> From: MDewart@Insteps.Bitnet
> There will be a 90 minute Bill Moyers special on PBS Wednesday night June 5th
> called "Spirit and Nature." A 4 day theological conference held last year at
> Middlebury College is the basis of the program. The conference brought
> together spiritual leaders from around the world to discuss the connection
> between religious and ethical views and the way people treat the environment.
> I don't have any other information on the program except the local paper
> carried a short excerpt of a conversation between Moyers and the Dalai Lama
> that will be aired in a fuller version during the program Wednesday night.
I've just finished watching the program Mark announced recently, and feel we
could have a very valuable discussion on some of the subjects raised in the
program, and would like to encourage such a discussion. The overall tenor of
the presentation was fairly low-key, done in the gentle and artful manner that
are characteristic of Moyers' documentaries, which I have come to admire. The
main subject of the presentation was an attempt to grapple with the question
of the relationship between matters that are usually felt to be the province
of spiritual undertakings, and the questions of personal and planetary survival
that have become ever more pressing as we deplete our natural resources and
generally "foul our nest."
The Native American perspective was represented by an elder of the Seneca
people, who learned from her grandmother to regard the sun and moon and earth
in a personal way, and whose people generally have a great respect for nature.
In a personal discussion with her, Moyers probed the question of the kind of
attitude she had toward nature. Her response pointed out the difference
between worship, which she found foreign, and the thankfulness toward each
aspect of nature for its bounty that probably characterizes what most of us
think of in connection with the Native American attitude toward the natural
world. She talked about how wealthy she felt when her grandfather was able
to bring home a fish he had caught in a local stream for a meal, and how poor
her grandparents felt they would be were the plan to build a ski resort on
top of a local mountain to go through. She described how things had changed
for her people as the stream became polluted (she didn't mention whether the
ski resort was actually built), and talked about the ethic among her people
of taking into account the effect of a decision on the seventh generation to
follow the present one.
The conference which the documentary portrayed had representatives from the
major religious faiths, including Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism.
It emphasized the similarities among them with respect to concern about the
health of the natural world. It was clear from hearing the comments of the
student participants that at least some of them felt that it was not neces-
sary to have a theistic view of spirituality to be able to assent to the
relationship between spirituality and what has come to be known as an "en-
vironmental consciousness." Some of the representatives of what we would
think of as traditional religions offered some basis for these kinds of
questions, in fact. A female protestant theologian offered the idea that
we might consider God as "mother, lover, and friend" rather than using the
traditional male patriarchial image of "lord and father." His Holiness,
the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet discussed with Bill Moyers the basic reverence
"for all sentient beings" that comes out of Buddhist understanding of the
world and one's relationship with it, which would seem to be very close to
the Native American, in the sense that it emphasizes the close kinship of
all life, and how, in fact, one can experience oneself as an integral part
of nature - not at a conceptual level, but as actual experience. The
representative of Islam offered the idea that our current environmental
problems derive largely (if not entirely) from the secularization of our
view of ourselves and our world, and the fact that our cities have become
such de-natured kinds of places - where we've lost the experience of our
connection with nature.
I would be interested in hearing from others who saw the program, or who
feel some affinity for these kinds of ideas, and would be willing to ex-
press your thoughts and feelings. More particularly, I am interested in
your thoughts on the question of whether there might be an alternative to
the use of a secularized scientific approach to solving our growing problems
with respect to the natural environment. Can, for example, the spiritual
ideas and practices of cultures of aboriginal peoples such as Native North
Americans or the First Peoples of other lands which have now been colonized
offer real remedies for what we tend to see as complex problems? Can we
find alternatives that permit us to experience Earth as "Mother" - not just
some sentimental metaphorical notion, but an actual lived experience of our
relationship with nature? Are our dominant secular society and our value-
free educational experiences effective impediments to such an experience,
or do we feel such an experience is necessary to feel an urgency about the
task of "healing our planet?" Can we find ways of learning from the tra-
ditions of aboriginal peoples, or has that way of seeing the world and the
cultures that may have made that way of seeing possible been too badly
damaged by their contact with the forces of European industrial society
to enable them to be good sources of such understanding?
Or does any of this line of questioning make any sense - or have any appeal?
Please address your replies to "nn.general@gnosys.svle.ma.us" for distribution
to the entire mailing list (or send them to me ("gst") if you'd like to express
your opinion privately - or to submit it to the list anonymously).
Regards to all,
Gary
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst