Sustainability and Uncertainty

Sustainability is both a question and an answer, a challenge and a goal. I don’t know how we’re going to get there, only that we must get there. Redefining what we ‘need’ to live worthwhile lives, is a good place to start. Embracing both the certainty of the goal and the uncertainty of how to achieve it, is cool, after all, it’s the truth. There are lot’s of things we can try, but until we try them (after having rigorously thought them through, without falling back on cliches and dogma), we won’t know how well they’ll work.

Denial of the non-negotiable need for sustainability and its cousin global climate change, though very popular is some segments of the American political spectrum (the same segments that don’t believe in evolution) in the name of ‘jobs’ and religion or too much government control, is bull shit and not really an option. After all, what jobs will there be and what will religion do and how can we have too much government control if the planet will no longer sustain human life?

Uncertainty is uncomfortable. Adults are supposed to ‘know’ and be sure; and even if they know they don’t know, they’re supposed to act as it they do. What bullshit, what horrible bullshit! That way of being is, unfortunately, the norm and it has brought us all the trouble we know (pun intended). Uncertainty as to means, but certainty as to ends is a fair definition of faith. In this instance, my faith is that given our strengths, we human beings can achieve the goal of sustainability, even if we’re uncertain, now, as to the means. But we must commit to the need for sustainability. Once we do that, the how will become clear.

In this regard, Katherine Saux quotes Masahide, “Barn’s burnt down. Now I can see the moon.” The barn burning down seems like a difficulty, but it allows us to see the moon. The need for sustainability seems like a difficulty, but who knows what great and wonderful things we will experience, once we commit to it? Sustainability is an opportunity in disguise. The barn represents our ‘normal’ thinking about sustainability, that it’s not really an ‘issue’, that jobs, economic growth, political victory, living the good life and having the next Iphone are more important.

When the barn burns down, as it is now, when it becomes clear we can not sustain our way of living for many more generations, we can let go of what we thought we needed and see the moon, the real source of our good. We can see past the transitory, false securities of our current relationship to the planet and to one another, and see the moon, the opportunity, the pattern of perfection that is inherent in embracing the need for sustainability along with the uncertainty of how to achieve it.

“We always stand at the point of limitless opportunity. Who says bad news has to be bad? Maybe its time to go out and look at the moon.” – Katherine Saux

Sustainability

Sustainability. Global Climate Change. Work on sustainability, and global climate change is included. Sustainability means living, as individuals and as a nation, on a pay-as-you-go basis, having a small foot print, not taking more out of the planet than we put back. Yes, ‘put back’, all that coal, oil, soil. How long can we continue to extract all of that before the planet is irreperably harmed? One generation, two, three? Forever? There are many unthinking, selfish individuals and groups that actually think we can go on as we are, extracting ever more, as China, India, Korea, Brazil and all the other rapidly growing nations seek and achieve their versions of the American Dream, more cars, more paved over land, more people, more consumption. How sustainable is this? One generation, two, three? Forever?

Technology. Technology will save us. Science and technology will find new and better ways so we can keep on living as we are. Science and technology will help, no question, but at best, they will only buy us time. With all our science and technology, the rate of extraction continues to soar. How sustainable is this? One generation, two, three? Forever?

The good life, the American Dream, what we ‘need’ to live worthwhile lives are psycho-social constructs – thoughts, ideas, feelings, not physical facts. We can change our psycho-social constructs, we can not change the physical fact of our soaring depletion of the planet. We can develop psycho-social constructs that value sustainability. We can develop psycho-social constructs that value the preservation of our beautiful, one-of-a-kind, blue-green world, more than we value the next version of Ipod. We can redefine what we ‘need’ to live worthwhile lives. Can’t we?

Where will we go when the planet can no longer sustain us, when the oceans are all fished out, the forests are gone, we can’t grow enough food, can’t generate enough electricity, or its too hot or cold to go out; when civilization has broken down because of these failures and there’s no law and its really a dog-eat-dog world with every man for himself? Most mainstream science tells us the planet is dying now and may be beyond repair. We can redefine what we ‘need’ to live worthwhile lives. Can’t we? Difficult as that is to do, it’s the easiest more intelligent thing to do, isn’t it?

God and....

Even more thanks to Katherine Saux in SOM for this Daily Guide for July 24 which is so good I want to quote it and share it in its entirety.

“Until we have God, we have nothing; but at the very moment we have God, we have all there is in the world. There is no such thing as God and….” Joel Goldsmith

“How much of this Infinite Good is ours? All of it!” SOM, p 50

“One of my favorite mantras is, ‘I am the honored guest at the banquet of life.’ It reminds me that God’s goodness is constantly and generously available to me. It also reminds me that God is my host, the source of all, who continuously urges me to eat my fill of blessings and joy and other good things.

“Joel Goldsmith takes this thought even further. He chalenges us to know that in having God, we already have all that is. Jesus said the same thing when he patiently explained to his disciples that the Father know we need things like clothing and food and shelter. Jesus went on to urge us to seek first the kingdom of heaven, then ‘all these things’ would be added to us. Truly, Spirit supports its own expression.

“This does not mean that we do not have to work for our good; remember that God can only do for us what It can do through us. Not even the Lord of the Universe will force us to partake of Its banquet. Sitting at the table and helping ourselves to the feast means doing what it takes to manifest the feast in the world of humanity – things like getting an education or honing our skills. So pull up a chair, unfold your napking and dig in. There’s more where that came from.”

Affirmation: Today, I remember that I am the honored guest at the banquet of life. God is my nourishment and my source of all. God’s grace bestows all good things on me even before I ask.

Taking Responsibility

Take responsibility and go for more of what works for you and the world and less of what’s not working. Embrace and embody the good, the vision, the ideal. Wrap yourself around it, go deep into your heart and mind, allow the wonder, compassion and vision that’s already a part of you to flow. Nothing less than complete alignment will work. Taking responsibility grudgingly, while still feeling entitled, or sorry for yourself, or like a bruised, innocent victim, will not work. “The word which carries power is the one which has conviction back of it,” Ernest Holmes wrote.

Words and most thoughts, are less important than the feeling behind them. “It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart,” Gandhi said. Taking responsibility means deep conviction, that you experience no separation between words and thoughts and feelings. After all, God is singular, unitary, one. When we talk about the ‘one God,’ it means a single force, undivided, not a god of feelings, a god of thoughts and a god of words. If feelings, thoughts and words are unaligned and going in different directions, we are confusing god, dividing our power, being irresponsible and will stay stuck where we are.

Taking responsibility means getting our shit together and focusing, not forcing things together, or using guilt to motivate us, but rather connecting things in our hearts and minds first, then praying. The prayer of power – the parayer that will ‘work’, is the prayer that comes from being totally, confidently and unwaveringly convinced of the truth that the words express. There’s no hoping, wishing and maybe in it. Spend some time going within to commune with God before opening your mouth.

Thanks again to Katherine Saux in SOM.

Mirrors

We have difficulty understanding, appreciating and using the concept of God, because we are It and It is us. It’s like trying to see your own eye, you can’t without a mirror; we can’t see what we’re seeing with. Our experience is the mirror that enables us to ‘see’ God. “The only God man knows is the God of his own Inner Life,” Ernest Holmes said, “he can know no other.”

Our experience, tells us who and what God is and means to us. Once we get that each one of us is one with God, right now, not when we die, but right now, one with all the power God is, then we have to acknowledge that we are responsible for what’s showing up in our lives. It’s not the old, Anglo, guy in the sky who’s using the power of the Universe to manipulate our lives, it’s us.
“I Am that I Am,” God said to Moses from the burning bush, when Moses asked how he could be sure he was talking with God. “I Am that I Am.” Simple, beautiful, direct. Whenever you say, “I am….” You’re saying, “God expresses Itself through me as….” When you say, “I can’t….” You’re saying God can’t, that I don’t believe God can. God can give only as much as we can accept. God is not limited, we – our faith, self-talk, ideals and aspirations, are limited. We have artificially separated ourselves from our God Selves. It doesn’t have to stay that way. We can change, choose again and accept more; and when we do, ‘God’ will celebrate, just like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son.

The underlying beliefs about ourselves – our sinfulness, unworthyness and fear of punishment, go quietly and inexorably out-picturing in our lives. The more our unexamined habits of thought separate us from God, the more skewed our expressions of God become.

To check your understanding of the nature of God, look around at your experience. If your experiences are good and contributing to a world that works for everyone, then God is smiling. If your experiences are unhappy and unsatisfactory, evil or hellacious, God is frowning.

But truly, use your experience as a mirror to see how you’ve been using your “I am”, God power. Take responsibility and go for more of what works for you and the world and less of what’s not working. “The only God man knows is the God of his own Inner Life,” Ernest Holmes said, “he can know no other.”

Again, thanks to Katherine Saux in SOM.

Win/Lose

The previous post about involving India and China in building a viable, tollerant and democratic Afghan state, makes me think about the win/lose paradigm at the heart of the Sports Metaphor. I’m too lazy to go back and re-read my series of sports posts, so I’m not sure how I said this before, but the win/lose paradigm is dangerous. To me it’s the win/lose way of looking at life and the world, that keeps us from seriously considering the very common sense strategy of involving India and China in building a viable, tollerant and democratic Afghan state.

Aren’t there a whole range of experiences between winning and losing? Aren’t those experiences valuable and meaningful too? What about the idea of “win some, lose some”? Or the idea that “you can’t win ‘em all”? I remember a commentator saying a couple of Olympics ago, when the athelete who was cracked up to be so great ‘only’ won the Bronze and was sad and the media were crying foul, “When did winning the Bronze at the Olympics become something to be ashamed of?” And for the folks that do win the Gold, what becomes of them? Do they go on to live charmed lives on Mt. Olympus? No, they go on to become dentists in Peoria.

It’s good to go for the Gold, but keep a sense of perspective. If billions of dollars that might go to actually improving peoples’ lives is being siphoned off by drug lords and a corrupt Afghan government, perhaps it’s time to consider the Bronze.

How might a new perspective on win/lose apply to our electoral/political system? Currently we have a winner-take-all, zero-sum system – either you win or you lose, no middle ground. And the winner is considered ‘wrong’ to talk to the losers, think about the loser’s ideas or represent the loser’s constituents. So if someone wins an election by 51%, she feels no obligation to consider the ideas of the 49% that lost, talk with them or bother to represent them. After all, they lost, too bad, so sad.

This zero-sum, win/lose, winner-take-all, way of doing things has brought us to the current, worst in 120 years gridlock, polarization, fear mongering and wastefulness in DC. Thank goodness the current, awful ways of DC have not trickled down to the local level, though they are being more and more manifest at the state level.

Our political/electoral system is designed to run on win/lose. If we’re not happy with they way things are going, and nobody either on the left or right seems too happy about it, let’s consider redesigning our political/electoral system to be less win/lose oriented. That’s doable; there are a number of nations that run their systems differently. But we won’t be allowed to consider it, or serious consideration of it will be ridiculed, because the political class and their big economic supporters, like the status quo and want things to stay as they are. In spite all the noise to the contrary, the wealthy are continuing to not only hold on to their wealth, but accumulate more.

The new government in England, a veritible model of miracle cooperation across seemingly intractible differences in party rhetoric, is offerring a ‘constitutional’ amendment to the voters that will allow them to decide on a new form of proportional representation. Proportional representation will shift the system from win/lose to something more in the center. With proportional representation the 49% that ‘lose’ would not go unheard, unrepresented and ridiculed. They would not even lose.

I’m not clear on the British proposal, but basically with proportional representation, voters would vote for their first, second and third choices, see:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/howprwor.htm
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation

The benefits of shifting to proportional representation are immense:
• Incumbants and the special interests that support them would be weakened
• Third and perhaps even Fourth parties would be encouraged
• It would be clear to voters that their vote and their active involvement count
• If we believe in democracy, we’ll have more of it
• If we believe democracy results in better decisions for more people – a move towards a system that works for everyone, then we’ll have more of that, too

The transition to proportional representation might be messy, but to me, it seems worthwhile. We seem to have reached the limits of effectiveness with our present way of doing things; it works well for fewer and fewer Americans and concentrates political and economic power in the hands of a few. The name of such a system is Oligarchy, not Democracy.

Afghanistan

Why can’t India and China, which have vast, well equipped militaries, cultures more similar han ours, and are actually in the region, be involved in establishing a viable, tollerant and democratic Afghan state? Why are we and NATO – two powers way outside the region and with extremely different systems and cultures, doing it?

I know the usual answers, we started it, we’ve got to finish it, or lose our credibility. The next answer, we don’t want to give India and China the opportunity to flex their muscles and build their credibility as international powers. We’re #1, the world’s only super power and we want to stay #1. Sounds good to some, especially the people in charge, but to these folks I ask: given the state of our own economy and the many un-met needs of our own people, does this approach make sense and is it sustainable?

Both India and China have the necessary resources and because they have fought two wars against each other in the past, might benefit from an opportunity to cooperate. They also have a serious interest in pacifying and containing Afghanistan’s extremists, before these extremists inflame their own extremists. In fact, most legitimate governments in the region, indeed, most legitimate governments period, have an interest in containing extremists and terrorists.

Couldn’t our diplomacy and subsequent military involvement be oriented to this ‘new’ strategy of involving the two biggest powers in the region? They have much more to gain than we do. The logistics would be less expensive and easier to implement. There are vague cultural and class similarities, at least more similar than the West’s. For all these reasons, India and China’s involvement might bring a better chance of success and if that’s what we’re really after, success – building a viable, tollerant and democratic Afghan state, as we say we are, and not staying the world’s #1 super power, as we don’t say, but probably the real goal, then common sense suggests we involve India and China. Involve, not hand it off to them, but involve them. We have a lot to gain by involving them, and probably less to lose than we fear.