Four years ago, in What Would Thoreau Say? I wrote ‘what do we do now?’ after the world was turned upside down by our presidential election. I predicted four years of hell. I was right.
Now things are different. I really believe the restoration of America is possible. But only if we also restore truth as truth, something that has been impossible these last four years. Of all the terrible things that have happened since 2016, nothing, in my opinion, compares to what has happened to the rule of truth.
I refuse to give up however. I believe truth can be restored, we can be better, and we can make a commitment to take care of each other.
Joanna Macy, one of the world’s great ecologists and Buddhist scholar writes of ‘the Great Turning.’ She believes that we don’t have to stay stuck as we are and that with intentional action, we can turn things.
Her analysis is much more detailed than I want to offer here. But simply summarized, the turning (read restoration), she argues, can occur when three things happen in our lives (again, this is my summary). She says we can restore when we:
1. stop doing destructive things to ourselves, others and the world like making lies seem as truth, demonizing those we disagree with and seeing science as an opinion instead of fact
2. make a dramatic shift in consciousness from ‘me, mine, more’ to ‘us, ours, less’ (my words) and by seeing the entire world and its inhabitants -human, plant, animal — as co-inhabitants of earth
3. begin to do things that are positive and start to reverse the destructive things referenced in number 1 by adopting new policies and procedures
Clearly this process can’t happen just because someone else is in the White House. But organizations, communities, individuals can begin to make change if they are intentional about doing so. Intention to not accept lies as truth and to make sure we aren’t part of the lie-telling can take us to a new place. Moving from a me-centered world to a we-centered world coupled with logical, science-based policies and systems can offer us a way forward.
But first we must restore the rule of truth.
New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote recently, that in the past our truths were established by those in academia, public life, the pulpit, our social communities and our families. Throughout our lifetimes, at least, these influential people and the institutions they represent were a stop gap for massive lies to be believed. We had a breaker system in the past and that system was, well, people who told the truth and were believed. And even when the truths changed, as they inevitably did, it was the influential people in our lives that were the catalyst for the change in what was considered truth and it’s you and me that validated the new truths thus making them truth.
Now is this process much harder today? Yes, of course. Social media and the internet have made everyone capable of swaying public opinion into belief that a lie is truth. The last four years have proved that. This doesn’t mean; however, we should give up trying to counter falsehoods just because it’s easier for them to spread. This is part of the change in behavior shift Macy talks about in #1 above — withstanding the onslaught of online lies.
But I believe the consciousness shift will happen, including returning to a ‘rule of truth,’ when we change how we see and treat each other. This change has a foundational principle: all people have the right to a safe and happy life and all people have a right to be told the truth. All people.
What might the world be like, Phillip Gulley, the Quaker writer asks, if we began to see others as our companions and not our competitors? What if we realized our lives are inextricably intertwined with everyone else on this planet? What if we agreed with the Jesuit priest and scientist, Pierre Tielhard de Chardin that ‘earth is the body of God,’ and therefore everything in it, on it and of it, must be seen as sacred, especially people?
Wouldn’t it be harder to demonize someone if we did? Wouldn’t it make us hesitate to hate them, kill them, or bomb their country if we considered them companions on this thing called earth rather than competitors?
Wouldn’t this help us turn from what I call the ‘greed economy’ which says I have to get all I can from the world and screw you if that means you get less, to a ‘compassion economy’ that reminds me that ‘ you too have to eat, you too have to feel safe, you and your family also need health insurance, a roof over your head.’ Wouldn’t compassion as a driving force for all we do as individuals, communities, countries, help us with the restoration and turning?
In short, I am asking can we begin to see earth as the body of God? And in so doing see the sacred and intertwined nature of all life with our lives, leading to restoration?
+
In the next few entries here on Medium, I’m going to offer some thoughts on how this turning can actually happen in our lifetime. I hope you will stay with me on the journey and I hope you will invite others to do so as well. And how fun would it be to get a real dialogue going on ‘the great restoration?’ so your comments are also encouraged.
