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Timeline Email Edition November/December 1998 - No. 42…
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Created: Tuesday, November 17, 1998 2:00:15 PM
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Timeline Email Edition
November/December 1998 - No. 42
A Publication of the Foundation for Global Community
http://www.globalcommunity.org
timeline@globalcommunity.org
Phone: (650) 328 7756 Fax: (650) 328 7785
In this Issue:
What Does It Mean To Be Human?
The School of Last Resort
Determining the Future of Life
Blips on the Timeline
The New Synergy from Science and Religion
The Bestseller We Keep Rewriting
©1998 Foundation for Global Community
On Being Human to be human?
What does it mean to be human? To be human or not be at all is the
Frederick Franck, a writer and artist of question at this millennial shift.
international note, has gathered in a new
book the responses to this question by by Frederick Franck
more than a hundred thoughtful people--
from the famous to the not-so-famous. It was only in my seventh decade that I
realized that the question "What does it
Many of the responses are based on a mean to be human?" is the vital, the
pivotal, perhaps life-changing experience central one to which all our other
the writer had. Some focus on a subject questions and problems, spiritual, ethical,
dear to the writer's heart. Some are economic, and political are secondary.
short, some fairly lengthy; a few are in "To be human or not be at all" is the
the form of poems. The most moving are question at this millennial shift. It first
from writers who searched their souls struck me when my seeing underwent a
and offered a personal, deeply felt kind of mutation. "The Meaning of Life
response. is to see," said the 7th century sage Hui
Neng.
One such deep response, reprinted here
was by Franck himself. Born in Holland, I have been drawing--which is an
Franck has written several books and intensification of seeing--all my life. A
numerous articles, and his artwork is part year ago or so, as I was drawing people
of permanent collections in more than 20 in downtown New York--crowds and
museums in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. individuals in Canal Street and
He holds doctorates in Medicine, thereabouts--it suddenly dawned on me
Dentistry, and Fine Arts, and has been that what my eye perceived and what my
knighted by Queen Beatrix of the pen was registering were not so much
Netherlands. faces and bodies, not even "people," but
life cycles, each one caught at this
Another was by Donella Meadows, fleeting moment on its way from birth to
whose essays grace each issue of our death. It filled me with awe, for all at
publication. Her response is also once, regardless of age and gender, each
reprinted here. one of these disclosed itself as one --
begotten, unrepeatable, at once utterly
precious and pitiful. It was not an
"expansion of consciousness." It was
simply its intensification, a kind of
metanoia that brought me in direct touch
with the Real. Each one of these life
cycles had a kind of inviolate sanctity. It
was not just this man, that woman, but
that once-occurring life cycle.
It made me look back at my own, now
What does it mean speeding to its end, and made me see the
©1998 Foundation for Global Community
TIMELINE
years past as a lifelong, some-times Vermeer and in the smallest of
excruciating process that led to this point Rembrandt's landscape drawings, in
at which tolerance became a bit more Mucho's "Persimmons" and Sesshu's
than that--an intense awareness of the angularities. But it is far from confined to
mystery, the miracle of being here at all High Art, for it strikes the awakened eye
in Canal Street together with those wherever it turns--in the glance
others, of Existence as such. I had the exchanged by an old couple, in the
feeling that at last I could be at the very nurse's face bent over me as I woke up
least harmless to other creatures, no from anesthesia, in the handshake of two
longer their competitor, red in claw and men on a street corner, a child stroking
fang, not even their "brother," for its kitten--the Human.
brothers and sisters are rarely free of
sibling rivalry, but somehow self-identical It is precisely this ingredient of the
with all these life cycles in their infinite Human that is so totally absent in the
diversity, synchronized with them. hearty voices of radio commercials,
whether they speak English, French or
Schweitzer's life motto of "Reverence Japanese, in the newscasts on TV, in the
for Life" says in simple, contemporary deafening rock of the supermarket, the
words what is implied in the Gospels and muzak in your cardiologist's waiting
the summits of Old Testament wisdom in room. It is not only absent, this
its theistic language, that Great ingredient, it is denied, mocked, by those
Compassion/Wisdom that in nontheistic ads for five-thousand-dollar watches, for
terms is proclaimed by the Buddha, Lao Armani and Gucci finery, juxtaposed
Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Hui Neng--the with, on the opposite page, the pictures
answer to the question of what it means of massacres in Algiers, Congo,
to be really, fully human, an answer that Bosnia--cynical, nihilistic antithesis of
does not separate East from West but in the lifelong process to reach that which
which the twain meet, and quite alone is worth knowing before the end--
intimately. what it means to be fully human.
It became clear that what through the The more than one hundred spontaneous
years had fascinated me in Shakespeare, responses that constitute this book--they
touched me so deeply from Rilke's Book are not to be the end of a chain reaction
of Hours, had moved me to tears in the but its First Phase--justify hope and trust
Agnus Dei of Bach's B Minor Mass, in that humanness will yet prevail over the
the Adagio of Schubert's Two-Cello cynicism and nihilism that prepare our
Quintet in C Major, in Gregorian and species' demise.
Tibetan chant, was the celebration of
life's fullness and its transiency, its What Does It Mean To Be Human?
timelessness in time. It must be the Reverence for Life Reaffirmed by Responses
from Around the World
ingredient that elevates art to the status gathered by Frederick Franck, Janis Roze, and
of High Art as it is manifest in Egyptian, Richard Connolly, Circumstantial Productions
Assyrian, and Medieval sculptures, in the Publishing, Six South Broadway, Nyack, New
sayings of Zen and Sufi masters, in Fra York, 1998. $14.95.
Angelico and Piero della Francesca, in
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©1998 Foundation for Global Community
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What Does It Mean To Be
There's a part of me--it feels as if it's
Human? buried deep--that shines. It literally
shines, or so it seems to me, with a warm
by Donella Meadows and steady glow. It's where my deepest
wisdom and best instincts come from.
To be human is to born with an That part of me seems, in a way I can't
enormous package of potentials for explain (and I was trained as a scientist; I
hatred and suspicion, for love and trust, squirm at things I can't explain), to be
for greed, generosity, passion, apathy -- simultaneously inside me and beyond me.
and a long list of other positive and It's connected to the whole universe. It's
negative traits. I guess all those traits can ancient, loving, noble. I think it's what
be found in many mixtures inside each of other people mean when they use words
us. I sure can find them all in me. like "conscience" or "soul" or "God."
To be human is to be born into a world Most of the time I keep it well buried
that pulls out and pushes back the under a sludge of busyness, complaints,
potentials inside us. I push and pull back, schemes, worries, fantasies, and fears.
trying to find or shape a part of the
world (including other people) that I can only suppose that all of us have that
supports my inborn potential. We do a glowing spot of wisdom within us. I
dance, the world and I. Sometimes the think we differ greatly in our ability to
world supports part of me. Sometimes it contact it. Different inner potentials and
crushes part of me. Some-times I learn different outer experiences must generate
something that seems to change me different amounts of sludge. And we live
entirely--but more likely just brings out in cultures, created collectively by
a part of me I didn't know was there. ourselves, that can encourage sludge--or
encourage ready access to the inner
Being human, I am blessed with shining.
remarkable organs of perception that
bring millions of messages from the Since I experience my culture and myself
world--and I can be so dazzled by my shaping each other in a dance, I find
own constant barrage of experience that myself unable to put blame or credit for
I take it for the whole world. But I've human actions fully on either the
learned, the hard way, that my individual or the culture. I know from the
experience isn't the world. It's only a nightly news that when dictators put
tiny sample. guns in the hands of young men and
women and tell them to shoot certain
So I need other people, who have kinds of persons, a lot of those young
sampled other parts of the world. women and young men--but not all--
Together we can make a more complete will shoot. If their culture had
picture. I need to report my piece of encouraged them from birth to be guided
reality honestly, listen to others, and to by their own internal nobility, most of
remember that the bit of truth I know is them--but not all--would not shoot. I
not anywhere near all the truth there is.
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think so anyway. I've never known a Timeline readers who feel that these articles
culture like that. deserve the widest possible distribution are
encouraged to contact their local newspaper
editor and suggest the paper carry them.
The culture I live in powerfully Meadows can be reached at The Global Citizen,
encourages sludge and shooting. It does Box 58, Plainfield, NH 03781.
not lead people to experience the shining
place inside themselves. My sorrow
about this is so deep that I can't begin to
express it. I see the news, the ads, the
politics, the pop songs, the malls, the
movies, the dope, the blight, the
organized injustice, and I weep inside.
The School of Last Resort
What kind of dance can I do with a
culture that loads me with sludge and An Interview with Charlie and
does not recognize my inner shine? All I Diane Ross
can think to do is to tune into whatever I
can know of the light and love of the What happens to people when they are
universe, without denying the existence constantly shamed and humiliated was
of my faults and failures. I guess both are made clear in the book Violence,
intrinsic parts of my humanity. I can Reflections on a National Epidemic
respect myself and others for the reviewed in the July/August 1998 issue
moments of nobility we do manage to of Timeline. That book concentrated on
produce out of the incredible mix of adults caught in the cycle of crime and
potential and experience, shine and imprisonment.
sludge, that we carry around with us. We
do, with astonishing frequency, produce Teachers Charlie and Diane Ross see
moments of nobility. Our culture just the results of shamed and humiliated
doesn't choose to feature them on the teenagers every day in their "school of
nightly news. last resort." Their students at Calero
Community School in California's Santa
I weep for the culture, but when I think Clara county are the kids nobody wants,
about who I am, who we all are, we "kids who have been kicked out of their
humans, I have to laugh--laugh as I regular schools either because they
would laugh at a child or a puppy, didn't attend, they got into a fight,
humbling and self-centered, a still- they're on probation, they brought a
unrealized being, but wonderfully weapon on campus, or they were using
endearing, infinitely lovable, full of or selling drugs on campus." Some of
potential. the students also have to deal with being
parents themselves.
Donella H. Meadows, a systems analyst, author,
and adjunct professor of environmental studies A teacher for 27 years, Charlie has
at Dartmouth College, writes a syndicated
article each week to "present a global view, a worked with children of migrant
connected view, a long-term view, an workers, including training teachers and
environmental and compassionate view." aides; worked with kids from abusive
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families who are in children's shelters; social skills so that when they become
and worked in juvenile hall helping kids parents they will not continue the
in crisis. punishment/shame cycle.
Diane taught music for a number of Though students know what they want
years, including a year in Germany, then for their own kids, they don't think of
worked for 11 years at juvenile hall and themselves as being models for their
various alternative community schools. kids to follow. It never occurs to them.
Four years ago, she joined husband They're going to punish their kids: "Boy
Charlie at Calero School, teaching 11th if he says this, I'll jump on him." That's
and 12th graders, with Charlie teaching the violent part. They think that's how
those in 9th and 10th grades. you get results-- you beat their asses--
that's the current language. It's obvious
Charlie: I have my students write about that it hasn't worked. When I ask those
occasions when they were humiliated and who are already parents if it works, they
discounted in the regular school -- say no. When I ask, do you still do that?
perhaps when they were asked a question they say, yes. Most have no other
and were made to feel stupid. They all experience, nor do many of the teachers
have long stories to tell of being shamed who are teaching them.
and punished. First of all, their
appearance might be objectionable, or Charlie: We're trying to teach other
their language, or their attitude, then of teachers not to shame their students so
course they bring down all of this that the shaming cycle won't continue
negativity in the school system. It's the when their students have children. The
way their life is: our kids have been context of our teachers' workshop is that
shamed every way you can describe it. it's never appropriate to punish a kid--in
They've been ignored, they've been the sense of trying to make them feel
abandoned, they've been punished. bad, or to make them regret something
they did, or teach them a lesson. Any
Punishment and shaming have three time you want to teach the kid a lesson
consequences: The student is angry; that way, you're off base. And,
respect and trust are damaged; and the unfortunately, we're in the deep end of
student wants to retaliate, either actively the pool because there's not much
or passively. understanding of that concept.
Diane: You might think it is becoming At the workshop we clarify the difference
more and more obvious that shaming and between consequences and punishment.
humiliation and lack of respect Consequences should always be made
exacerbate the problem. But it's not. very clear to the kids ahead of time
Recently, we did a workshop for whether you're a teacher or a parent.
teachers. The purpose of the workshop That way the consequences are fair and
was to bring to light what exactly we respectful, the kids are never surprised,
teachers are modeling for our students and there's no argument if the kid comes
and what strategies we can use to teach in after curfew. The consequences are
our students how to model positive posted right there on the refrigerator
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door: "You lost your privileges for next appropriate." Often, they'll insult each
weekend." Though it sounds so everyday other and I'll say, "That's not
and understandable to us, that kind of appropriate; no put-downs." And they'll
neutral enforcement is revolutionary. say, "No, he's my friend, and I can do
Good resources are Jane Nelsen and that." And I say, "No, that's not the way
Steven Glenn's books on positive it goes--not in this schoolroom." That's
discipline: they're the most clear, the only way they know how to relate--
proactive parent education people I've to insult.
seen. It's the opposite of: "I've had
enough of your crap," or "Don't you The best thing is when I go into Charlie's
speak to me in that tone of voice" -- class to ask him something and he'll
familiar examples of poor modeling. respond respectfully to me and the kids
will say later, "Wow, are you the perfect
If the kids are going to get out of the couple or something? Don't you ever
cycle, they have to latch on to an adult argue?" And then we get to talk about it
model who has the pro-social skills. It and I say, "Yeah, we do argue, and I
doesn't have to be a parent; it can be an don't call him names."
uncle or a coach. Typically, our kids
have criminal models in the family. Most Charlie: I can't remember a time when a
of the violence, 80 percent of it, takes kid has been disrespectful to me. It just
place within the family or with friends. doesn't happen because I greet every kid
They're more likely to suffer violence every day with a smile, a hello, a how's it
from their own gang members than from going? They've probably never had that
the opposing gang. before. And nearly all the kids will
respond. They walk into the classroom
Diane: The primary thing is that you and say, "Hi, Diane," and she'll get six
model the behavior you want them to hugs before the class starts. Fifteen kids
show. When kids say, "F-- this, f-- will say "Hi" to me just walking around
that," how do you respond? I share with campus or through other classrooms,
our students that my first response is still "Give me five," that kind of thing.
to hit because I was spanked. I talk really
clearly about where that comes from. I The most bitter, most hostile, most anti-
tell them my second response is to say social kids are the ones you really reach
something really hurtful and that I used out to and are the warmest to and they'll
to be the queen of hurtful. In high school often stay in the school. They say,
I thought it was really cool to put people "Damn, I've never been to school eight
down. months in a row." They're kicked out of
four schools before they get to us and
So I share that that response still comes they like it here because they're treated
up for me and that's what they see right--and they're graded on their
constantly in their own lives. Then I say courtesy towards others, their work
I'm not going to do that to you. It's not habits, keeping their agreements, and
right. You don't need it. We're going to their participation. Academic work is
do something else. There's another way only one third of their grade.
to respond that is respectful, that is
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Regular high schools are not meeting the responded to the officer who is falsely
needs of our at-risk students. Individual accusing them. The kid gets the cuffs put
teachers have 32 kids coming in every 50 on him, the officer frequently tries to
minutes. What are they going to do in abuse him as much as he can in the
terms of responding to an individual kid's limited time he is exposed to the kid. So
inner needs, or talking about how upset that is the basis of the whole discussion
she is with her boyfriend because he lied for that hour: what was the officer
to her? That's the only issue in her life thinking, why did he think you needed to
right now. In a high school setting, you suffer, why did he think inflicting pain on
can't deal with that. you and humiliating you was going to
make you a person who would respect
I have 18 kids for three hours a day, after the law, respect police officers, and
they have one hour of elective, such as become a more honest and upstanding
computers, PE, an art class, or driver's citizen? Because the officer is reflecting
ed. I nominally have English, world exactly the type of thinking the students
cultures, math, and PE. We always have have. If students were cops they would
one "group" hour. I have eight kids abuse authority in the same way. After
living not in their own homes, but in discussing the contradiction, I ask, "Is
group homes because they've broken the this making sense?" and they often say,
law, been involved in violence, car theft, "Yeah."
things like that. Frequently they've been
blown out of the water by the group I also do role playing with one student
home counselors who are unconscious playing the mother and the other the kid
and punitive with them. Oftentimes they who comes in late. When they get to a
come into class and they're wired crisis stage, where the only options are
because they've been punished name calling or hitting, I say, "Stop. Cut.
excessively by a counselor, and I have to What else could we do here?" And then
process some of the resentment they we talk about making consequences
carry into class when they walk in. Most neutral and how to avoid this whole thing
group homes have a very punitive to begin with.
mindset. So dealing with that is a real
problem. Diane: I constantly go back to what
you can do when kids are younger,
In group hour, I'll have them write about because everybody keeps thinking about
and describe an incident that happened to handling a 12-year old. I say, "How
them that week: who was involved, what about a 2-year old? 8 months? If you can
was said, what tone of voice was used. respond differently when that child is 8
There are several issues that always months, one year, a year and a half,
come up with our kids. One is being there's going to be a different attitude." I
falsely accused. So I ask, when were you know that within five years, our kids are
falsely accused of something, what were going to have children of their own, if
you accused of, who did it, how did they they don't already. That's the biggest
talk to you, how did you react? Usually, reward, seeing our kids as parents.
the kids will blow up and they'll be
locked up because of the way they
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Charlie: We run into them in the mall or indecision, you can always go back to
someplace later on and they have their state guidelines which, when you think of
own kids in tow. One student I had for the context our kids are coming from, are
two years was so obnoxious and abrasive often absurd. But who in any junior high
the other kids were ready to kill her. She would say that we're going to devote
is 20 now and we ran into her recently the semester to parenting skills, conflict
with a darling little 14-month old child. I resolution, communication skills, and
picked him up and he was happy to be in violence prevention? What board would
my arms, very curious, and obviously in approve that? Very few.
good shape. She said, "You know, I've
been doing what you told me." I said, But look at the economics of what we're
"What?" And she said, "You know, how doing. If you save four kids a year from
you treat kids, picking them up when $40,000 a year incarceration, then you
they cry and talking to them and dancing can justify the cost of your whole
with them and singing with them." program. It seems to me that fiscal
conservatives would look at that and say,
I tell the kids that going to the grocery "Wow, prevention is cost effective, it
store is not to pick up groceries, but is a would work." We could devote a lot of
field trip for your child, and incidentally, time to these behavior-disordered kids
you fill up your cart with groceries. You because we can see them coming in
show them the bananas and the kindergarten--the kindergarten teachers
pineapples and the doggies and the tell me they know who will be in my
kitties. She had taken this all in; I class in nine or ten years.
wouldn't have bet a dime that she'd
taken anything in. So sometimes it comes Diane: No student in my class has dinner
back obliquely like that, and you say, it with their family--ever. In their family,
was worth all the trouble. at Christmas time, the men are together
and they drink and get into fights, and
There is a common perception even the women all stay in the kitchen and talk
amongst those of us in the alternative about how lousy the men are. That's
schools, that somehow our curriculum what they do for the holidays. The kids
should be running parallel to the district's usually retreat into their rooms, get high,
so that our kids will be kept up to speed put on their headphones, and listen to
in terms of their writing skills, math, and their stereo. That's a family get together.
science. The reality is that if you increase
their reading level from 5th grade to 10th So in our school at Thanksgiving, we'll
grade, you've done a wonderful service bring in food and we'll all sit around the
for the student. However, you will not table, and they feel uncomfortable eating
solve their primary problem. That's not this close to another person. I bring in
the solution to the issues they're facing. food every time we have a reward. I add
Teachers often don't get that. They think up all the minutes of good behavior and
that somehow the state-adopted when we get to 25 hours, we bring in a
curriculum is the solution to all problems pizza. It's a really positive thing, but they
because they don't know anything else, often don't have this kind of positive
and they think that in a period of experience with their family.
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Another highlight is with the kids in our A Book Review by Sandra
chorus. When we go to sing for a
Mardigian
convalescent home, I say, "When you're
done, I want you to go greet the people.
Life in the Balance is the fourth book on
They're glad you're here--you don't
the subject of evolution by Niles
have any wrinkles." They'll go greet
Eldredge, curator in the Department of
them and later say, "They were so happy
Invertebrates at the American Museum
I came to see them that some were
of Natural History. Short (194 pages),
actually crying." For someone even to
and wonderfully readable, the book
smile at these kids is really cool.
propels the reader across 3.6 billion years
of creative evolution, turning biological
Another thing that works is to have
history into a tale of wonder. We find out
them write about whom they respect
how life began, how sponges got their
and why, and when they feel loved.
holes, elephants their trunks, owls their
Usually it's a grandmother, an aunt,
spots, and how humans got into the
or an uncle, maybe a mother. It's
predicament in which we find ourselves
somebody who will accept them as they
today.
are, and doesn't have a barrier because
of their looks, their language, their lack
As we sample the evidence of evolution's
of performance in school, or the fact
historic creativity, flexibility, and agility,
that they've been in jail. They all want
we come to understand why it is diversity
the same thing, so we bring out and
that has kept evolution steadily on the
clarify what makes relationships
path of sustainability for 3.6 billion years.
work such as acceptance, positive
This was the way of the living world
interaction, honesty.
until the invention of agriculture only
10,000 years ago. Despite all its benefits,
The idea of respect is so big because
that momentous human innovation
they don't have any self-respect, and
proved to be pivotal, initiating a
they just get violent when somebody
destabilization of self-balancing
disrespects them. The whole idea is
ecosystems that has stripped the world of
that respect, your own inner respect is
its "true assets."
the issue.
Today, at ever-increasing rates, we
continue to turn terrestrial ecosystems
into farmland, as well as into suburban
housing developments, shopping malls,
highways, and expanding cities. We
overharvest fish, forests, and other
resources. We introduce alien species
which disrupt local systems. "Our impact
has been exacerbated by the Industrial
Determining Revolution and, above all, by the twin
phenomena of runaway population
the Future of Life
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growth and the unequal distribution of
wealth and consumption patterns. For many decades after Darwin, most
biologists saw evolution as natural
"In other words, we have a problem. So selection and adaptation "tracking"
what are we going to do about it?" says environmental change. The presumption
Eldredge, His final chapter, "Striking a was that when the environment changes,
Balance," addresses this question. A adaptations will gradually emerge to fit
reviewer in New Science magazine the new conditions. During periods when
wrote, "I beg every board member of the environment remains more or less
every company in the world to read this constant, natural selection works to hone
section at least." The chapter begins with the adaptations, perfecting them still
the story of the Panama Canal, "an further.
engineering marvel," but, as it turns out,
a supreme example of causes and effects, In fact, however, when faced with
losses and trade-offs in sustainability. changes in their environment, the species
Noting that the world is full of such themselves do the tracking, by moving
examples and is in the midst of a new to regions for which their existing set of
surge of extinction that is taking some adaptations is still suited. Biologists now
27,000 species a year from the planet's realize that the typical outcome of most
store of diversity, Eldredge lists his environmental change is not significant
"agenda": adaptive evolution, but species
relocation, or, if change comes too
"We must acknowledge the problem; we quickly, extinction.
must stabilize human population; we
must rewrite economics texts and fine- Contrary to past belief, in the absence of
tune the notion of sustainability; we must disruption, ecosystems and the species
utilize our existing expertise in whose populations inhabit them are
conservation; we must strike a balance remarkably stable entities. University of
between human economic needs and the Rochester paleontologist Carlton Brett
continued healthy existence of and his colleagues have defined a
ecosystems and species; we must develop succession of some thirteen Paleozoic
a political will and agenda." He includes communities in eastern and central North
some ideas, examples and models to America that each lasted about 5 or 6
carry these agenda items forward. million years. Anywhere from a few
dozen to several hundred marine
A primary theme of the book is the invertebrate species are known from each
sobering new perspective on the role of interval, and few if any of those species
our singular species in the 3.6 billion- show any appreciable evolutionary
year evolutionary scheme of things that change for millions of years.
biologists have only recently been able to
perceive. Certain historical patterns of However, in each case, an average of
speciation, adaptation, and extinction only 20 percent of the species survived
lead to implications about a power that upheaval to make it through to the next
we humans, unaware, are appropriating era of stable ecosystems and stable
from nature. To briefly summarize: species. Throughout biological history,
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sudden ecosystem disruptions (for the and ecosystems can be reassembled, but
most part, rapid climate change) have only after the cause of disruption and
been the cause of the loss of most extinction is removed or stabilized. For
species. But these destabilized periods recovery to begin, we humans will have
have also provided the opening for the to cease acting as the cause.
appearance of new ones. Mammals, for
example, began to diversify appreciably It is certain that, eventually, we will. But
only after terrestrial dinosaurs finally through determined action, or through
succumbed to extinction. And two-and- our own demise? Evolutionary history
a-half-million years ago, when average shows that our ultimate fate is
global temperature went down by 10 to inextricably linked to the fate of Earth's
15 degrees and only a few of the older other species and ecosystems.
species hung on to take up residence in
the adjusted ecosystems, one of the new Life in the Balance: Humanity and the
species that arrived on the scene after the Biodiversity Crisis by Niles Eldredge. Princeton
University Press, New Jersey. 1998. $24.95.
shock was our ancestor Homo habilus.
Historically, changes have been abrupt
and severe, and then ecosystems and
surviving species, along with new species
that arise, have settled down for another
long period of stability. The reality is that
many speciation events, taking place in
Blips on the Timeline
a variety of different lineages all living in
The term "blip" is most often used to
the same general area, have occurred
describe a point of light on a radar
nearly simultaneously, as an evolutionary
screen. Gathered with the assistance of
reaction to extreme environmental
Research Director Jackie Mathes, here
change. It is the physical environment,
are some recent blips which indicate
meaning for the most part climate,
positive changes toward a global
especially marked and rapid changes in
community.
global temperatures, that seems to have
driven the entire system.
Spirituality in the Workplace
Until now.
As we muddle toward the millennium,
In the current wave of mass extinctions, American business is being forced to
the driving force is biological. A single address one of the great mysteries of he
species, our own, is disrupting human condition--spirituality--says an
ecosystems and driving plant and animal article in the Los Angeles Times.
species extinct all around the world. Yet American workers are asking for prayer
some might ask, "Given what we now groups in company conference rooms,
know about the role of disturbance in the studying the Bible, the Torah, or the
evolution of new species, why not just let Koran on lunch hour, and demanding the
this mass extinction run its course?" The right to wear turbans and head scarves
answer is simple: new species can evolve, and to have work schedules that honor
the Sabbath or allow for midday prayer
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©1998 Foundation for Global Community
TIMELINE
breaks. The marketplace is flooded with Reporters Without Borders.
popular books such as True Work: The (http://www.dfn.org)
Sacred Dimension of Earning a Living
and Redefining Corporate Soul. The Digital Democracy II
spiritual trend is seen in management,
too. Robert Nordlund, Chief Executive A new Web Site called @risk reports,
of Association Reserves, Inc., said county by county and school by school,
spirituality is a quest for meaning in a sea all toxic pesticides used within 1.5 miles
of confusion. A former Rockwell of California schools in 1995, the latest
engineer, he now owns his own business year for which data is available. With a
and has evolved into viewing his few clicks of a mouse, @risk shows the
company as a ministry. "At first, you're amount of toxic pesticides applied near
just a businessman, and business is any school in California, the crops the
neutral. Then you realize. "I have more pesticides were used on, and adverse
people looking at me than my pastor health effects of exposure to the
does on a Sunday morning. I'm a chemicals. Based on a computer analysis
missionary, whether I want to be or not." of state pesticides use data, it also tells
Dorothy Marcic, author of Managing where a school ranks in its home county
with the Wisdom of Love: Uncovering as well as statewide in terms of nearby
Virtue in People and Organizations, has use of pesticides. In the future, @risk
plumbed world religions and found five will be expanded to include information
virtues common across all religions and about other toxic air pollutants emitted
present in most ethical companies: near California schools.
trustworthiness, unity, respect, justice, (http://www.ewg.org/@risk)
and service. To avoid denominational
friction, she suggests that management Water Disclosure
can encompass the beliefs of all
employees by basing company practices Water utilities will have to report
on these nondenominational spiritual regularly to their customers on the
themes. quality of their water under a new EPA
rule. The new regulation, in the works
since Congress included it in 1996
Digital Democracy I
amendments to the Safe Drinking Water
Act, requires water companies for the
The Digital Freedom Network, a human
first time to tell customers--via bills, the
rights organization, publishes the work of
Internet, or other means--both the
political dissidents repressed in their own
origins of water and details about its
countries, circumventing government
quality, including contaminants.
censorship through the international
forum of the World Wide Web. Currently
the site includes journalists and activists
Suggestions Invited
from China, Algeria, Cuba, Cameroon,
We are always on the lookout for
and Kenya. Digital Freedom Network
interesting subjects for Blips on the
works in partnership with such Timeline. Readers are invited to send
organizations as Index on Censorship, articles or clippings indicating positive
Committee to Protect Journalists, and change to Jackie Mathes at the
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©1998 Foundation for Global Community
TIMELINE
Foundation. If we use your suggestion, For anyone who wants to enter this
we'll automatically extend your task, I think it involves a kind of
subscription for a year. withdrawal. It is something on the order
of a religious conversion. But the
conversion, at least at first, isn't into joy,
the conversion first of all is out of
illusion.
The New Synergy from A primary source of illusion, in my own
Science and Religion thinking, is the way in which our culture
has created exquisite psychic techniques
for drawing us into consumerism. Our
By Brian Swimme
children most of all. Our corporations --
we, ourselves, in our corporate form--
Physicist Brian Swimme prefers to be
are swooping in on the children before
called a mathematical cosmologist.
they are even in school. The smartest
Author of The Hidden Heart of the
humans are devising psychic techniques
Cosmos, and co-author with Thomas
for drawing people into consumerism,
Berry of The Universe Story, he was
even when they are young children. Just
featured in the BBC production "Soul of
to walk away from that is a massive
the Universe," along with Stephen
move. Our garages are stuffed, our attics
Hawking, Ilya Prigogine, and Alan
are stuffed, our basements are stuffed.
Guth. Dr. Swimme is the producer of the
Our world is set up so that, while we're
video series "Canticle to the Cosmos,"
sleeping at night, the people back in
and "The Epic of Evolution." He
New York are up late thinking of ways
currently teaches in the Philosophy,
to get us fascinated with stuff they can
Cosmology and Consciousness program
bring to us. I wonder, what if it's like it is
at the California Institute of Integral
with a star? You see, if you throw some
Studies in San Francisco. In a recent
matter at a star, it sucks it in. If it gets
talk at the Foundation for Global
too much, it becomes a black hole--it
Community's Center for the Evolution of
implodes on itself.
Culture, these were his closing thoughts:
I would like to suggest a few examples
I would say that the central spiritual task
that we could provide for our children.
of our time is to establish an intimate
relationship with the more than human
When we look at the Universe as a whole
world. Intimate with the Universe.
it can be overwhelming. There are 100
Intimate with nature. Intimate with the
billion galaxies! But there are only 10
entire Earth community--with individual
million super clusters--that's getting
beings, individual animals, individual
more manageable, isn't it? So, for
formations. This intimacy is a
instance, we could assign two Super
prerequisite for developing a sensitivity
Clusters to each person. There's Mike's,
that can absorb the glory that emanates
there's Jan's, there's mine, there's yours,
from the Universe.
and so forth. This way we'd have a sense
of relating to them. And we can tell them
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©1998 Foundation for Global Community
TIMELINE
that when we look at the super clusters,
they're expanding. But they're expanding And furthermore, the fire from the
at a very particular rate. This is the part beginning, that same fire, the same
that is overwhelming. It's not just the energy, is what is coursing through our
expansion. It's that the expansion is veins now. In a sense, our blood flow
delicate. I am talking about the Universe began 15 billion years ago. I think that
as a whole. I am talking about 50 billion is another major discovery.
galaxies and using the word delicate.
Delicate. Because if the expansion had Another revelation in terms of the
been slightly slower, the Universe would Universe: Look at anything; look at a
have just expanded out and then flower--it's made of various organic
collapsed back into a black hole. And if compounds. Go down into the
it had been slightly faster, the Universe compounds and look at the various
would have expanded out into dust. Even elements, and then go down into the
if you altered the expansion by a trillionth atoms and look at the various particles--
of a trillionth of one percent. protons and neutrons, quarks. Go all the
way down and you'll find out that you
That, to me, is astounding. It means that never arrive at an inert place. You'll find
the Universe expands at the exact and a place where particles themselves are
perfect rate to enable beauty to blossom. generated. You'll find that the root of the
You see, if you altered the origin of the Universe isn't an empty cup. It is not an
Universe even just slightly, none of us empty field. The root of the Universe, the
would be here! That means, then, that root of every molecule in the Universe, is
our existence is implicit. We don't only the quantum vacuum, which is a realm of
stand on our feet. We stand on the generativity. Each moment, out of the
original fireball; we stand on the quantum vacuum, particles are emanating
expansion of the Universe as a whole; it forth. The current theory about the birth
is as much a part of our being as our liver of the Universe is that the Universe itself
and our blood. If it were otherwise, we is a vast quantum fluctuation out of this
would not be here at all. ground.
The vastness of the Universe couldn't What this tells me is that, just like the
have been otherwise. We fit into the Universe, we are here to be generative.
Universe just like a hand into a glove. Everything in the Universe shares its
Some physicists say it this way: This selfsame nature. Our fundamental nature
Universe, which is 30 billion light years is more quantum vacuum than it is
across, is the smallest Universe we organic molecules!
could fit into. It's the smallest Universe
we could fit into because the Universe One last example that I have special
had to expand at this rate to enable our fondness for: the sun. Establish a
existence. personal relationship with the sun. The
trouble is, the sun looks small. Bright--
This is a realization that we belong here. but small. We know better, but that's
This is home. This has been our home for how we experience it. The sun is a
15 billion years! million times larger than the Earth! It's a
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©1998 Foundation for Global Community
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vast entity. Each second, 596 million It's the Not Yet! But it is already
tons of helium are created out of 600 reaching into the present because we can
million tons of hydrogen. Each second, 4 imagine it.
million tons of the sun are being
transformed into energy. This second, Image· A time when we take the
this second, this second--4 million tons sermons for consumerism off TV and
of itself. And everything that has replace them with ennobling works of
happened in human history has happened art.
because of this. In opening ourselves up
to the Universe, we find that at the center Image· A time when Northerners stop
of our solar system is a font of energy, fighting to fill the garages with junk and
and our existence is only possible allow the Southerners to provide
because of this outpouring. themselves with basic nourishment. (The
two go together.)
I think that at the source of the solar
system is a cosmic generosity. We exist Image· A time when humans come to
because of it. And our challenge, then, is recognize each species as a divine
also to become generosity, in a new voice, with its own sacred right to its
form--the human form. habitat.
To my way of thinking, the origin of Image· A time when the presence of a
order comes from the future. The point single starving child is of central concern
of view I am trying to suggest here is for every government of every state and
that the deep future touches the present for every corporation.
via the imagination. That's where we are
able to sense what the Universe is We've become a planetary power. The
brewing now. Westerners have a habitual human, with the birth of conscious self-
way of thinking about space, life, and awareness, has unleashed all sorts of
time as a timeline, but in fact, the deep energies from the Universe to further the
future in a certain sense is here--but it's human agenda. The human agenda tells
also not here. The imagination is a way in us: Increase and multiply. Get lots of
which unborn divinity reaches into the food. Fill up the garages. Take over the
present from deep in the future and planet. As long as we're cut off from the
participates in the unfolding of reality. Universe, we cannot respond to the
And I have just a few images that many future. But deepening our relationship
of us hold in our imaginations--the way enables us to feel the images coming
in which the future is reaching to us: from the deep future of the Universe.