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  • From: Paul d'Aoust <paul@heliosville.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] 'resurrecting' the thread about spirituality and permaculture
  • Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:10:49 -0700

heh, I said 'resurrecting', which is funny, because we're talking about
spirituality. Never mind :-) Anyway, this is my virgin post. I was
reading through the archives, and I found an extremely interesting
thread about spirituality.

First of all, I'll put it out on the table: I'm a Christian, and not
just a once-a-week Christian. With that established, I want to say that
I was saddened by the overarching unfavourable attitude towards
Christianity. It made me wonder what on earth we did wrong to garner
such a horrid reputation among a culture that is passionate about truth
and goodness and love (i.e., the permaculture/environmental/social
justice culture). I am happy to be a part of this culture myself, and
frankly, I'm amazed that more Christians aren't part of it.

I grew up in a very environmentally conscious, yet very Christian,
family. I wasn't aware that most Christians are at odds with 'those
treehuggers' until I grew up, actually. When I did grow up, I started
drifting towards the conservative camp, which was fine, because they
uphold the need for a kid to have a stable family, and defend the
sanctity of sex and stuff like that.

However, I think conservatives can get pretty extreme, and I finally
started to discover this when Bush was elected into office. I'll admit
that I was happy at first, because here was a guy who would probably be
against state control, and would defend kids, etc. But when he
resurrected the Star Wars programme, and when he started calling the
world America's enemy after 9/11 I started to become aware of the
so-called 'religious right'. Here was a group that loved everything I
had been taught a Christian should avoid -- war, intolerance, poor
stewardship of our natural resources, self-absorption, greed,
entitlement, obsession with prosperity, and so forth. I couldn't believe
(and still can't believe) these people called themselves Christians. To
me, being Christian means growing in open-mindedness, humility,
responsibility, forgiveness, and of course selflessness.

I don't really identify with the conservative camp anymore, although I'm
certainly not about to pitch my tent with the liberals. I think that
extremism in either direction is dangerous.

I would apologise on behalf of all Christians who have damaged the
world, but that would mean taking ownership of attitudes and behaviours
that I've never thought of as very Christian. Maybe I'll apologise
anyway: we're a diverse lot, and there are those of us who would abuse
our beliefs and use them to justify their own selfishness. So I
apologise on behalf of those people -- they don't really paint a good
picture of what Christianity is really about. Ultimately, a Christian
has to be an environmentalist, because if we believe the earth is a gift
from God (which we do), we have no privilege to destroy that gift.

You know, it's funny -- I don't get much out of worship songs; they
don't do much to open my heart to God. But when I'm working in the
garden, I feel so tuned to God's heart -- every plant, every interaction
between soil microbes, every task I have to do says something to me
about what God is really like.

Just my two cents' worth (one point six cents in the US, one pence in
the UK).

Paul d'Aoust
Penticton, BC, Canada





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