SPIRIT IN MATTERS: Taking a Higher View of Life on Earth
By Dianne Eppler Adams

Vol. 1, No 1 - June 18, 2003

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In the beginning…
One year ago, I sat down and found myself writing….

“A time has come for me, when the inner urge is too great to ignore. When looking out at the world, its events and people, there seems to be a better way. Or at least I seek to ask the questions that would open up an image or discussion of a better way to live together, manage our differences, and grow into a truly global community. This is not a remote intellectual exercise, but a deep, heartfelt search for new possibilities.”

“The first step of the journey, I believe, begins with an honest and truthful view of things just as they are. Radical honesty is called for, without illusion. I do not propose to have complete answers to the issues I raise. For every issue there may be two or probably more possible points-of-view. By carrying on a discussion of the issues closest to my heart, I hope to encourage a thoughtful search for a better, more harmonious, more loving way to evolve.”

Today, I begin the process of giving voice to that urge. In doing so, I clearly hold a point of view. I openly declare the guiding principles I intend to use in expressing that view:

…This is an interconnected Universe. A butterfly flapping its wings in Argentina has an effect on the winds in Siberia. Some call it “the oneness principle.” I consider it the interdependence and sacredness of all life.

… All relationships – personal, communal, national and global – are of equal importance and we are at our best when we approach them with the same values – fairness, respect, honesty, and compassion.

…Darkness in the human experience is overcome, not through avoidance or only looking at “the sweetness of life,” but through shining the light of awareness on the darkness and choosing otherwise.

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"Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others they send forth a ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Robert F. Kennedy
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From this vantage point…

    Politics vs. Spirituality?

Isn’t the political world rather unspiritual? After all, it is often comprised of dirty, power mongering….the playground of power and privilege? Do I really want to get involved in such matters?

These are the questions that have hung in my thoughts for a long time. Like many of the Watergate generation, I have complained about the political process and its results, and in the next breathe have slyly repeated the joke about “two things that you don’t want to know how they’re made – sausage and legislation.”

In truth, I discounted my ability to make a difference, didn’t believe my vote counted for anything much. Yet, the freedoms promised in our founding documents require an informed and involved citizenry in order to ensure that those freedoms remain. Haven’t I been shirking my responsibility as a citizen of this great nation?

As a result of the close election of 2000, any doubts I had if one vote counts vanished. It seems to me, that election was a huge “wakeup call” to get involved. Do you agree with the actions of your government - foreign policy, economic policy, ecological policy, policies regarding privacy, education, etc.?

No, politics is not intrinsically unspiritual. Believing God to be everywhere present, I feel it is the qualities of truthfulness, integrity, fairness and the good of the whole that should be guiding principles of our political scene. When they are missing, as they often are, we lose interest and turn away, saying politics is unspiritual.

Isn’t this instead the absolutely best time to engage, to learn about issues, to consider our values, to speak out, and take a stand for the kind of government we want, how we want to live together in our communities, within our nation and within the community of nations in the world?

I say it is time for me (perhaps for you) to help advance the best expression of democracy, promote the values of truthfulness, fairness and community. I want to explore how we may actually spiritualize the political process.

This is a journey I invite you to share.


For you consideration…
…follow links to the complete articles.

Embracing the True Nature of Patriotism
Commencement speech by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Whitman College, May 25, 2003
http://www.whitman.edu/commencement/schlesinger03.html

Many Americans today feel a sense of personal vulnerability they have never felt before, even during the Second World War. Terrorism, undeterred and very likely intensified by our victory in Iraq, has given a new and scary dimension to war.
The vast majority of us agree on the objective of eradicating terrorism, but we sometimes disagree on the best means of attaining that objective. The idea is spreading that, when mortal danger threatens, we must suspend discussion and debate, rally 'round the flag, and allow the president to be the unquestioned single voice of a nation.
This belief raises a couple of questions I believe history might help us answer. First: Do a democratic people have a moral obligation to cease debate and dissent in times of war? Second: Did our ancestors abstain from debate and dissent when their government took them to war? These two questions presuppose a third: What is the true nature of patriotism anyway?


Jews & Muslims Seek Common Ground in NYC
http://www.gvnr.com/64/3.htm

Despite 9/11 and the increasing tensions in the Middle East - or perhaps because of them - some ethnic and religious groups are making an extended effort to reach out to one another; to bridge the walls that separate them even when they share the same neighborhood. Midwood neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. is an example. Midwood is a ten square bock neighborhood with one of the highest concentrations of both Orthodox Jews & Muslims than anywhere else in the USA. Jewish and Muslim women shop side by side, wearing slightly different head coverings but often pushing the same brand of strollers. No one denies that tension sometimes exists in Midwood, but through work, dedication, and a tacit agreement to disagree, it has remained relatively peaceful and productive.


Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year
By Brad Lemley
http://discover.com/may_03/gthere.html?article=featoil.html

In an industrial park in Philadelphia sits a new machine that can change almost anything into oil.

Really.

"This is a solution to three of the biggest problems facing mankind," says Brian Appel, chairman and CEO of Changing World Technologies, the company that built this pilot plant and has just completed its first industrial-size installation in Missouri. "This process can deal with the world's waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming."


Interdependence Day
http://www.co-intelligence.org/interdependenceday.html
Tom Atlee writes: “At the Co-Intelligence Institute, we decided to make July 4th -- the USA's Independence Day -- the official release date of my book, THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY (www.taoofdemocracy.com) . Not only do Americans use July 4th to celebrate America's democracy (which is a rough draft of the real thing) but everyone could use July 4th to
celebrate INTERDEPENDENCE.”

…..“So my Declaration of Interdependence would go something like this:

We hold this truth to be self-evident
We are All
In This
Together.

Therefore we live this truth
in our lives, communities and societies,
and thrive together into a long future
that we create together.

We are the world
that is awakening
to both the fact and the opportunity
of our interdependence --
fully, finally and beyond a shadow of doubt.

We are the world,
Who are making
ourselves a good world
that works for all people and all life.
Because we know the Greatest Secret
of All:

"We are All
in this
together."

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"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it."

---Robert F. Kennedy

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