Green Faith at a Monastery by Richard Boeke
Presented by Faiths in Sussex at Worth Abbey, 29 June 2008
By Richard Boeke, Horsham Interfaith Forum
The Climate is changing.
It is no longer business as usual.
Not for churches or jets into the blue.
The words of John Donne ring true.
"No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main; ...
Economic benefits of globalisation are eclipsed
by the carbon cloud of climate change.
On the 2nd of July, a front page story in The Guardian proclaims "Voters think taking action against climate change matters more than tackling the global economic turndown." When British voters were asked which should be the government's priority, 52% said the environment, 44% said the economy.
Three days earlier on the 29th of June, over 100 gathered on a Sunday afternoon for GREEN FAITH at Worth Abbey, a beautiful Benedictine Monastery, which was the setting for THE MONASTERY, a recent BBC Television programme.
Abbot Christopher Jamison's talk on FINDING HAPPINESS opened the programme. He told us that as fewer people in England are going to church, more souls are coming to retreats and monasteries. His new book on happiness will be published in October. It may join several best sellers on happiness such as THE HAPPINESS HYPOTHESIS.
Abbot Christopher started by taking us back to the seven deadly sins, and a 2004 BBC Survey in which respondents rejected most of the old sins like Anger and Sloth (what's wrong with some sloth now and then?). The top sin from the survey was CRUELTY, an action. To Abbot Christopher, Seven Deadly Sins are not about actions, but inner states of being: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Deadly sins are states of mind that lead to actions.
"My inner world affects my outer world. My anger affects others even if I do nothing wrong." There is a difference between self-absorption and self-awareness. Self-awareness involves how I interact with the world around me. Our lives are so busy, we have no time to centre our soul. "We want music with soul, but we are too busy to be self-aware."
ACIDEA is an ancient word for losing enthusiasm for the spiritual life. In medicine, physical hygiene was not practiced until germs were discovered. We have a similar practice for spiritual hygiene, SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. "Each of us needs to find a sacred time and space for spiritual exercises. We need to get inside our soul to change."
Abbot Christopher closed by emphasizing the sin of GREED. "Greed is a striking feature of many self-help books."
"The story we tell ourselves is the source of greed."
"Greed on all sides has led to our current crisis."
Abbot Christopher was followed by Jean Leston of the World Wildlife Federation and Christian Ecology Link. She gave us a vivid sense of the Christian witness in our relationship with all life.
Then in good British fashion, we had a tea break with a feast of cakes brought by each of the four sponsoring Sussex interfaith groups: Brighton/Hove, Crawley, Horsham and Worthing. We talked and visited the displays of eight ecological group ranging from the London Islamic Network for the Environment, The Quiet Garden Movement, and GreenSpirit to CAFOD (the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development). Also the joy of kicking football with the Peter Brown family from Worthing.
After a second piece of cake, we entered the theatre. Ian Lawton, chairman for the day, introduced us to Muzammel Hussain. Hussain told us the crisis is ecological, economic, and spiritual. The current economic pressure to pay off debt is fuelling the ecological crisis. Our spirituality is immature in relation to our intellect. "We need a spirituality that serves the essence, rather than rituals which serve the ego. ... We need wholeness and a whole planet."
Joyce Edmond Smith, a Buddhist, continued the theme of the interdependence of life: "The core doctrine of Buddhist teaching is Interdependence, Co-Arising." She illustrated this with the story of the jewelled net of Indra, in which each jewel in the net reflects all the others: "Our sense of separateness is a delusion."
Like Abbot Christopher, she pointed to the dangers of
GREED, HATRED AND DELUSION.
We are called to be Bodhisattvas, those who vow to work with compassion until all the earth is healed. [1]
Joyce Smith warned this time all life on earth is threatened. It may be too late to stop the destruction of the Industrial Growth Society. But we can link arms and help each other. And we must go to the corridors of power where decisions are made.
In a closing panel, the four speakers agreed:
1) while the word, "mindfulness" comes from the Buddhist tradition, the practice is at the heart of all spirituality.
2) all great religious traditions are about hope.
3) "stop rubbishing politicians." They are part of our hope.
4) Reconnect people with nature as well as with community.
An hour was given for Catholic Vespers, Moslem Prayer, and a walk to the beautiful silent garden below the Abbey. We returned for a vegetarian feast brought by the participants.
Part of a poem distributed by CAFOD sums up the day [2]
WALK LIGHTLY
Each creature on the earth
all the mountains and great seas,
show your glory
Spirit of Love.
And yet
the hand of the greed
has patented and plundered
Your splendour,
has taken and not shared your gift,
has lived as owner of the earth,
not guest.
And so
the ice is cracked
the rivers dry,
the Valleys flooded
and the snowcaps melt .
... show us
how to step gently,
how to live simply,
how to walk lightly. ...
D A D B C
As I left, a Muslim friend asked me to sing again a song we had sung together at previous gatherings at Worth Abbey.
The words are by the 13th Century Islamic Poet, Rumi.
Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, Worshipper, lover of leaving.
Ours is no caravan of despair.
Come, yet again, come. [3]
[1] Joanna Macy was sited as one whose workshops and teaching point the bodhisattva way.
[2] Christian Action for Overseas Development www.cafod.org.uk/worship
[3] Singing the Living Tradition, Beacon Press 1993, number 188.