Climate Change through Sacred Activism

Great powers flow into us as we empty ourselves of our false concepts and attachments and these powers could help is in every way to
heal and transform our degraded inner and outer worlds.
Andrew Harvey

Today I attended an interfaith gathering of Spiritual Leaders from around the world, organized by the Global Peace Initiative of Women. To look around the room and see leading edge Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, TM, and Sufi leaders was a most hopeful experience. So many of our wars, conflicts and misunderstandings become embedded in religious ideology, and watching these ideologically diverse leaders quest for a common ground gave me hope.

Sr. Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Nun, renowned author and prominent voice in the interfaith movement believes that, spiritual leaders need to lead the challenge to reverse the unexamined social assumptions that justify our acting as though it was God’s gift that we should have dominion over nature. She challenged the Western theological mind that has led to a religious failure to protect the animals, environment and all life on the planet. Sr. Chittister questioned “ How is it that the world is filled with church goers and yet this devastation goes on?”

At its heart she feels that this goes back to the Creation story and the hierarchal superiority and domination that is embedded in religion. The creation story that has been used to secure power over the earth is anthropomorphic, that man has dominion over nature with the right and responsibility to exploit it. Joan talked about another creation story in Genesis that has been overlooked. In this story, the process of naming the animals leads to building relationship, companionship and compassion with all. This leaves us as a cultivator and caretaker of  life. There is no sexism in this model. The more we open our heart to others, the more sacred all life becomes. Joan said “we have as much at stake as any politician. We must change our story and focus on the relationship story.”

Andrew Harvey, mystical scholar, novelist, spiritual teacher and architect of Sacred Activism,  also spoke. He said that there is a “bankruptcy of all visions of reality that are not grounded in oneness and that our deepest commitment should be to stop focusing on our differences.”  Fundamental to dealing with climate change and all the other problems currently facing humankind, we must begin to experience the entire universe as a sacred unfolding. We can get in touch with the stillness, peace, power and sacred passion of the whole universe and create a Divine human being. It is essential that we allow our own heart to break open to discover the creative force of creation itself.

When we have an environmental problem it soon becomes a social issue. Location of polluting industries, disposal of toxic waste, and resulting health risks are all environmental and social issues.  Social justice issues are spiritual and moral issues. These leaders believe it is critical to our society and climate change to develop the practice of compassion, of seeing ourselves as part of the sacred whole and of being of service to the spirit that moves in all things. Remember, Climate Change is not a spectator Sport. You are involved whether you want to be or not. Blessings from Copenhagen, Michael

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,
but in seeing with new eyes.
Marcel Proust

spiritual leaders in Copenhagen