In my continuing search for a spiritual ethos that I can really grab hold of, I’ve tentatively started using the phrase ‘spiritual sustainability’. (Many thanks to Emi and Carl for giving me some immediate ‘user feedback’ on the term.) I’ve taken it out for several test drives around the highways and byways of my grey matter, and so far it’s held up pretty well. As Carl rightly pointed out, whenever someone uses a term or a phrase like this, it works like a container that the speaker uses to put a whole collection of thoughts into. What thoughts have I collected in the box of spiritual sustainability, and how do they fit together? The best way I can think of to begin is with a story. So help yourself to a cozy blanket and a mug of something hot, and we’ll begin.
This story starts at the beginning. The beginning of the story is the beginning of the world, and the world is what the story is about. Everything. Genesis.
‘But wait’, you interrupt. How can a story be about everything? Won’t that take forever? I can only read blogs in my spare time after all, and maybe there’s something interesting on television.
Instead of using a thousand words, let’s try a picture. A picture of how the world looked when it was brand-new, still covered in Styrofoam packing peanuts. Let’s picture the world like… a garden.
In this garden, there are lots of living things growing and flourishing, plants and animals. And there are lots of inanimate things as well: rocks and dirt and water and sun. In this garden something spectacular is going on: each bird and fish and rock and tree is different, unique, one-of-a-kind special. And yet, each individual little thing benefits everything else in the garden. The insects feed the fish and pollinate the flowers. The grass and trees hold the soil together for each other. The water, evaporating and precipitating, cleanses and nurtures everything. You could say that each little thing, down to the smallest pebble, exists not for its own sake, but for the sake of sustaining the entire garden.
‘That’s not very spectacular’, you reply. ’That’s just what scientists call an ecosystem.‘ You’re right, of course. But there’s something very deeply spiritual going on here. This isn’t just a textbook example for someone in a niche scientific field. This is Genesis. This is a blueprint. This is the way things were supposed to be. In our story, this garden isn’t just the blueprint for the fields and streams and forests. It’s the blueprint for neighbourhoods and communities. For families. For relationships. For careers. For the arts. For academia and for corporations. For governments. Like I said, this is a story about everything.
In the garden, people’s jobs aren’t just a means of survival, but the way in which people contribute to their community. Families aren’t motivated by a desire to build a personal fortress (white picket fence, 2 cars, 2.5 children and financial security) but by the desire to nurture a new generation of people who can continue to be a part of this spectacular, spiritual ecosystem. In relationships, people don’t ask the question, ‘do I feel fulfilled?’ but ‘are we contributing to each other’s health and well-being? are we helping each other grow?’
In each of these examples and in thousands of others runs a single stream, one current that stretches all the way back to the beginning, and off into the horizon. Each and every thing, unique in itself, does not exist for itself. No rock or tree or animal or person gives a damn whether or not they deserve more than what they have. The one-and-only question is, ‘do my actions benefit others?’ And because of that question, each and every little part of the garden flourishes and grows.
This is the end of chapter one. Are you still with me?
And try again tomorrow…
