Almost Green, plus the Goal and Form of Self-Reform
By John Taylor; 2009 Feb 13, 07 Mulk, 165 BE
==========
Almost Green
==========
I have been reading over James Glave's "Almost Green, How I Built an Eco-shed ... and Changed My Life Forever," an annoying and disappointing book that nonetheless demonstrates how difficult it is for a relatively wealthy and highly-educated journalist with a fervent ecological conscience to go against the current of wastefulness and environmental destruction. He decides to build a small writer's studio (he calls it an "eco-shed") in his front yard but stumbles over obstacles at every turn.
One apparent environment-saving solution is devoured by a pack of peripheral affronts to the environment. Little wonder that in my writing I despaired and turned away several years ago from individual building projects entirely. I have concentrated on designing entire neighbourhoods based on ecological principles in the faith that if we reform communities a rich social environment would result. This would more than compensate individuals for giving up the false and selfish freedoms that make it all but impossible to compromise our environment.
One of the founding fathers of modern science was Frances Bacon. He appreciated that system and organization can aid us to accomplish what personal cleverness can never do. That, after all, is just what science is, many minds working together on a common purpose.
"Our method of discovering the sciences is such as to leave little to the acuteness and strength of wit, and indeed rather to level wit and intellect. For, as in the drawing of a line or accurate circle by the hand, much depends upon its steadiness and practice, but if a ruler or compass be employed there is little occasion for either; so it is with our method." (Bacon, Instauration, Aphorisms)
But today, with the overspecialization of science, we see it working against this original goal of acting as a compass steadying the hand of individual "wit." Now science is taking the needle of the compass and plunging it into the heart of nature. Baha'u'llah used a similar image when he said that the comb designed to beautify the tresses of God is now being used to cut His throat.
Last night at our Philosopher's Cafe we set out to discuss the nature of goodness but ended up banging our heads against the same problem described in "Almost Green." The entire system, we agreed, is designed to wreck the environment. Even if a conscientious individual were to invest all the time and money they have only baby steps in the right direction are possible. I tried to comfort my despairing friends with Sir James Lovelock's comparison of our situation to England in his youth when everybody was debating what to do about Hitler. When the Second World War finally broke out, suddenly everybody knew what to. They suddenly united, cooperated beautifully and brought the evil plans of Adolph Hitler down. Once this climate crisis finally hits home, he assures us, everything will be different and everybody will cooperate.
But the question is, can we declare war on Adolph Nobody with the same clarity of vision and sense of moral rightness that the world had in WWII? That is the question Comenius addresses in the next part of Panorthosia.
==========
Fourth Essay on Panorthosia, Chapter Twenty
Reform of the Individual
Covering Paragraphs 4, 5 and 6
==========
Paragraph Four
The Goal of Self-Reform
==========
No matter who we are, our exterior acts mirror what our inner, spiritual faculties perceive. If we see God within and submit to His Will, God will be evident from outside as He connects the heart with the spiritual force running the universe, love. The condition of those who love we call happiness.
Comenius, then, sees the purpose self-reform as happiness, that is, not just temporary well-being but the most permanent possible in a world of change,
"The goal of your Reform will be to put yourself, with God's help, in the happy state in which all is well for you in body and soul in this world and unto eternity." (Ch. 20, para 4, p. 21)
We do this by learning, willing and acting in such a manner as to make peace with our God, our fellows and nature.
"This will come to pass if your relationship with nature, mankind, and God entitles you to expect peace and quietness, help and consolation everywhere..."
This elevation of our relations with nature to such a fundamental level certainly qualifies Comenius as one of the first "deep environmentalists." However, unlike many of today's environmental extremists, he does not hold nature above all else. Ideally we should serve all three at once, God, man and nature, without making false divisions or excluding any of the essentials.
A divine virtue like moderation can help reconcile each of the demands of God, man and nature at once.
"... or through having your proper share of life's necessities, no more and no less, or by cultivating peaceful coexistence with your neighbours' and befriending them one and all, or by serving God with such devotion that you can be fully confident of earning His favour."
This phrase, "no more and no less than life's necessities," would be an excellent slogan to sum up optimum policy in the coming climate crisis, when, for example, the president of the Maldives Islands is already shopping for real estate that would house an entire nation about to sink below the waves. Only complete moderation by all, in every means towards every end, would allow fairness to the billions of refugees displaced by climate instability.
==========
Paragraph Five
The First Stage to Personal Reform
==========
Avoiding Apathy, Bad Examples and Divine Disappointments
The first step to reform is to love, specifically to express the three types of love, love of God, love of self, and love for our fellowman. To fail in any of them has its own particular danger. Perverted love of self causes neglect of our own best interests. Corrupt neighbourly love causes neglect of our duty to offer a good example for others, especially youth. Failure to love God deprives us of His virtues, such as (to cite the two that Comenius mentions) glory and honour.
"The first stage of Reform will stem from the threefold love which you owe to yourself, your neighbour, and God; to yourself, to avoid coming to grief through your indifference, to your neighbour, to prevent your bad example from destroying one whom you ought to be edifying, and to God, lest you should deprive Him of the glory and honour which He seeks from the many who find salvation, including yourself and all who can be saved with your help." (para 5, p. 21)
The Baha'i understanding does not differ from this, but it adds, as it were, another stepping stone on top, the threefold principles of the Oneness of God, oneness of humanity and search for truth. These in turn lead to the several other social principles, each of which is unique to the Baha'i Faith, inasmuch as each is "hardwired" into the fundamental circuitry of a world-embracing religion. Although others, including Comenius, have anticipated and written about them, they are still unprecedented in this "hardwired" quality.
==========
Paragraph Six
The Form of Individual Reform
==========
Reform by Peeking into the Mirror
The virtue of moderation mediates between true self love and its imitation, over-indulgence of the self and its consequent, self destruction.
"The form of this individual reform is first and foremost the moderation that makes all the difference between self-love and self-indulgence, so that you love yourself with manly decency, to save and not to destroy body and soul, especially the latter."
Moderation denies the sub-text of just about any commercial on television you can point to. It means consuming enough, no more and no less. It means avoiding undue concern for the body or status or wealth. It means concern for virtues, intimate awareness of God and an acute ability to see our neighbour as God in another form.
How do we attain that? By means of conscience. "... remember that His angels are always standing over you, witnessing all your actions." Conscience starts in this awareness that we are being judged and ends in making self-assessment our spy, our reporter and our future accuser.
"You must attend to these virtuous practices and see that you take them seriously, and examine yourself every day as ruthlessly as if you were at the bar of justice." (Para 6, p. 22)
This distinguishes humans from animals. We too live in nature according to natural rules, but we obey a higher law too. We voluntarily take ourselves into account as if we were already standing before God's judgment seat. The result is that we mirror God's light, just as if the sun had come down and started its fusion reactions going right here in the natural world. This light allows us to see others as images of God too.
"Whenever you encounter one of your neighbours, regard him as yourself in another form (which he is), or indeed as God in another form, for he is the image of God, and God will be watching to see how reverently you treat him... So you will obtain the final enjoyment of inward peace and an assured place for yourself and all men in God's keeping."
John Taylor
No comments:
Post a Comment