Karen, this is the kind of message one wants to
get on a Sunday morning - very thought provoking. I must confess that I am
wearing a T shirt inscribed with "I'm not aging; I'm marinating". Someone
gave it to me, so I feel obliged to wear it.
Actually, I'm doing both - aging and
marinating. We all, with some regret, know what "aging" means. All
too often it means a stiffening of the joints and a despair that one may no
longer have the time to fix the world and make it right, that our kids are what
they have become and that there are some things that we can never make
restitution for. While "marinating" can mean consuming too much wine,
which I occasionally do, it can also mean a process of softening and
tenderizing. So what if I can't fix the world, I can at least look at it
with sympathetic eyes and try to forgive those that trespass against the few
things I continue to hold as absolutes. And so what if one of my kids, in
his mid forties, has decided to make a major career change, he is at least doing
something, and I still love him.
We muddle on, just as past generations did and as
future generations will. We may at times be building a better world, but
there are other times when we seem to be doing the opposite. Or, while
some are building, others are wrecking.
One of my favorite pieces of music, which I
listen to when I've had a little too much wine, is Mahler's "Songs of a
Wayfarer". It ends with a contralto hauntingly singing "ewig, ewig .....
ewig, ewig..."; "eternally, eternally.....eternally, eternally". And so it
goes.
Best regards, Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 10:58
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Will Bush
become a Shia Moslem? Threats and defenses....
Lawry, Ed,
Brad:
I can only hope to be coherent here, not
inspiring: we must make new alliances, as you say, that are not limited by
borders or nationality, as everyone on FW surely agrees. At the same time, we must develop the
voice and language that reaches into comatose and closed minds. This must be a peaceful process,
seeking the best in ourselves. And it will take great
fortitude.
I’m feeling a little synchronicity here.
Currently I’m reading two books
that hint at what we may need to be doing. The first is Inheriting the Revolution by Joyce
Appleby, about the sons and daughters of the American Revolution, the first
generation after, who became our first entrepreneurs, breaking out of the
colonial mold of their parents’ generation, grasping the possibilities set in
motion by 1776 and the idealism and inspiration of the Constitution and later,
Bill of Rights. I can’t help but
thinking that we must once again seize upon this energy and enthusiasm. It is time for a new revolution.
The other is The Restorative Economy by Storm
Cunningham, who insists that more money is being made today restoring,
renovating and cleaning up messes from the past than is being made in new
construction, old business models and revenue streams. Given our environmental and population
limitations, this seems like something we should be looking into as we try to
create a sustainable future.
A new revolution would touch upon many
cultural aspects, including religion, for in our history there was a quick
religious fervor kindled after the Revolution, perhaps because faith and
sacrifice had been so rewarded in secular (political) life, but certainly
because the Constitution made freedom of religion much more possible. But I’m not a religious scholar, just a
seeker, so I’ll leave that for now.
Rather, it seems to me that we are on the verge of something like what
were in the past called religious awakenings, but this time I think it will be
much more ecumenical and inclusive, it will be a spiritual recognition that
life here is too precious to be squandered needlessly, that it is time to take
a deep breath and “go where we have never gone before” to introduce a new age.
We will not avoid wars in the
future, but for our own sakes we need to stand for more peace and less war as
we progress, not the other way around.
I am hopeful, as I’ve posted for
discussion in the past, that this will be an age where Science and Religion
are partners, not competitors, as EO Wilson and others have written, where the
commonweal of all peoples are pursued and guarded collectively. Others on this list can contribute from
the literature that supports this, as does classical wisdom. This makes me a hopeless idealist, I
realize, in this “bottom line” materialistic world, and for all my moments of
political cynicism, I remain a dedicated Pollyanna because of one simple
thing: human nature. We will not
stay in the dark forever, we will not grow there, we dislike the confinement
and the stench. Human nature will
seek the light, and that will manifest itself in the myriad systems and
institutions we have created and have yet to
conceive.
To go forward, we will have to bravely
shed the destructive past and carry with us the best of those traditions that
inspired us forward. We must be
creative, use language that heals and works towards consensus, not division.
Evolutionary Economics, Evolutionary Politics, Evolutionary Culture. We can be individual nations and
cultures and still be a planet in concert. We must become shun those who
preach otherwise.
Reflections nearing sunset after a warm
afternoon of hard work in the garden. Thanks, all, for the engaging
conversation. Shalom, Karen
LdB wrote:
Thanks, Karen. I haven't given up hope,
either, though I am feeling less optimistic about the US than ever before in
my lifetime. This country is being hurt -- hurting itself, as you so
correctly put it -- in so many ways and so deeply that we think it will take
one or two decades to undo the bulk of the damage, both domestically and
internationally. For those who want to make a positive difference in the
world, this poses an immediate personal challenge: do we go on working on
the long-term good projects that we have running, or do we divert energy into
mitigating the harm currently being done? If we ignore the current
harm, we risk seeing the very platform upon which good things can happen being
eroded. If we divert energy to try to hold the platform together, our
beneficial projects suffer. What is the solution, then?
Work harder at it, I
suppose. But then we risk exhaustion. Form new and more expansive synergistic
alliances with another...this is probably what we have to do. Your
thoughts would be very
welcome.
Cheers, Lawry
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