Reflection
We who are alive today are creating tomorrow
with our thoughts and words.
We are shaping ourselves and our cultures
by what we do and fail to do.
Let us sing out
that the heaven we sought
is within and around us.
That wherever we look,
We find the Holy One looking back.
And let us not lose heart
no matter what storms batter and buffet us.
For we are One with life
and Life holds us firmly in the palm of Its Hand.
Jan Phillips
Prayer
Where shall I go from your spirit? or where shall I flee from your presence?
Psalm 139
Action
Reflect on your concept of yourself in relation to God’s presence and the nature of this world. Has it changed? Are you familiar with the impact of the knowledge we now have on our religious explanations? Do some research on on the ideas expressed above.
Suggested Reading
See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
Isaiah 65:17
Behold, I am making all things new.
Rev 21:5
If we approach nature and the environment without…openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously.
Pope Francis, Laudato Si
The Great Work, now as we move into a new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner. The deepest cause of the present devastation is found in a mode of consciousness that has established a radical discontinuity between the human and other modes of being and the bestowal of all rights on the humans. All human activities, professions, programs, and institutions must henceforth be judged primarily by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually enhancing human/Earth relationship.
Thomas Berry
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
Abraham Lincoln
Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.
Dalai Lama
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
George Bernard Shaw
The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.
John C. Maxwell
The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.
Vaclav Havel
Our generation has the ability and the responsibility to make our ever-more connected world a more hopeful, stable and peaceful place.
Natalie Portman
Over the coming decades I foresee that religious believers of every tradition will embrace a far larger, more reality-based view of God than was possible even a century ago. This will be a vision of the Holy One that will draw the vast majority, regardless of religion or philosophical worldview, into a place of respect, adoration, love, and care for the larger body of which we all are part. Scripture will have become more encompassing and universally inspiring because altogether new writings will qualify as scripture. Our spirituality no longer restricted to ancient texts, we will come to know and be led by God’s Word in every fact, every detail, every truth of cosmic history and of that undeniable Wholeness in which we all live and move and have our being.
Michael Dowd