CHAPTER 10
An Ecologically Sensitive Spirituality
(1996)
I REMEMBER being in Italy in Umbria, on the western slope of the Apennines, bathed in the soft summer light of this region, just as Giotto (c. 1267-1337) and the Umbrian school of painters must have experienced it. What we see here now is only a remnant of the scene enjoyed by St. Francis (1181-1226) and his early companions. The quiet lanes have been replaced by paved roads; the donkey-drawn carts have been replaced by automobiles. We feel an intimacy with these earlier times. But we also breathe an atmosphere less refreshing; the acrid taste of automobile fumes saturates the air. A crowded world has emerged on the scene. The beginning of the modern commercial world that St. Francis perceived with a certain foreboding in the opening years of the thirteenth century has developed into the industrial centers of the late twentieth century. The consequent assault on the natural world is leading to a certain anxiety concerning the future course of human affairs.
We should spend some time in thoughtful brooding over the decisions we need to make at present for the well-being of the Earth community. To understand the challenges of our times, we might go back to the opening years of the thirteenth century, the period of St. Francis of Assisi, when our present world began to take shape. This time of high spiritual accomplishment in the European world was when the commercial spirit entered more robustly into the Western soul. The cities of Europe were reborn, after a long decline following the dissolution of Roman order in the fifth century. The Hanseatic League of commercial cities in northern Europe was formed in the thirteenth century. Venice had begun its commercial empire somewhat earlier, during the crusades from 1095 until 1291. This intensive commercial activity culminated in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century overseas ventures of the seacoast peoples of Europe, leading to the discovery of America. With this discovery, the European quest for dominance of the entire planet was begun. It seems appropriate, then, to speak of the European occupation of North America as one of the most momentous periods in world history.
The historical role of North America is something of a parable of the larger human process, for when that first tiny mast of a European ship appeared over the Atlantic horizon the indigenous peoples could not have imagined the domination that would follow. The peoples from across the sea might have come to join the great community of life on this distant continent. They might have responded to the spiritual grandeur of the forests, the rivers and the woodland creatures, and to the mountains and valleys with reverence and wonder. They might have learned from the native peoples something of the spirituality integral to this land.
Unfortunately, these people from across the sea thought they already knew everything. They brought with them a book, the Bible, as their primary reference as regards reality and value. Though a work of great spiritual significance, this book has also been used to justify the domination of peoples and land in various parts of the world. Moreover, the book has contributed to the inability of humans to see the natural world as revelatory. Revelation was in scripture alone, not in nature itself.
The North American continent was ready to offer a profound spirituality to the incoming peoples. In the magnificence of its natural splendor, in the grandeur of its forests, in the beauty of its rivers, in the abundance and variety of its wildlife, this continent still had much of its primordial vigor, something of the innocence that older civilizations had lost long ago. In all these ways it was a more immediate manifestation of the divine than the incoming peoples had experienced for centuries.
Yet to have responded to this pervasive presence of the natural world would have been considered inappropriate by a people accustomed to experience the spiritual order of things in terms of the biblical world. We might consider this inability to enter into any significant rapport with the primordial world as one of the sources of our present problems of spirituality and sustainability. Because the spiritual dimension of this continent could not be recognized or responded to in any adequate manner, no proper reverence was given to the continent so as to mitigate the exploitation of the immense wealth available here.
This alienation was further strengthened by the humanist formation of Western civilization, which fostered the exaltation of the human over the natural world. Both the spiritual and the humanist dimensions of the Western tradition had only minimal concern for the natural world. Education that should be oriented toward deepening the intimacy of the human inhabitants with the larger Earth community and the comprehensive universe community was turned away from the outer world and driven inward toward self-appreciation of the human and consequent exploitation of the nonhuman.
This attitude was further strengthened by the Newtonian cosmology set forth in the seventeenth century. After the material explanation of the universe given there, the natural world could no longer carry the same spiritual significance. This was now a world of objects to be manipulated for the benefit of the human. Already in the first part of the seventeenth century, René Descartes (1596-1650) had laid the groundwork for an assault on the planet by his division of the universe into mind and matter. What was not mind was mechanism.
With this background it is little wonder that when the incoming peoples arrived in America they had no deep feeling for the natural world and none of the aesthetic appreciation shown in earlier times. Above all, they had no awareness that humans form a single integral community with the other components of the continent, with the planet Earth, and ultimately with the universe. The nonhuman world was seen as a collection of objects to be exploited, not as subjects to be communed with. We have continued this exploitation in these past four centuries with such a passion that the devastation has flowed over into the larger dimensions of the planet, and now we are at a planetwide impasse as regards human consumption and Earth’s limits. These two are on a collision course.
While Earth’s resources are finite, what is not limited is our desire to understand, to appreciate, and to celebrate the Earth. We do need endless progress, but not, however, in material development. Only an increase in aesthetic appreciation and spiritual experience can be without limit. Advance in material possession and use is severely limited.
Our most urgent need at the present time is for a reorientation of the human venture toward an intimate experience of the world around us. If we would go back to our primary experience of any natural phenomena—on seeing the stars scattered across the heavens at night, on looking out over the ocean at dawn, on seeing the colors of the oaks and maples and poplars in autumn, on hearing a mocking-bird sing in the evening, or breathing the fragrance of the honeysuckle while journeying through a southern lowland—we would recognize that our immediate response to any of these experiences is a moment akin to ecstasy. There is wonder and reverence and inner fulfillment in some overwhelming mystery. We experience a vast new dimension to our own existence.
Our rediscovery of the mystique of Earth is a primary requirement if we are ever to establish a viable rapport between humans and the Earth community. Only in this context will we overcome the arrogance that sets us apart from all other components of the planet and establishes a mood of conquest rather than of admiration. To assume that conquest and use are our primary relations with the natural world is ultimate disaster not only for ourselves but also for the multitude of other living forms on the planet.
To lessen the grandeur of the outer world is to limit the fulfillment available to our inner world. For the stars in the night sky over our cities to be blocked from view by particle and light pollution is not simply the loss of a passing visual experience, it is a loss of soul. This is especially a loss for children, for it is from the stars, the planets, and the moon in the heavens as well as from the flowers, birds, forests, and woodland creatures of Earth that some of their most profound inner experiences originate. To devastate any aspect of the natural world is to distort the sublime experiences that provide fulfillment to the human mode of being.
We need to move from a spirituality of alienation from the natural world to a spirituality of intimacy with the natural world, from a spirituality of the divine as revealed in the written scriptures to a spirituality of the divine as revealed in the visible world about us, from a spirituality concerned with justice only for humans to a spirituality of justice for the devastated Earth community, from the spirituality of the prophet to the spirituality of the shaman. The sacred community must now be considered the integral community of the entire universe and, more immediately, the integral community of the planet Earth.
Our Western Christian humanist world needs to experience a reversal of values. We live in a time when the survival of humans can only be achieved by saving the natural world upon which humans depend for both their psychic and physical flourishing. While we have already outlined the basic psychic need we have for the natural world, we should also mention our need for water, air, nourishment, shelter, and a sense of security in the presence of the grand complex of living and non-living forces that make up the integral community of Earth.
A pervasive flaw in Western civilization is the attitude that only the human is capable of having rights. The attitude that the primary purpose of the nonhuman world is its use by humans can no longer be accepted. This attitude has contributed to our devastation of the natural world. In reality, every being has three basic rights: the right to be, the right to habitat, and the right to fulfill its role in the great community of existence. Likewise, every being has a right not to be abused by humans, a right not to be despoiled of its primary dignity whereby it gives some manner of expression to the great mystery of existence, and a right not to be used for trivial purposes.
To bring about a recognition of this new sense of the human role in relation to the natural world, we need a radical transformation throughout the entire human venture. The dynamics of the industrial-commercial-financial empires of these times is driving the Earth into a termination of the Cenozoic Era in the geobiological story of the planet. This period, the Cenozoic, the last sixty-five million years, has been the culmination of the most brilliant phase of life’s expansion on the planet. Only at the end of this period, when the planet was at its most gorgeous expression, was it possible for humans to appear. For only in a world of such magnificence could the human mode of being be fully developed, only then could the divine be properly manifested, only in such a world could the burden of human sensitivity and responsibility be sustained, the human condition be endured, and the constant healing needed by the human soul be effected.
This magnificence was not recognized by the settlers of the North American continent nor by their heirs, who later spread the nature-exploiting industrial enterprise around the planet. During this time, the spiritual and intellectual guides of our Western tradition have shown themselves to be inadequate to their task, however adequate they may have been in former times. A new type of spiritual guide is needed. Previously, Benedictine monks established themselves as the guides for our Western endeavor, by cultivating the soil through physical labor and by copying and explaining the great literary works of the past through their intellectual effort. Later in the medieval period, when the cities of Europe were reestablished, it was the new spirituality of the cathedral builders, university professors, and mendicant friars who guided the course of human affairs. In the medieval period came the political, social, and economic establishments that brought about a sense of national identity and later a sense of the people as competent to determine their own destiny.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a new set of guides appeared: research scientists, technologists, engineers, and above all corporate leaders. These persons were determined, through technological exploitation of the planet and its resources, to lead humans into a new golden age. The corporations, supported by the dominant political forces, were determined to seize power over every aspect of the planet. This effort at control has led to our present impasse in human-Earth relations. In particular, it has led to the radical disruption of the major life systems of the planet.
Throughout this modern period, the traditional spiritual leaders—scholars, religious teachers, and social reformers—have been unable to provide sufficient guidance. They have failed to recognize that the basic issue is not simply divine-human or interhuman relations but human- Earth relations and, beyond that, relations with the comprehensive community of the entire universe, the ultimate sacred community. This failure has led to the plundering of the planet by good persons, even deeply religious persons, for the supposed temporal and spiritual benefit of the human. This plundering of the planet to serve human purposes is what needs to change. The industrial movement, with its ideal of subjection of the planet, must now give way to the ecological movement. Only such an ideal will sustain the integral functioning of both the human and nonhuman components of the planet in a single integral community.
This ideal requires a new spirituality. We need the guidance of the prophet, the priest, the saint, the yogi, the Buddhist monk, the Chinese sage, the Greek philosopher, and the modern scientist. Each of these personalities and their teachings are immensely important in their own proper field of functioning. Yet, for these times they might all be considered limited as guides to the human process in its rapport with the natural life systems of the planet. We now have a new understanding of the universe, how it came into being and the sequence of transformations through which it has passed. This new story of the universe is now needed as our sacred story. Few of the traditional spiritual guides seem able to accept this understanding as a revelatory experience. This can only be done by an ecologically sensitive personality.
We need an ecological spirituality with an integral ecologist as spiritual guide. While we can expect this to be realized in only a partial and inadequate manner in any individual, we can still assert that such a spiritual personality is needed. We can also say that the spiritual ideal of former ages was realized in an unlimited variety of individual personalities and rarely in a manner sufficiently striking to become a referent for imitation by others. So too will the ecologist serve as a guide for these times. The great spiritual mission of the present is to renew all the traditional religious-spiritual traditions in the context of the integral functioning of the biosystems of the planet. This is what the project that began at Harvard at the Center for the Study of World Religions has undertaken. With a series of ten conferences, books, and a Web site, over eight hundred religious scholars, scientists, and activists have examined the resources of the world’s religious traditions to meet the spiritual and ethical challenge of the environmental crisis. Ten volumes have been published, a journal has been established, and a Forum on Religion and Ecology is now located at Yale.
1Until recently, there has been a feeling in most religious traditions that spiritual persons were not concerned with any detailed understanding of the biological order of Earth. Often, the spiritual person was in some manner abstracted from concern with the physical order of reality in favor of the interior life of the soul. If attention was given to the physical order, this was generally in the service of the inner world. This neglect of attention to the natural world permitted those concerned with the more material things of life to take possession of the planet’s land and wealth. It permitted the exploitation of the natural world for human gain. The integral ecologist can now be considered a normative guide for our times. The integral ecologist would understand the numinous aspect of a universe emergent from the beginning. The sequence of transformative moments of the universe would be understood as cosmological moments of grace to be celebrated religiously with special rituals. But above all, these moments would appear as revelatory of the ultimate mystery of the universe itself.
The integral ecologist is the spokesperson for the planet in both its numinous and its physical meaning, just as the prophet was the spokesperson for the deity, the yogi for the interior spirit, the saint for the Christian faith. In the integral ecologist, our scientific understanding of the universe becomes a wisdom tradition. We will finally appreciate that our new understanding of a universe that comes into being through a sequence of irreversible transformations has a revelatory dimension. This fresh understanding of the universe establishes a horizon under which all the traditions will henceforth need to function in their integral mode of self-understanding.
This issue of our human disturbance of the most basic life systems of the planet Earth is such that from here on, for an indefinite period, the main difference between human beings will not be the difference of conservative or liberal, based on political, social, or cultural orientation, as has been the case for humans in the Western world throughout the twentieth century. Rather, it will be the difference between the entrepreneur and the ecologist, the difference between those who exploit the planet in a deleterious manner and those who sustain the planet in its integral functioning. This difference will provide not only the public identity of individuals; it will also be a primary designation in the professions: law, medicine, education, religion, or politics. The prefix “eco-” will occur in a multitude of words that will refer to the coherence of ideas, actions, or institutions in relation to the integral life systems of the planet.
The seriousness of the situation we are discussing can hardly be exaggerated. It is the issue of life and death, not simply for human individuals or the human community. Rather, it is the issue of survival of the most gorgeous expression that the ultimate forces of the universe have given of themselves, so far as we know. In designing a program that can adequately deal with these issues, we need to be concerned with principles, strategies, and tactics. Tactics, for example, involves numerous actions such as recycling materials, limiting our use of energy, composting, conserving water supplies, insulating our buildings, and a multitude of adaptations of a similar nature.
Key strategies include education, namely teaching children about the natural world, how its living systems function, and how humans fit into these systems. It would involve dealing with corporations so as to assure control over emissions from industrial production. It would necessitate working with city-planning boards to determine land use in a given territory. One of the most significant strategies would be interaction with the universities. These educational institutions need to understand that ecology is not a course nor a program. Rather, it is the foundation of all courses, all programs, and all professions, because ecology is a functional cosmology and the universe or the cosmos is the only self-referent mode of being in the phenomenal world. Every other being is universe referent. Cosmology, or the universe story, is the implicit basis of every particular course or program.
Beyond these considerations is the question of principles, guiding rules governing the course of human action. We are involved in a deep cultural pathology, demanding a cure. What is most needed in addition to the new technologies integrating our human needs with solar energy and the organic functioning of planetary life systems is a deep cultural therapy that will identify the sources of our pathology and provide a way of returning to the jubilant life expression that should characterize any human mode of being.
I propose that one of the most fundamental sources of our pathology is our adherence to a discontinuity between the nonhuman and the human, which gives all the inherent values and all the controlling rights to the human. The only inherent value recognized in the nonhuman is its utility to the human. This discontinuity between the human and the nonhuman breaks the covenant of the universe, the covenant whereby every being exists and has its value in relation to the great universe community. Nothing bestows existence on itself. Nothing survives by itself. Nothing is fulfilled in itself. Nothing has existence or meaning or fulfillment except in union with the larger community of existence.
In the phenomenal world, only the universe is self-referent. Every being in the universe is universe referent. Only the universe is a text without a natural context. Every particular being has the universe for context. To challenge this basic principle by trying to establish the human as self-referent and other beings as human referent in their primary value subverts the most basic principle of the universe. Once we accept that we exist as an integral member of this larger community of existence, we can begin to act in a more appropriate human way. We might even enter once again into that great celebration, the universe itself.