Cosmology, or Thinking BIG

A. Unabashed Pacifist:

We can seek to control our neighbors, or we can seek peace with our neighbors. Not both.

B. Unabashed Christian:

Holy One,

Remind us again…
- What is most important?
- Why are we here?
- What can we do for you?
- How can we serve others?
- Who do we think Jesus is?
- Of what should we be afraid?
- What was wonderful about yesterday?
- Whom do we love?
- What makes us laugh?
- What inspires us?
- What makes life worthwhile?
- What hope lies before us?
Amen

C. Un-quoting Jesus:

“Got a Light?”

[He didn’t say it like that.]

D. Blog: Cosmology, or Think Big

I just read Brian Swimme’s The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos. Here’s a sampling:

“Unless we live our lives with at least some cosmological awareness, we risk collapsing into tiny worlds. For we can be fooled into thinking that our lives are passed in political entities, such as a state or a nation; or that the bottom-line concerns in life have to do with economic realities of consumer life-styles. In truth, we live in the midst of immensities, and we are intrinsically woven into a great cosmic drama. Economic and political concerns are o real importance, but children need to understand that whatever importance and value these concerns have derive ultimately from our encompassing matrix and its deepest meanings. To be out of touch with this cosmological context is to risk living within a shrunken and distorted version of reality… The human journey is as immense in time as the galaxies are distant in space..”

And then there is Swimme’s colleague, Thomas Berry, and the book The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. Some snippets:

- “Our entire industrial system can be considered as an effort to escape from the constraints of the natural world. We have created an artificial context for our existence through mechanical invention and the extravagant use of energy. In this process we have so violated the norms of limitation, so upset the chemical balance of the atmosphere, the soil, and the oceans, so exploited the Earth in our use of fossil fuels, that we are devastating the fertility of the planet and extinguishing many species of wildlife. We no longer live within the organic, ever-renewing world that is the natural context o our existence.”

- “Our Western culture long ago abandoned its integral relation with the planet on which we live.”

- “The universe, in the phenomenal world, is the primary value, the primary source of existence, the primary destiny of whatever exists.”

- “The accomplishment of the Great Work is the task not simply of the human community but of the entire planet Earth. Even beyond Earth, it is the Great Work of the universe itself.”