TIME FOR A GREAT RETHINK

Humanity is teetering between the catastrophic and the miraculous

Photo: NASA

The world as we have known it is passing away.

The experience for many of us is terrifying, given that it’s the only world we know. But on a certain level it’s also a relief, as anyone truly thinking about it has recognized for a while the signs of a species on a suicidal track. Something had to intervene. The rape of the earth, the monstrous greed, the soulless political and economic systems that have marked our age could have led to nothing but this moment. The best efforts of those who have tried to course-correct our collective dysfunctions, to interrupt their deadly trajectories, have been routinely spurned by political, economic and social establishments that had the gall to think they knew what they were doing.

And now we are where we are. There are really only two options now: a catastrophe, or a miracle. And those who scoff at miracles are arbiters of catastrophe.

Decades ago, I read a book by Jane Roberts called The Nature of Personal Reality. It was the first time I had ever encountered the idea that our thoughts create our experience of the world. Had I not read that book, I don’t think I would have been ready to understand the truths in A Course in Miracles. Like most students of the Course, there was something that led up to the point of our being able to receive its teaching.

A Course in Miracles has no monopoly on Truth, of course. There is one Truth, spoken in many different ways. It can be spiritual, religious, secular, or psychological. The Course itself is not a religion, but a psychological mind training in the practice of forgiveness. The Truth reveals itself also in art, in myth, in fairy tales, in scripture, in quantum mechanics, in psycho-neurology, and in nature.

Where it does not reveal itself is in the basic constructs of modernity. For a core principle of modern thought is that the universe is neutral, and it is not. That’s why the crumbling of our modern institutions is both good and bad. The idea of a morlly neutral universe has enabled the most loveless, soulless, violent transgressions to saturate our human interactions both individual and collective. It has left us with little sense of moral responsibility to each other, to the earth, or even to ourselves. Relationships have become transactional, even among those who purport to love.

And yes, the universe notices. It is living and it is intelligent. Humanity has free will, but that includes the freedom to destroy ourselves. If we continue the routine carelessness of our species, moving through time with malfunctional behavioral patterns such as those that now dominate humanity, life on earth will become unsustainable. There is a limit beyond which our violations, our miscreations, our lovelessness is simply no longer supported by nature. When nature has had enough, it will simply purge itself of the predator in its midst. That means, of course, that it will purge itself of us.

Yet none of this is predetermined. Even now, we can choose a better way.

Human beings cannot outsmart the laws of nature. We ignore them at our peril, and the perilous is upon us now. God shall not be mocked means quite simply that He isn’t. Love one another doesn’t mean because that would be a nice thing to do. It means it’s the only survivable option. Justice, justice, thou shalt pursue doesn’t mean because then you’re a better person. It means it’s the only survivable option.The temples of modernity are crumbling not because they contain nothing good, because in many ways they do. They are crumbling due to the corrupting influence of a spiritual lifelessness that pervades their functioning.

The crumbling is dangerous; we should be adult enough to realize this. Forces of genuine barbarism are on the rise. But global chaos and the destruction of our civilization is not inevitable, if we are mature enough to manage the disruption. Each of us will receive our instructions, our guidance as to how we best can serve, if we are humble enough to admit to ourselves what a mess we have made of all this. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, “Your best thinking got you here.” And so did some of the people who, only in our most delusional moments, would we ever have allowed to drive the car.

There can’t be just an era of data collection. It’s time to act on what in our hearts we know we know. Only radical availability to the will of a loving universe, surrendering all we have and all we are to its purposes, will create the force that’s needed now. That shift from the profoundly stupid, irresponsible and careless ways of our age to an alignment with the profound intelligence of nature, moral responsibility to the dictates of a loving world, and tender care for the earth and its inhabitants is the transition to a survivable world. It is our only hope. And its effects will be maximal.

Job said to God, “How long, how long?” We’re in a different conversation with the divine right now. God is saying to us, “How long, how long?” The horror of this time is not God’s doing; it’s ours. We made it, and only we can fix it. The question is whether or not we’re ready. We chose the ways of lovelessness, and disaster followed. Today, right now, we can choose the ways of love. An infinitely merciful, loving universe will respond in kind and rejoice in our return. Its embrace will ring throughout the universes, as we are finally welcomed home.