Previous Page

PREAMBLE TO AN ETHIC OF
ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABLITY

Prepared by the Environmental Working Group of Canadian Yearly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

I

In the context of openness to continuing revelation, we recognize that the "Divine presence" which members of the Religious Society of Friends have traditionally held to be in all persons, is also in Creation as whole.  We are learning that through an awareness of Earth as an integral community of life, the Divine may become known in a more fully rounded way.

We further recognize that all communities of life have been brought into being through the creative expression of Earth process, and that human communities are mutually and interdependently engaged with all other life communities.  This recognition gives rise to a profound sense of gratitude for all the forms and processes that together compose the stream of life:

• the fertile soil with its enduring microbial populations;
• the oceans with their vast undergirding of the biosphere;
• the forest zones of great biotic nurture;
• the many plants, bushes and trees of garden, field and orchard that supply nourishment;
• the insects, beetles and spiders that truly have dominion of Earth;
• the birds with their many hues, amazing flights and tuneful songs;
• the many animals large and small, wild and domestic;
• the lakes and rivers that grace  the land;
• the energy and light of the Sun;
• the clouds in which moisture is gathered and the rain that falls to Earth;
• the loom of electro-chemical process on which the fabric of life is woven;
• the geological processes that have provided the landforms and environmental setting for life's flourishing.

The realization that our ability to experience  the Divine arises from our embeddedness in Earth process, brings a sense of the sacred into heightened awareness.  We now recognize that a fully rounded understanding of the sacred  includes the Human/Earth relationship.  The ethic of ecological sustainability, in its spiritually grounded form, unfolds from this sense of sacred  integrity.  It is supported by the grace of Earth's beauty and is carried forward in the energy of Earth's creative goodness.  This understanding requires us to develop an ethic of ecological  sustainability with regard to the processes of Earth through which all life communities have arisen and are enabled to continue.

However, the ethic of ecological sustainability arises within an environment of crisis with regard to the Human/Earth relationship

II

Within the panorama of human culture, and behind the particularities of each culture's story of faith, there is another story, another level of deep faith, a background context of energy and relationship that animates human experience and nourishes human creativity. When reaching for this most elementary sense of faith, for this faith behind faith, it is into a zone of clarity and bouyancy that we are drawn.  We have a sense of this faith as a primal joyfulness of spirit, a kind of incandescent cheerfulness of the soul, as an inspirited, transparent and operational way of being in the world.  Nurtured by God's goodness in Creation, human cultures draw on the energy of this primal faith to create their particular stories of faithfulness.  And yet a troubling question comes to haunt us:  Does this primal faith have a growing or waning future in the human world?

The structures of faith on which cultures rely to order their social worlds do not come from the stars.  They come from humankind's long and intimate association with the whole experience of life on Earth.  Damage to the integrity of Earth's biotic process rebounds against  the functional integrity of deep faith.  This loss, in turn, rebounds against the functional integrity of the whole social world.

For example, there once was a time when, with an unclouded mind and an untroubled spirit, we could talk about the blessing of  "the God given rain" as it came over the landscape and refreshed all life.  This is no longer the case.  Rain, over virtually the whole Earth, has now become the bearer of bio-toxins that are systematically produced and released into the atmosphere by the economy of high energy, industrial growth. The blessing of the rain has been adulterated with a curse, and a once clear sense of the Divine has been lost.  A multitude of similarly degenerative circumstances now characterize the Human/Earth relationship. This widespread loss of reliable, over arching order creates confusion, cynicism and dysfunctional behaviour throughout social, economic and political life.

III

The Human/Earth relationship is in crisis because the capital-driven growth economy is systematically decomposing the biotic integrity of Earth process.  It is functionally disabling the fundamental context of human adaptation and development.  This disabling of the integrity of Creation is now understood by many religious communities to impinge directly and negatively on human spiritual life.  The following sequence illustrates a useful way of understanding the relationship between Creation, human spirituality and the capital-driven growth economy.

1. The idea of Creation as the original energy and continuing flow of geological, electro-chemical and bio-physical process is a unique concept - it has no opposite.  Even chaos is a category  within Creation.  Creation is encompassing.  Creation teaches us ultimacy.  It is the source of our sense of the sacred.
2. Encompassing and numinous, Creation is the context for everything we experience, everything we know and care about.  All our feelings, thoughts and concepts; all our scriptures, theologies and philosophies; all our art, music and dance;  all our structures and processes of living arise from our embeddedness in Creation.
3. In its integrating mode, spiritual consciousness transmutes our perception of the diversity of Creation into the experience of communion.  Spiritual awareness moves into solidarity when the ordering of human communities is understood to be within the ordering of Earth's life communities in general, and when the experience of communion expands from within the realm of human relationships to encompass the whole of Creation.
4. The capital-driven growth economy radically discounts solidarity. Its behaviour tends to break up solidarity in all its forms - social, economic, ecological and spiritual.  It is devoted to an ever increasing accumulation of money through the agency of continuously expanding economic activity.  Economic growth depends on a progressively expanding exploitation of the geo-physical, biotic and social aspects of Earth. While these aspects of Earth are limited in their capacity to remain functional under the stress of economic expansion, the capital-driven growth economy admits to no limits of expansion.  Thus are the geo-physical, biotic and social environments of Earth suffering the disintegrating effects of the drive for unlimited growth.
5. Within the embrace of sunlight energy, and through the long build up of soil fertility, the whole integrated fluorescence of life comes into being.  Earth process is characterized in scientific terms by mutual interdependence, in social terms by solidarity and in spiritual terms by communion.  The capital-driven growth economy, however, promotes self-aggrandizement, enthrones competition and ignores biotic interdependence.  It sharply divides the rich from the poor, institutionalizes poverty and breaks up social solidarity.  It erodes the experience of communion with Creation and obliterates the sense of the sacred.  The organization and functioning of economic activity under the imperative of capital growth has thus created a crisis which challenges us in the deepest modes of our spiritual awareness.

IV

We are building toward a climax of crisis.  The ecological crisis is becoming a spiritual crisis as well as a crisis in human adaptation.  As communities of faith we are now required to critically assess the capital-driven growth economy and identify it as a  kind of false religion - a fabulously productive but ultimately destructive system of behaviour bringing closure on God's goodness in Creation and an emptiness to the soul.  To look this system straight in the eye and call it to account is a critical test for all communities of faith.

Challenging the capital-driven growth economy with a sense of the goodness of God in Creation is to join a spiritual struggle - a spiritual struggle which Aboriginal peoples, in particular, have been carrying on from the depths of their wisdom for many generations.  Many Aboriginal people who have never given their hearts to the Earth damaging ways of capital-driven growth are now deeply involved in the movement to realize a just and sustainable economy, an economy developed around respect for all life and based on the  principle of reciprocity. The openness and kindness with which they are now sharing their sense of Creation and Creation's story is simply astounding considering the treatment they have received in the past, and often still receive, from the exploitational culture that has engulfed them.  The grace,  delicacy and simple elegance of spirit conveyed through stories, ceremonies and prayers is witness to a maturity of spiritual and social consciousness grounded in an ecological world view.

Because Aboriginal experience holds the entire Earth to be a sacred place, and because it sees all life in its great diversity as the expression of  "one breath", its witness has become a focus of attention and a source of encouragement  for many who are seeking spiritual alignment with the integrity of Creation.  A stance of faith, solidarity with Earth's communities of life, and, in particular, with those caught in poverty, demands that we, along with our Aboriginal allies, take a stand and say:  "This destruction of Earth and this disabling of lives must stop."

We must be perfectly clear about the implications of undertaking this responsibility. It is more than just setting up recycling bins, growing organic vegetables or riding a bike to work.  It is more than a talking job.  It is a renovation that will change everything - the way we do business, the way we eat, the way we travel, the houses we build, the products and services we can expect and the prices we pay for them, the way we feel about trees and the way we experience and respond to the Divine.

As people of faith we have the moral responsibility to develop an ethic of ecological sustainability.  We then have the continuing responsibility of helping to implement this ethic in all political, economic and social activities.  Thus, can we begin the process of ecological  re-adaptation that is need to bring human settlements into a mutually enhancing relationship with the integrity of Creation.

Spring 2000

Return to QEAN Home Page

Return to CYM Home Page