Gavin McLellan / Naturally distinctive
I’ve struggled a bit to bring a distinctly Christian faith perspective to the group. I was fearful of giving any perception of being preachy. Yet so much of it easily bridges to Christian faith and tradition. The earth prayers, the sharing of dreams, the acceptance of signs from nature such as a bird showing the way. These seemed so remarkably similar to the experiences of people hearing God and sensing His presence in nature.
Discussions about religion, history, conflict and capitalism have swirled on the sidelines. Ideas of identity, destiny and insignificance in the face of the timelessness of the earth have engaged our minds around the picnic table in the garden. What bothered me was how insignificance was appreciated by others in the group. I felt this was a little dangerous.
I felt that embracing insignificance was morally hazardous.
Whilst in a context of timelessness and planetary scale our short three score and ten is certainly insignificant we live in a time when rich industrialised lifespans make deeper impacts on the earth. So there is a rebalance to be struck around historic responsibility for emissions and a recognition given to reparation and justice for those facing not insignificant impacts on their lives now.
Feeling insignificant is not motivational. Rather finding belief in change and empowering others to change flows from understanding your significance in the circle of influence available to you and linked to that connections locally and globally.
There is much significance in living for compassion and justice, going the extra mile, and fulfilling a destiny that delivers natural life affirming change.
There are 2 comments on Naturally distinctive:
Hey Gavin, great blog. I agree with you about the significance and connection (have been thinking about this lots about this since the weekend!), but sometimes insignificance is useful if you need time out to rebalance regroup and refocus. Can relieve feelings of being overwhelmed. Different approaches work for different people - we’re all individual. Thoughts?
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:07 pmThanks Emma, here’s a rambling and hopefully coherent response on this topic that I wrote a while ago and getting round to posting now.
This stuff about insignificance. I can see that it’s about perspective and refocusing away from ourselves. Its about recalibrating the central point of our personal universe, as Copernicus did in positioning the Sun, not the earth, in centre the solar system, upsetting much of the established orthodoxy of the time. And so, for us now, repositioning the earth instead of ‘me’ in the centre of our perspective. Then I can really see there would be a reassessment of significance. It’s something about the right place, a right ordering, becoming aware of the eco-self.
Yet somehow I’m not there yet. I wrestle with identity and destiny and a sense of worth; a feeling of being in this time and place for a reason. Stripping that away seems would feel like it would lead to inertia and potentially, in facing climate change, a defeatist position.
I know many people, Christian believers, who have a highly developed sense of personal calling, destiny or mission. Personally I think these tend to be over-inflated and I would have real doubts as to the divine inspiration of some. But wherever they are on that spectrum it is a deep driver of attitude and action and especially the sense of significance to God that enables or ennobles even a reciprocal response to others; ‘love your neighbour’, or to the Earth, because ‘the Earth is the Lords.’
So coming from a mindset that sees the order as God-Me-Others-Earth, I struggle with a re-ordering that says Earth-Everything-Me-Others. But I am open to mix it around. As I honour the earth so I honour God, as I love my neighbour, because I honour the earth then I honour God. Maybe a more circular or spiral sequencing of these actions would help me grasp the significance of insignificance.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:07 pmComment on this post...