globally and act locally is what we can do because our choices matter. You decide!

Paul Watson, far from family and friends, risking life to save the lives of strangers, who just happen to be the largest creatures to have ever lived on the earth. In addition, thanks to Atossa Soltani of Amazon Watch and all those who fight to save the rainforest – our lungs of the planet.

Act globally - not so hard when you really stop and think about it.