Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Happy Birthday Sir Issac Newton 4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727
Sir Issac Newton has always had my favorite quote as he shows how firmly his feet are planted in reality. A lesson we all could take. it reads,
"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants."
— Isaac Newton (Principia : Vol. 1 The Motion of Bodies)
"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants."
— Isaac Newton (Principia : Vol. 1 The Motion of Bodies)
Friday, January 1, 2010
Winter solstice 2009
This was a essay/letter I received that I felt was worth sharing. Hope y'all enjoy!
Dear ones:
Winter solstice: a time of turning, from the cold of winter’s long nights toward the light and warmth of spring’s renewal.
Solstice as metaphor: Thomas Berry, the visionary Catholic monk who died earlier this year, recognized that we humans are now engaged in a “great turning” from a violating, industrial, egocentric, consumer culture to one of ecological attentiveness. Having treated Earth as a resource for plunder and a garbage dump, we can now see that, in Berry’s words, “our own well-being can be achieved only through the well-being of the entire natural world about us.” We were too remote from Earth’s various creatures to hear their stories. “The time has come, however, when we will listen, or we will die.” Ecological responsibility is not an option; it’s a necessity.
I’ve been working throughout the year with Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center colleagues to gather artists and technical specialists for “Rocky Flats: A Call to Guardianship.” The purpose of this “great turning” project is to make the contaminated site of the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear bomb factory a case study in shifting from the polluting risk-based culture we have inherited to a culture of earth democracy in which we humans act on behalf of other beings affected by human activities. We seek to provide a concrete example of ecological caretaking for radioactively contaminated sites elsewhere. We counter government plans to turn much of the Rocky Flats site into a wildlife refuge open for public recreation. If you’d like to support or to participate in this unprecedented work, let me know. We expect to hold major public events in 2010 and 2011.
Politics is always about relations of power. The great turning involves a shift of power away from hierarchies and pyramids to a sharing that is rooted deep in the veins and vessels of all earth’s creatures. But let me jump to politics as conventionally conceived. At lunch recently with Nick Helburn, a WW II conscientious objector, I asked for his take on President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech. He said it was a good speech but he didn’t agree with Obama’s justification for the war in Afghanistan. I recalled that about a century after Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and made it the religion of the Roman Empire turning the pacifist religion of Jesus into a religion of coercion – the theologian Augustine of Hippo came to the aid of the empire with the doctrine of just war. He laid down certain principles that must be followed for a war to qualify as just. What the US is doing in Afghanistan and next door in Pakistan (think drones and Blackwater) patently fails to meet Augustine’s conditions of proportionality, probability of success, attacking only combatants, and so on. If Obama can justify using armed force to achieve his ends, any other party, including Osama bin Laden can do the same, and does.
In embracing the outmoded concept of just war, Obama denigrated two of the prophetic figures of the 20th century, Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In the night of violence these two practiced the non-violating politics of the future. Both showed a profound understanding of power when they enabled the disadvantaged to realize that they could put into practice the power they already possess. Their methods spread quickly to every continent in the 20th century. The record of perfecting the technology of violence in this most violent of all human centuries ever is matched by global experiments in nonviolent action.
In Oslo as earlier in Prague Obama raised the hope of finally ridding theplanet of nuclear weapons, the deadliest of human inventions. But it’s not possible to get rid of nuclear weapons while adhering to just war theory. If I or you or any group or any country can justify war on others – can kill with a good conscience – then it stands to reason that some who fight will want the biggest stick available. And since the 1940s this has been nuclear weapons, the only real weapons of mass destruction. So if the US is justified in waging war in Afghanistan or Pakistan or perhaps against Iran or North Korea, why shouldn’t leaders of those countries want their own big stick, their own nuclear bombs? If we continue to rely on weapons, others will do the same, and some likely will want the big one.
It’s clear on many fronts that we’re now dealing with the fate of the earth and the destiny of our species. We thus need to realize that conflict along the way is a revelatory moment that shows what needs attention. We must pay attention, especially to our adversary. We need to learn what moves him or her or them, and we need to let them know what moves us. This can only happen in an atmosphere free of threat and harm. Now we’re back to Gandhi and King and others past and present who practice the discipline of non-violating action. In the depths of the wintering of our souls reside the seeds of renewal. The turning cannot happen without us.
Love, joy, peace,
LeRoy Moore
Dear ones:
Winter solstice: a time of turning, from the cold of winter’s long nights toward the light and warmth of spring’s renewal.
Solstice as metaphor: Thomas Berry, the visionary Catholic monk who died earlier this year, recognized that we humans are now engaged in a “great turning” from a violating, industrial, egocentric, consumer culture to one of ecological attentiveness. Having treated Earth as a resource for plunder and a garbage dump, we can now see that, in Berry’s words, “our own well-being can be achieved only through the well-being of the entire natural world about us.” We were too remote from Earth’s various creatures to hear their stories. “The time has come, however, when we will listen, or we will die.” Ecological responsibility is not an option; it’s a necessity.
I’ve been working throughout the year with Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center colleagues to gather artists and technical specialists for “Rocky Flats: A Call to Guardianship.” The purpose of this “great turning” project is to make the contaminated site of the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear bomb factory a case study in shifting from the polluting risk-based culture we have inherited to a culture of earth democracy in which we humans act on behalf of other beings affected by human activities. We seek to provide a concrete example of ecological caretaking for radioactively contaminated sites elsewhere. We counter government plans to turn much of the Rocky Flats site into a wildlife refuge open for public recreation. If you’d like to support or to participate in this unprecedented work, let me know. We expect to hold major public events in 2010 and 2011.
Politics is always about relations of power. The great turning involves a shift of power away from hierarchies and pyramids to a sharing that is rooted deep in the veins and vessels of all earth’s creatures. But let me jump to politics as conventionally conceived. At lunch recently with Nick Helburn, a WW II conscientious objector, I asked for his take on President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech. He said it was a good speech but he didn’t agree with Obama’s justification for the war in Afghanistan. I recalled that about a century after Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and made it the religion of the Roman Empire turning the pacifist religion of Jesus into a religion of coercion – the theologian Augustine of Hippo came to the aid of the empire with the doctrine of just war. He laid down certain principles that must be followed for a war to qualify as just. What the US is doing in Afghanistan and next door in Pakistan (think drones and Blackwater) patently fails to meet Augustine’s conditions of proportionality, probability of success, attacking only combatants, and so on. If Obama can justify using armed force to achieve his ends, any other party, including Osama bin Laden can do the same, and does.
In embracing the outmoded concept of just war, Obama denigrated two of the prophetic figures of the 20th century, Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In the night of violence these two practiced the non-violating politics of the future. Both showed a profound understanding of power when they enabled the disadvantaged to realize that they could put into practice the power they already possess. Their methods spread quickly to every continent in the 20th century. The record of perfecting the technology of violence in this most violent of all human centuries ever is matched by global experiments in nonviolent action.
In Oslo as earlier in Prague Obama raised the hope of finally ridding theplanet of nuclear weapons, the deadliest of human inventions. But it’s not possible to get rid of nuclear weapons while adhering to just war theory. If I or you or any group or any country can justify war on others – can kill with a good conscience – then it stands to reason that some who fight will want the biggest stick available. And since the 1940s this has been nuclear weapons, the only real weapons of mass destruction. So if the US is justified in waging war in Afghanistan or Pakistan or perhaps against Iran or North Korea, why shouldn’t leaders of those countries want their own big stick, their own nuclear bombs? If we continue to rely on weapons, others will do the same, and some likely will want the big one.
It’s clear on many fronts that we’re now dealing with the fate of the earth and the destiny of our species. We thus need to realize that conflict along the way is a revelatory moment that shows what needs attention. We must pay attention, especially to our adversary. We need to learn what moves him or her or them, and we need to let them know what moves us. This can only happen in an atmosphere free of threat and harm. Now we’re back to Gandhi and King and others past and present who practice the discipline of non-violating action. In the depths of the wintering of our souls reside the seeds of renewal. The turning cannot happen without us.
Love, joy, peace,
LeRoy Moore
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