BeFriending Creation
BeFriending Creation
BeFriending Creation. Newsletter of Quaker Earthcare Witness. ISSN 1050-0332. Published bi-monthly.
We publish BeFriending Creation to promote Quaker Earthcare Witness goals, stimulate discussion and action, share insights, practical ideas, and news of our actions, and encourage among Friends a sense of community and spiritual connection with all Creation. Opinions expressed are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect those of QEW, or of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The editor is responsible for unsigned items.
Submission deadlines are February 7, April 7, June 7, August 7, October 7, and December 7.
Contents of BeFriending Creation copyright ©2007 QEW, except as noted. Permission to reprint BeFriending Creation material must be requested in advance from the editor.
"Membership" in QEW is open to all who demonstrate commitment to support QEW's goals and who support QEW's work at the Monthly or Yearly Meeting levels, or through other Friends organizations. FCUN is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation; contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law.
QEW Vision and Witness
WE ARE CALLED to live in right relationship with all Creation, recognizing that the entire world is interconnected and is a manifestation of God.
WE WORK to integrated into the beliefs and practices of the Religious Society of Friends the Truth that God's creation is to be respected, protected, and held in reverence in its own right and the Truth that human aspirations for peace and justice depend upon restoring the earth's ecological integrity.
WE PROMOTE these Truths by being patterns and examples, by communicating our message, and by providing spiritual and material support to those engaged in the compelling task of transforming our relationship with the earth.
QEW Clerk: Barbara Williamson, 2710 E. Leigh St., Richmond, VA 23223. Phone: 804/643-0461; e-mail: barbaraawmson@juno.com.
Address subscription and membership correspondence to: QEW General Secretary Ruah Swennerfelt, 173-B N. Prospect St., Burlington, VT 05401-1607. Phone: 802/658-0308; e-mail: ruah@QuakerEarthcare.org
Address editorial correspondence to: BFC Editor: Louis Cox, 173-B N. Prospect St., Burlington, VT 05401-1607. Phone: 802/658-0308; e-mail: louis@QuakerEarthcare.org.
- Just who in the world do we think we are?
- Earth Day web links for communities of faith.
- Meetings and churches can help build sustainable communities.
- The call to wholeness in a broken world.
- Narrow Ridge offers Vision Quest opportunities in 2006.
- Recovering the Sacred--the Power of Naming and Claiming.
- First Church of the Higher Elevations.
- Practicing ecological mindfulness.
- Northwest Earth Institute courses help build community.
- A tribute to a QEW elder, Elizabeth Watson.
- Sustainable travel to Meeting.
- The Great Turning: Revolution for the Sake of the Earth.
- N.H. water protection activitists await decision on latest appeal.
- Is it better to drink bottled water, or clean up public supplies?
- Traveling Gently on the Earth, a new trifold from QEW.
- Sale on Population is People book.
- Earthcare for Friends, a new book from QEW.
A lesson from Suquamish "reality therapy"
Just who in the world
do we think we are?
IN THE PREVIOUS two issues of BeFriending Creation I focused on, "Where are we?" (about cultivating a sense of place) and "What time is it?" (about living in harmony with the unfolding universe and the rhythms and cycles of nature).
The next topic, "Who are we?" completes a trinity of interwoven, fundamental questions about the health of our spiritual relationship to the earth.
Interestingly, these are quite similar to questions that a mental health worker may ask when trying to assess whether a client is basically "in touch with reality": "Do you know where you are?", "Do you know what day this is?", and so forth.
This parallel raises a disturbing thought: The ecological health of this planet is increasingly a function of the mental health of its human inhabitants. Today the earth is being ravaged in part because many people are simply out of touch with the ecological realities on which their very survival depends. And being so delusional that one is a threat to oneself and others is a mark of insanity, is it not?
The chain of thought continues…. One ecological response to the question of "Who are we?" is the so-called "Chief Seattle" quote in the QEW basic tri-fold:
…We did not create the web of life; we are but a strand in it. What we do to the web we do to ourselves….
We know these words are not very close to what the Suquamish elder actually said in his impassioned speech on care of the land before signing a treaty with the U.S. government in 1854. In fact, I find the "official" version of that speech to be even more to the point of this discussion: Seattle seemed to be asking the whites:
Just who do you think you are? Why do you want our land when you don't seem capable of properly inhabiting any place on the earth? You fancy that you are separate from the land, so your spirit never really has a home.
Seattle also dismissed language in the treaty referring to his people as "brothers," since it was obvious that the whites considered them, at best, ignorant children. He signed the treaty because he was resigned to the fact that the invading Anglo culture was in ascendancy, and his was in decline. Nevertheless, he concluded his speech with this warning:
Some day your glory too will fade, and your nation will be humbled as ours has been. Then you will realize, perhaps, that we are all brothers and sisters after all.
In other words, only when we lose (or willingly let go of) a false identity based on power and separation, can we regain our humanity (from same root as "humility") and recover our spiritual connection to the earth (i.e., "humus," also from the same root).
Without abandoning tribal distinctions and identities, we need to find the underlying unity that is the basis for true friendship. That can be a long process, however, with many potential pitfalls, as we find in the inability of many early Friends to see the moral contradiction in their ownership of slaves.
We are called to continually widen the circle of kinship, to ultimately transform ourselves into " Friends of All Creation Together." Such a "FACT" would demonstrate our basic sanity and health by showing that we have discovered who we really are. •
