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  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Similarities between the Jesus Movement at itsorigin and the
  • Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 08:33:53 -0800 (PST)

Vital et al.,

I would have thought that love is a little more than just
a fleeting "emotion". Well, to me at least it is more
something like a primordial life force, or force of attraction
without which there would be no life. Whatever! "Love
thy neighbour", on the other hand, is a simple social precept.
Which is as genial as it is simple. If people ever decided
to practice this in earnest, all social conflicts would just
disappear without a trace.

The idea of "sharing" in the social context has rather gotten
a bad reputation after a century of real socialism and countless
failed communes. To give everybody a piece of land to grow
their own food on, sounds like a gigantic waste that could
easily dwarf even the worst excesses of socialism and
capitalism combined. Most would not and could not grow
their own food.

Farming is not a roadshow and land needs the caring hand
of the “owner” who does not explore this ravishing planet
of ours like a 20th century tourist. And yes, the farmer needs
to put up fences to protect his property from the exploring
tourists trampling down his wheat.

Looks like Lawrence has big ambitions, comparing permaculture
to the early Christians. Hope they don’t feed us to the lions
though! I guess there are parallels between all types of
movements as they first occur. The major difference, as I
see it, seems to be that permaculture is firmly orientated
towards pragmatic solutions in this World, largely disregarding
other-worldly matters like metaphysics.

Tommy, I’m not a church historian, but I think Protestantism
wasn’t primarily a reaction to the inquisition. And didn’t the
pope do apologize the other day, well, what you call apology
when you are in the position of an acting leader. Imagine Bush
apologizing for the Iraq war!

Dieter Brand
Portugal

Vital Scherrer <vital233@hotmail.com> wrote:
>... Jesus said, "This I command you: Love one another."

First of all, I guess nobody knows what Jesus really said and what the
church officials in charge tampered in the writings of the New Testament. To
me, as somebody to whom love means the most precious part of life, to whom
love gives meaning, significance and sense to life, this command always
sounded kind of peculiar, as love is rather an emotion over which one has
little authority. I wondered how can I love my enemies. - And so, one of the
most crucial questions arises: What can we do to affect and initiate love. -
But what we can control is our mind, and as compassion is one of the closest
things to love, we are able, at least to a sufficient extent, to put
ourselves through imagination in our fellow beings place. If at least the
Christians would practice this relatively simple and evidently first rank
(command) task, there would be a lot more compassion, understanding, and
most likely, fairness and peace, and as a result of that, love. Without this
a Christian has hardly the right to claim to be such.
I guess most agree that fairness is a crucial precondition for a loving
social environment. Many, if not most, interpersonal, interpolitical and/or
interreligious problems could be solved much easier, or wouldn't even
emerge. As I already hinted at in a previous posting, a society of sharing
rather than the preposterous owning and owing, would be a precondition for
fairness. Property rights, and its resulting redlining and borders which
don't exist in nature, or just very short term temporarily in animal
communities, are, just like money, made up by persons, which probably
through pressure from unbalancedly high populations, were trying to secure
their self-preservation. As it wasn't possible back then to communicate on a
global scale about the improvement of the "hunter and gatherer" lifestyle,
nor were they likely to have the required knowledge and skills (as we have
today) to do so, they saw themselves forced to start developing agricultural
practices, to declare land as their property and to defend it, so they could
harvest the products of their labor. With the consequences of this
development we have to deal today. As long as people hold on to property
rights, there will be others redlined, there will be borders, there will be
the need for defense, certainly with population numbers like we have today,
and this is hardly a viable base for fairness. No wonder that people,
especially the mostly unpropertied people in the third world, as well as
most youngsters, are so frustrated with the conditions they encounter.
Virtually everything they see around them is considered to be the possession
of others.
The first step will be to declare as a basic human right, the access of
every human being to a workable piece of land, which serves at least as a
minimal base for its subsistence, rather than to give unemployment payments.
To sort out most of todays problems for good, such fundamental changes must
be implemented sooner or later.
But, what was the other sentence Jesus said: "...Look at the birds of the
air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet god feeds
them..." Isn't this everybody's goal to enjoy such freedom, and isn't it
achievable? Doesn't permaculture give us the tools to make this dream come
true? Wouldn't most of us rather explore this ravishing planet than to work
in a garden in the same place (though I do consider the latter to be the
second best occupation, if it's done in harmony with nature).

Vital

P.S. I don't like to use the term "god", as it has been too much the object
of abuse. It is also one of those things made up by man, to describe
everything we are unable to comprehend, or to appoint themselves as the
voice through which god is speaking and to suppress and exploit the fellow
men. If a god of the inconceivable exists, wouldn't there everything we are
able to attribute to it be speculation, profanity and blasphemy?


----Original Message Follows----
From: "Healing Hawk"
Reply-To: permaculture

To: "'permaculture'"

Subject: Re: [permaculture] Similarities between the Jesus Movement at
itsorigin and the Permaculture movement
Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 07:55:07 -0600

When Martin Luther King, Jr. started channeling Jesus' egalitarian,
pre-Christ manifestation, he was assassinated in Memphis, where he went to
support striking garbage workers who wanted a fair slice of the
socioeconomic pie. Jesus said, "This I command you: Love one another."
That's the only command he issued. Paul of Tarsus, a Roman tax collector,
co-opted the Jesus Movement with all his rules. Tarsus was a hotbed of the
cult of Mithras and Mithraism is the origin of the Christ, a King born to be
sacrificed for the good of the people.

The egalitarian, respectful part lives on in the Permaculture movement. The
Christ part does not, to me, fit into Permaculture. More than anything, the
Nicene Creed gave the Roman Empire a domestic behavior police in the guise
of the Roman Catholic Church so that Constantine could continue expanding
the Empire. After eight centuries of the Inquisition, the people had had
all they were going to take of the Roman Catholic Church and started
fighting back. Protestantism resulted. The Pope has not apologized for the
Inquisition.

Permaculture arises from what we know now of how the world works. Nature is
the God science has discovered, a God that gives us life, our next breath,
food and clothes and shelter and each other, a God that seems capricious and
cruel when we don't understand it or see the larger reality in which our
personal reality plays out in the world.

Jesus is as dangerous to American Empire as he was to Roman Empire.
Egalitarianism and true democracy (as opposed to Dubya's neocon spin job
democracy he endeavors to force upon Iraqis) threaten imperialism and
oppression. Permaculture is egalitarian and democratic by nature. People
must be free to respond appropriately to the environment in order to live in
proper relations with nature so the future continues to occur. The social
control inherent to consumerism does not allow this level of responsibility.
The Republicans in the US advanced personal responsibility until they found
out what it meant. It is our responsibility to throw off the yokes of
social control so we can respond to the call of our souls, the life energy
in each of us. Permaculture, by teaching us to feed ourselves physically,
emotionally, socially, mentally, spiritually, and volitionally, gives us a
vehicle which enables us to live as Jesus commanded, loving each other.

Permaculture teaches us to love the land rather than forcing a harvest from
it, and it teaches us that "everything is everything." We love one another
by loving the land.

Tommy Tolson
Austin, TX

-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Lawrence F.
London, Jr.
Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2007 12:12 AM
To: permaculture
Subject: [permaculture] Similarities between the Jesus Movement at its
origin and the Permaculture movement

I wonder what, if any, relationship may exist between the Jesus Movement
during the era when it originated
and the Permaculture movement as it is currently evolving. I am sure there
are close similarities. Many
permaculturists concerned about human rights, love and respect for your
fellow man, our living environment and justice
and fairness in global society must feel close kinship with the Christian
activists around the time of Jesus and the
goals they were stiving to achieve.
--
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lflj@intrex.net
lflj@bellsouth.net
venaurafarm@bellsouth.net
Venaura Farm http://venaurafarm.blogspot.com
Agriculture, Market Farming & Permaculture
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech
Permaculture mailing list
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
Permaculture Wiki/Database
http://www.permaculture.info/index.php/Main_Page

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