Quebec City Visit

I've realised that I didn't post anything about my trip to Quebec City, the last weekend in February, 23-26th. It was a fantastic time. Here's some pictures.

Infinite Ecology?

Catherine Keller, probably my favourite theologian at the moment, builds up a mythology/ontology which is very much in line with Process Philosophy. In her book, Face of the Deep, she argues for creatio ex profundis (creation out of the depths), instead of the traditional (Christian) creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing). She talks about the depths as the infinite potential from which everything (be)comes. What I want to pick up on here is the use, and maybe the need for, the infinite.

Wendell Berry, a wonderful, ecological, Christian, agrarian writer/poet/novelist/farmer, also writes about infinite. In The Art of the Commonplace, he discusses how people have often seen a huge resource and called it infinite. For example, the vast forests of North American were considered infinite, until they were cut down. The oil 'reserves' have been described as infinite, but now we are (probably) past peak oil. Fish in the sea were considered infinite, but now some of the most abundant are on the soon-to-be-extinct- (or even the extinct-) list. For the problem humanity has made has been to equate (currently) un-countable with infinite. "Just because I cannot measure how much oil there is currently, I am free to assume there is an infinite supply." This is obviously naive, as Berry points out, on par with assuming the Earth is flat because it looks like it is from where I am standing.

My question in this post: Is the category of the infinite a category that will always be destructive to ecology? The earth (and even the universe) is limited, so is talk of the unlimited, the infinite, something that will necessarily be alien and dangerous to the earth (and to the universe)?

Keller wants to be able to account for the New, for the ability for continual liberation from whatever tries to ensnare, for creativity to never be exhausted, for our options to never be merely A. or B., with no possibility of a C. or D. or E. (ad infinitum). To achieve this, she senses that she needs to make the potential in the chaos to be infinite. Is this the case? The ocean (to which she compares the pool-of-potential) is limited (being part of planet Earth), but it is also a continuous source of creativity and newness (new species emerge continuously in the depths). Is it's creative potential infinite? Or unlimited? Or limitless? Or unaccountable? Or un-countable? Can we keep potential being non-exhaustible without making it infinite? Or is the category of the infinite not as much to blame for eco-disaster as I (and Berry) make it out to be?

One further point worth making is that Brian Swimme (a mythological cosmologist) points out that the universe can lose creativity (I forget whether this was in The Universe is a Green Dragon, or The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos). Spiral galaxies are the only galaxies in which new stars are born (from nebula). However, the universe is no longer producing new spiral galaxies, and seems unable to. In fact, the number of spiral galaxies is decreasing, because when spiral galaxies collide they generally form elliptical (egg-shaped) galaxies, where new stars are no longer born. The universe seems to have lost the potential to create spiral galaxies (star breeding-grounds). Is this an example that demonstrates non-infinite potential? Or is this just that other 'options' were 'chosen', so that although spiral-galaxy-creation may no longer be an option, creativity is still infinite in other ways. I.e. just because I chose to eat banana bread for breakfast, and not an omelet, does not necessitate that potential is now decreased or limited, that is, ∞÷2=∞ (infinite/2=infinite).

Stuarting

Just a quick and kinda weird post. In all the philosophy and theology I've been encountering, we've talked about how we are in a state a becoming, rather than that we are beings. The self has been deconstructed and dispersed in postmodern philosophy and psychology, so that there is not a essence to me, the 'real me' that lies behind what I do.

So maybe, instead of thinking of myself as 'Stuart', as a solid identity, I should think of myself as 'Stuarting', as living out what it means (for me) to be Stuart in each moment of becoming. Maybe. (Note: this post hasn't been written carefully, so I've probably been sloppy throwing around language of 'myself' and stuff. Just ignore it. Or whatever.)

The Sacred Body-count

3223 US soldiers have died in Iraq so far!

Terrible! Shocking! That's over three thousand families that are mourning a direct relative, and many more mourning those losses. And that's a good reason not to go to war, and a good reason to get out and end the war. But we need to get past that. Maybe as a non-American I don't care about US troops as much as Americans might. But the reason to stop war cannot be because of the deaths of US soldiers alone.

Much more important is the deaths of over, as a recent estimate said, 2 million Iraqi people. That includes men, women and children. That's a lot more devastated families, and a lot of families that have been completely annihilated. This is a much bigger reason to stop war. The total death count tells much more about the war. And given the Iraq war, and indeed all recent wars, are just the games of the rich, selfish and greedy 'elite', that's a lot of innocent people who have been sacrificed to them, a lot of blood on their hands. The Bush Management (I refuse to call them an 'administration' - those involved are corporation heads who are masquerading as politicians and are working solely for the good of themselves and their corporations) has so far played a game that has killed over 2 million people, and they have played this game in a similar manner to how one might play a game of chess - sacrificing as many pawns as necessary in order to protect (and secure) the king (fuck the queen, she's replaceable).

But the move from counting US deaths to counting total human deaths is becoming more and more important. In a recent article in Harpers magasine, the 'Coming Robot Army' was discussed. The result of robot warfare is that it ceases to be warfare at all and merely becomes 'target practice'. In the world of robot warfare, there will be even less US deaths, and even more potential for killing, even more mistakes. The 3000 vs. 2000000 will become more like 100 vs. 6000000. Or worse. And the traditional cry of "Bring home our troops" will not be heard, partly because so few are dying, and partly because most of them will be home playing the computer 'game' of target practice. Oh, and by the way, they are not ever 'our' troops. They are the troops who belong to the unaccountable multinational corporations by proxy of the a government that sees them as a renewable 'resource', something they can use and exploit to boost their own power and (so-called) riches.

But we also have to go further. Moving on from 'me' and 'my side' centredness, by look at the total death count we have only managed to get to an anthropocentricity. The '2 million deaths' are merely '2 million human deaths'. We also need to count the death and mutilation of animals, of plants, of soil and of land, of the psychology of the survivors (human and none), of beauty (in the landscape and elsewhere), and of future generations (of all living things). We need to count the death of knowledge, of what is forgotten. We need to count the death of genealogies and of habitats. We need to count the death of innocence, and we need to count the death of a healthy society (even if it wasn't healthy before, it was healthier), both in the 'target-practice-zone' and in the rest of the world. We need to count the desertification, the permanent annihilation of fertility and fertile farmland. We need to count the pollution, of land, sea and sky. We need to observe the tears shed by Gaia. And we need to lament.

My sermon for Wine Before Breakfast

I will be reading a letter which was found shredded in a garbage dump. It's dated March 6th, 2048.

Dear Paul,
I write this to you to inspire you with hope. I am near the end of my life and I remember when life was much different, when we had considerably more freedom, and when global devastation seemed so far off. But you are young and may have many years ahead of you, so let me now pass on to you some of the history of the past few decades.

I am one of the more conservative of our community, although I do not always allow these colours to show. Times change, and so do words. Things that were once wonderful and life-giving can become stifling and deadly. There are days when I wish this wasn't the case, but I know there can be no other way. Those who will try to keep life alive must allow their treasured and prized words to die. You will not remember this, but I remember when the word 'Christian' was a good thing, something that you could be proud of. I also remember when the Ancient Bible was seen to have a revolutionary message, although I know this will be hard for you to grasp. But maybe I can win you over a little before the end of this letter.

I know you're used to seeing the Bible in the hands of the powerful, hovering above their proud heads as they give speeches, held in their fat hands as they make solemn promises which are only lies. I know you are forced to see countless ads with Bible verses legitimating the products they are commanding you to consume. I know you know the verses from Romans 13 about obeying the elites as you obey God, and I know you have heard that Jesus is the only way to salvation. The Department of Hellfire is reserved for those who don't believe this, and I myself will likely find myself dragged there shortly, to be forced to confess Jesus as my Lord before I too burn, as so many in our community already have. You probably even know the verses about stoning gays, and about how you should sell all you have for the pearl of great price - that is, salvation granted by the Consecrated and Holy Global Consumerist Church. You know all about tithing. You know all about Jesus taking away your sins, all about the legitimating of war and evil that occurs because of this. You know that as humans we are called to dominate the earth, to put it as our footstool to serve us. You know of so many atrocities committed because of that book.

But if you can find an Ancient Bible, turn to Romans 14. It says, "Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this - not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way. I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." Yes, these verses are saying not to judge. They are talking about the relativity of the world. You may be surprised that the Bible corporations have allowed this to stay in, but they keep everything in the Bible because they know that nothing in the Bible has the power to harm them. The bad publicity they'd get if they started taking verses out of God's Most Holy and Revealed Truth is not worth it for them. They know that the Bible itself, in all its verses, is complicit in the system that they depend upon.

But look again. Our communities' distrust and dislike of the Bible stems from the Bible itself: "To him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." The community decided, after much debate, that the writer of this passage, who btw, you yourself are named after, and who was indeed a political and religious revolutionary himself, this writer would want us to discard his work and move on, developing our own writings and expressions that were useful for our community. St Paul, we decided, would want us to leave behind this book which causes so much pain, and has so much baggage. To us, the Bible is unclean. We decided it, we declared it.

Of course, not everyone wanted to discard the Bible. Many of those formed other communities, some of which have been subverted back to the Consumerist Church, some who have been sort out and killed, and some who still struggle to survive, like our own. But they are few, and history seems to be showing that those who discarded the book have been better able to move on and survive.

While we may be branded Christ-killers and demon-worshippers by the Consumerist Church and media, we also consider the word 'Christian' to be unclean. Indeed, the word 'Christian' has returned to it's original usage: as an insult. However, the roles have been reversed. Originally the word was forced upon a struggling radical community by those who upheld the empire. Today, the word is spoken with disgust by us, a struggling, persecuted, illegal radical community, and the word is spoken about the imperialist regime that holds the world in chains.

The deepest chant of the Consumerist Churches religion, "Everything has a price" is silently repeated daily. I can't find this in the Bible, but those who chant this don't need it. They repeat "Thou shall not kill", then enact the death penalty and seek out war. As they claim "Love of money is the root of all evil", they use money to perpetrate their system of oppression and elitism. Those who speak against it are either undermined as their movement becomes fashionable, and so enters the world of consumerism, or those who speak against it are bought out. If the founders of a movement cannot be bribed (and millions will be silently offered) or threatened into silence (with or without death), any movement which gains enough members, enough momentum, will eventually gain people who do sell out, who aren't as careful, and so can be shown to be hypocrites, thereby showing the entire movement (through the corporate-controlled mass media) to be yet another social group of hypocrites. The chant is repeated, the chant holds true: "Everything has a price."

I don't tell you this in order to depress you, but in order to warn you. All this century and for some of the 20th, people have been trying to warn about the impending global destruction because of climate change being caused by humans. But as history has shown us, we refuse to listen. The system depends upon ecological rape, and is legitimated by its religion. This does not mean religion is bad, but shows again that the excesses brought about because of religion are bad. Exclusion, copyrighted salvation, distrust and hatred for those who are not like you, and who you do not understand: these are the tell-tale signs of religious excess.

I do not know whether you will ever become old as I am. I do not know if the earth will tolerate human life that long. The global civilisation that we are forced to live within refuses to acknowledge that it will be ultimately taught that everything has a price. The price humanity will pay will be the ultimate sacrifice: the sacrifice of all of her children to slow death by pollution. The civilisation does not want to change, it is addicted to its consumption. And because of this, the earth will lose one of its greatest gifts, that of sentient life. But it is a necessary sacrifice, one which I hope the earth can recover from after all her tears are spent.

Paul, I don't want to leave you on a sad note, but I know of no other way. I don't want to demonise the past, but perhaps if I and the Christian communities at the turn of the century hadn't been so passive, our lives now would be very different. Perhaps if those Christians had refused to allow their Bible to become complicit in the system, perhaps if those Christians would have stood up and used their voices, perhaps if those Christians would have changed the way they lived, perhaps if those Christians would have refused to obey the system, perhaps if those Christians would have been ecologically alert and sensitive, changing the way they thought about and worshiped nature. Perhaps if those Christians had used their holy huddles to enact change in the powerful, perhaps then the earth would not have to make this sacrifice, this ultimate, deadly sacrifice. But perhaps those Christians felt as helpless as we do now, perhaps even then the system was too powerful for their religion, too ingrained in their thoughts to allow them to rebel? Perhaps even then they just didn't care enough?

Dearest Paul, I must leave you now as they are coming for me. I have made it to 65, a ripe old age. I hope that this note arrives. I hope that it inspires you to a life of charity, that you enjoy every moment, and live for the future generations, even if their existence is unsure. I hope that Romans 14 may inspire you to "pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another."

Henry