Lately I've been struggling with a sense of oppression as I've read and heard more about global climate change, peak oil, and political repressions and wars around the world. At the same time, I'm aware that many good people are trying in a multitude of ways to bring about the good: to end wars, to make peace, to create demand for good public policies regarding greenhouse gases and the end of cheap energy. At this point, it often seems to me that progress in the good is not as great as progress in greed and destructiveness.
Here in west central Wisconsin, we have our own environmental and economic issues with which to contend. Sand mining for fracking sand is intensifying. However, there is now a growing movement to think through the environmental and economic effects of this mining. Controversy about other mining efforts near Lake Superior that could affect the life of this great lake and the people who live around it has also pulled more organizations and groups into opposing mining. Here, too, unemployment has hit many families, and there is far greater demand for assistance with food, shelter and energy than there was a year or two ago. Yet, the Walker administration has successfully ratcheted down on the budgets for human services, has eliminated public workers' rights to collective bargaining, and has dismantled wherever possible the progressive gains of 100 years of hard work. In response, local teachers' unions and progressive groups have organized to assist in recall elections, and to support progressive policies related to unions, education, and access to voting. The struggle has taken hours and hours of labor, and is ongoing. In contrast the Walker administration and Republican legislators have been supported by much outside money and the assistance of the Koch brothers supported ALEC.
For me there has been a growing sense of powerlessness and a diminution of hope. It seems to me that the people concerned about human thriving and the wellbeing of this planet earth have too little power, organizational muscle or sense of purpose to be able to overcome the money, power, focus and drive of those who seem determined to destroy human rights, plunder the planet and benefit their own bank accounts. I have recently been reminded of some of my thoughts and images from three and four decades ago when I had become aware of nuclear war games being played in Washington D.C. At the time, I could not believe that people were playing games that, if they were to happen in real time, would destroy not only the United States and the Soviet Union, but also most life as it has been known on earth. I tried to imagine the people playing the games and wondered what they thought of their own children being vaporized in a nuclear explosion. I remember feeling sick at the thought of people actually planning for such events. Their lack of imagination and positive vision is now being matched by the lack of imagination of people planning such things as the tar sands pipeline. Tar sand mining, transportation and processing requires almost as much energy as it would provide and vastly increases greenhouse gases. Respected climate scientists have stated that if we continue with the tar sands mining and pipeline, it is "game over" for any hope of controlling global climate change. People who live in coastal areas (Washington D.C., Louisiana, parts of Texas, Florida, New York, etc.) can expect the destruction of their homes and communities, probably within their own lifetimes, certainly within the lifetimes of their children.
With the pincers movement of global climate change and peak oil, along with growing economic inequality on the planet, vast food insecurity and destruction of rain forests, ocean health, water resources and agricultural lands, we face an increase in suffering that is stunning. This suffering is the suffering of children, old people, and billions of people without income, land or hope. This suffering is the suffering of the great whales, dolphins, the factory farmed animals, the dying trees through the American west and in European forest lands. It is the suffering of the land itself turning into desert, of the mountains that were previously held together by glacial ice now disintegrating. This suffering is the suffering of one species after another going into extinction.
This morning on my morning walk with the dogs around our south field, now clothed in goldenrod, I was brought almost to my knees, tears filled my eyes, and a lump formed in my throat. I was suddenly flooded with past, present, and future images. I saw images of galley slaves, people slaving in factories around the world, people being tortured for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for being the wrong kind of human, having the wrong color of skin or wrong social class. I was seeing children born with horrible birth defects because of genetic damage to their parents and toxic effects of chemical and radioactive pollution. I was seeing wars in which children, women and men are killed for something/nothing - just madness and greed. Then I thought about the practice of tonglen, of "driving all blames into one" and of taking into myself what of that suffering I can. I imagined sending out love, peace and healing. And, I thought of the saints who accused themselves of terrible sin, and I wondered, were they taking into themselves the sins and sufferings of those around them? Were they praying for the mercy of Christ to flood into the suffering and sin of all people, as they prayed for mercy and forgiveness for themselves?
A further thought that emerged from something said at church last evening had to do with the understanding that we are all in this together. It is not that this person or that person is "evil," but it may be that they (we) are in thrall to spiritual forces that are beyond them (us) in power and malevolence. And that is the reason that within Christianity we see the triumph of God in Christ as being so very important. Because those "powers and principalities," these spiritual forces that use human beings, have been defeated in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. How this happened has to do with the divine/human unity of Jesus the Christ, the willingness of Jesus to die and to trust that his power and spirit would be infinitely amplified as a result. With his resurrection, his followers were assured that he was alive and active. The coming of his Spirit to the earliest followers filled them with power and hope that allowed them to live with serenity even under Roman oppression, to confront the imperial accommodation of the religious leaders in Jerusalem and throughout the empire, and to extend themselves with mercy and healing toward those who suffered. For them, the death and resurrection and the new world now made possible, were "good news." When we willingly "put on Christ" we become part of the means by which suffering is diminished, mercy is extended, and joy replaces sorrow. This is what the saints knew. May it be so for each of us. May we each do our part to Dwell in the Mercy. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings dwell in peace. May all beings be happy. With Dame Julian I must focus on, "And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
