Spirit
of Hope
“For the
first time in human history the genius of the human race is available
for all to harvest. These rediscovered capacities may be evolutionary
accelerators, now being gathered from many places, times, and
cultures to awaken our species to who we are and what we yet may be
and do. Often, however, it is uncomfortable. We can for a time find
ourselves strangers in a very strange land, wishing we could return
to the comforts of a more insular and familiar world view...”
Jean
Houston (Jump Time)
My pastor received a
phone call this week from a woman who took issue with a letter he had
signed, along with a large contingent other pastors, stating why one
of the candidates for the U.S. Senate should not be elected. The
brand of Christianity the candidate espouses is the very reason he
was removed from the State Supreme Court, not once, but twice. This
woman was, by anyone's standards, gracious and pleasant, but she
truly believed that if something appears in the Bible it is
acceptable. So things like buying, selling or giving away one's
children as chattel, slavery, incest, taking a child bride, and so
forth, were just fine because one could find them in the Bible. In
this, as in many arena's of human life, we are experiencing the
discombobulation of forward movement countered by the backward tug of
what has always been. We are living through what Jean Houston calls
“Jump Time.”
We have invented the
means by which just about everything we have learned and done as a
species is available to all of us on the internet. We have made great
strides in acceptance and tolerance of differences, and begun to
appreciate that diverse populations with a wide variety of skills,
cultures, interests and beliefs are assets, and not liabilities. But
there is a significant segment of the population of planet earth that
is afraid of so much forward movement, and the idea of an
evolutionary melting pot of humankind is a terrifying proposition. We
have lived in a top-down, hierarchical world for thousands of years,
and the idea of broad-spectrum equality is dizzying. It leaves us
unsettled. Some of us are clinging to the certainty of the old, and
some of us are leaning into the possibilities of the new. The
proponents of the old ways, some of them brutal and tyrannical, are
raising their heads and loudly protesting their losses. The
proponents of the new, transparent, “we won't take it anymore!”
future are shouting back. The world is in upheaval.
In Jump Time—which is a
pivotal moment in human evolution—upheaval is normal and
necessary—and it is exceptionally uncomfortable. Wars are waged,
dictatorships rise, visionary leaders emerge, tyrants oppose. Gains
made for the good of all, and for the good of the earth, are rolled
back and trampled on. People with no means of defense are herded like
cattle across borders and into exile. Regardless of all this, the
movement of human evolution is ever forward. We will get there even if it
means taking two steps forward and one back—we will gain momentum
into the future simply because human beings, regardless of what they
must endure, yearn for freedom and for peace. We are curious beings,
drawn to new ideas and new ways of navigating the world. We will
always be pushing forward despite resistance. We are—all of us, not
just some of us—endowed with a Spirit of hope and determination. No
power on earth can stop that.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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