#79. A Dowd Sampler

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In my previous post, I said that Michael Dowd's book, Thank God for Evolution, is so comprehensive that, in trying to describe it, I hardly know where to start.

The most basic thought about Dowd's work I'd like to share with readers is simple enough; it's that he has taken the new cosmology to heart. He offers countless practical thoughts for an understanding of our creative participation in the evolution of the universe. As far as I'm aware, nothing else comparable-- in terms of his many down-to-earth suggestions-- is available.

And because of his background as an evangelical minister, he is able to sympathetically address the concerns of many religious people. As a reader commented recently, "Michael Dowd’s book fills the niche we have been waiting for. It reinterprets mysteries of the Christian faith in light of the evolutionary story. [It] is an inspiring and unique insight into what the Great Story means for each of us in our daily lives."

But Dowd is surprisingly good at addressing the concerns of non-religious people as well. And his broad inter-religious perspective is an excellent model of how our planet's traditional religions can respectfully relate to one another.

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For the record, I want to say that when I first heard of his work I mistrusted him. "Even if it's the new cosmology he's fanatical about," I thought to myself, "who needs another fanatical preacher?"

It wasn't until I heard him speak and got to shake his hand that I could see that his style and personality had nothing about them of the righteousness and rigidity or fanaticism we see in so many religious leaders.

Dowd is just the opposite. As the reader quoted above says, "Throughout his book he speaks as a pastor, with compassion and understanding of human frailties."

In this post I want to offer three samples of Dowd's practical ideas. I hope to keep them brief, to provide readers with just enough information for you to decide if you want to do any follow-up reading. If you prefer web sites to old-fashioned books, you can do your reading on-line. I'll provide some web links at the end this post.

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Sample #1. One of Michael Dowd's most practical thoughts with regard to the connections between science and religion is that religious people don't need to be afraid to make changes in their traditional religious views. In fact, they need to make some changes if our religions are to regain their power for good in the world.

Dowd quotes the early-20th-century English mathematician and evolution-friendly philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who says, "Religion will not gain its old power until it faces change as science does."

Science is constantly updating itself-- continually refining its understanding of the world at every level from stars and atoms to life on Earth and the workings of the nervous system and brain. Religion needs to do no less.

In our day it's apparent that some aspects of the Earth's religions are getting in the way of their own best traditions. Dowd says they need to let go of some of the mythological aspects of our religious traditions. 

He's talking about things like the New Testament story of Jesus walking on water and the Taoist story of Lao Tzu, the author of the Tao Te Ching, who was at his birth already 98 years old!

The cosmologies of the pre-Modern religions are filled with such attention-getting and often delightful stories. But we don't need to be afraid to recognize them precisely as stories.

Dowd gives an excellent example on page 362 where he lists no fewer than twenty-seven religious traditions which honor a virgin-mother. 

Some of the more familiar names of individuals with virgin-mothers include Heracles, Plato, Perseus, Krishna, Tammuz, Horus, Hermes, the emperor Augustus, Alexander the Great, Dionysus, and Romulus and Remus.

Dowd's list also provides another example of a mythological feature that's commonly found in pre-modern religions: at least five of these figures were not only born of a virgin-mother but were also born at the winter solstice. On the old calendars, that was December 25.

In our day, religions need to give up their insistence on the literalness of such mythological features.

Ken Wilber offers a similar point in his Marriage of Sense and Soul, where he notes that it's not an issue if participants in a specific tradition want to believe things like the virginity of the founder's mother. It only becomes an issue if believers insist that everybody else has to believe it, or if non-believers insist that no one should believe it.

In Christianity, for example, the virginity of the Virgin Mary is a time-honored belief, and there's no reason for not accepting it if you want to-- or for not accepting it if you don't want to. The basics of the Christian tradition don't depend on it.

Over the last several decades, a comment that has increasingly been heard from young people is, "I'm spiritual but not religious." To a great extent it's their way of saying that they want to hold on to basics but don't feel any need to accept mythological features.

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Sample #2. Another thing that young people mean when they say "I'm spiritual but not religious" has to do with the attitudes of religious institutions toward different kinds of people.

In a widely publicized article which appeared recently on Facebook and in the national media, Anne Rice, the writer of popular Vampire stories, publicly disowned the institutional form of Christianity to which she had earlier been a convert. Her point is that in our day the institutional forms of religion seem to be mostly negative.

She views institutional Christianity as anti-gay, anti-women, anti-Moslem, anti-sinners, anti-nonbelievers, "anti-" just about everything and everyone. "Anti-life," she says.

Michael Dowd is especially good at making clear that these "anti-" attitudes are not part of the basic Western religious tradition. He says that the Judeo-Christian tradition is by its very essence inclusive of everyone, that we can see-- more clearly than ever from the evolutionary perspective-- that that's what the tradition is all about.

Justice, peace, and equality have been the basics of Western religious tradition from the time of the Hebrew prophets, long before Jesus' own preaching about God's "kingdom"-- the "reign of God"-- as welcoming and promoting the welfare of all.

The Dali Lama says "Compassion is my religion." It's hard to imagine anyone who takes the Western religious tradition seriously wanting to say less.

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Sample #3. As I see it, respect for persons--and for personal freedom-- comes first of all from our respect for ourselves. Science has been making a major contribution along those lines with its findings in the area of brain and nervous system studies for the last fifty years.

As the reader I quoted above notes, Dowd speaks with "compassion and understanding of our human frailties." They are, as he says, "part of our deep ancestral heritage." When we know something about our ancestral heritage we can see that there's no possible place for the righteousness and rigidity of religious fundamentalists or for the exclusionary attitudes of many religious institutions.

Dowd does an especially good job in presenting an easy-to-understand summary of the evolutionary development of the brain, the biological source of our frailties. He calls it the "brain's creation story." In terms of living out the New Cosmology in everyday life, this sacred story of our brain allows us to trust that we are called, with all our frailties, to be co-creative participants in the world's evolutionary development.

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It is likely that you are familiar with the term "triune brain" from the popular media. It's the insight, developed by scientist Paul MacLean about a half-century ago, that the human brain has several layers, each of which comes from a different level of our evolutionary past.

A good example of science updating itself is that a fourth area of the brain has recently been recognized, so that Dowd can refer now to the "quadrune brain." The basic idea is that we share the deepest of these four layers with reptiles, and the next two more recently evolved layers with mammals and primates. There is also, of course, a uniquely human layer to our brain.

Dowd gives these four layers of the brain cute easy-to-remember names: "Lizard Legacy," "Furry Li'l Mammal," "Monkey Mind" and "Higher Porpoise." He says, "Children and teens, especially, delight in these playful ways of talking about our brain." (I do, and you probably will, too.) He makes use of these ideas frequently in his book, so I'm going to offer a few brief thoughts about each of them in this "sample #3" of my Dowd Sampler.

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"Lizard Legacy." This is innermost part of the brain, the earliest layer in terms of biological evolution; we share it with reptiles. It includes the brain stem and what scientists call the cerebellum. It's that part of the brain that keeps us breathing and allows us to physically move our muscles without having to consciously think about it. Without our Lizard Legacy we couldn't drive a car, play a musical instrument or type on a computer keyboard.

It's also the seat of those instinctual urges, not much under conscious control, which Dowd calls our "inherited proclivities." These are our basic biological drives for food, sex and shelter which are biological essentials for individual and species survival.

Dowd points out that our Lizard Legacy, which itself developed from the nervous system of even earlier creatures who lived in the sea, is also the basic source of our addictions. As an example of its power, Dowd mentions that scientists have found that even creatures like nematode worms, who have almost no brain at all, can get addicted to nicotine. 

So our inclinations toward excess in terms of food, sex and "feel-good substances" are part of our evolutionary heritage. They are deeply rooted in our reptilian brain and we don't need to feel guilty about them.

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"Furry Li'l Mammal." This is Dowd's name for the middle part of the brain, which we share with our mammalian relatives (those animals who have hair or fur on their bodies, give birth to live young and have milk glands to feed them). Scientists refer to this old mammalian brain as the limbic system; it is the seat of our memory and emotions.

The limbic system transforms the earlier reptilian drives for food and sex into powerful emotional-charged cravings. It's responsible for the fact that we can respond emotionally to music and that we can be violently repelled by the odor of rotten food.

Reptiles don't have a limbic system and don't care for their young after they hatch; mammals do. The Furry Li'l Mammal is the source of the deep drives we experience for relationships, to be bonded with others, and to acquire some recognition in our social groups. It's also the basis for close friendship and warmth in human relationships.

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"Monkey Mind." Scientists call this newer part of the mammalian brain the neocortex. We share it with our primate relatives. It's also called the "Chatterbox Mind" because it is incessantly talking to itself. It's the source of language, of sequential thinking, and it's what allows us to learn by reasoning as well as by experience.

The neocortex lets us choose between our competing reptilian (Lizard Legacy) instincts and our more social (Furry Li'l Mammal) urges. It also allows us to look ahead: "If I do this, then that might happen." But it also causes us to constantly fret about the past and worry about the future. It's hard to turn off the Monkey Mind.

Addictions to watching TV, playing computer games and surfing the web are consequences of our "chatterbox" neocortex. It endlessly takes us from one thought to another and keeps us from being in the present moment. The term "Monkey Mind" comes from Buddhism, where exercises such as meditation, drumming and chanting have been used for many centuries to quiet down this part of the mind that just wants to keep on spinning and spinning.

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"Higher Porpoise." This is the most recently evolved part of our brain and unique to humans. It's called the "executive brain" because it lets us not only choose between competing drives from the older parts of the brain but also enables us to do so with strength and conviction. Scientists refer to it as the frontal lobes or pre-frontal cortex.

This part of our brain is what accounts for our sense of the future and our vision of what might be. Dowd gives some down-to-earth examples of how it works. It's what allows a teenage boy, for example, to get up early to practice for a swim meet or to avoid drug use so he won't get thrown off the football team. It's thanks to our brain's "Higher Porpoise" that we can envision and plan for a future, and work to accomplish our goals.

The pre-frontal cortex is especially significant because it is what makes each of us not just a living being or a mammal or a primate but a person. It is the home of our personal consciousness and freedom-- of the mystery which we experience ourselves to be.

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It's this sense of personal freedom that's the very essence of Modern and Post-modern worldview, and being better informed about the brain's Sacred Story gives us an understanding of human freedom that people in earlier centuries did not have. I quoted Ken Wilber in post #76 with regard to Modernity's Gains: "Slavery existed in every pre-modern society and none of the world's pre-modern religions offered these rights and dignities on any large scale."

The point is that knowing the brain's creation story "allows us," as Dowd says, "to trust our shadow side." And it's only when we trust ourselves that we can be willing to let go of things like the mythological features of our religious traditions, and that we are able to trust, rather than fear or exclude, other persons. We all have a Lizard Legacy as well as a Furry Li'l Mammal and a Monkey Mind; but we also all have a Higher Porpoise.

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I hope my "Dowd Sampler" will encourage you to learn more of what Dowd has to say. If you're interested in using electronic media, these two web sites may be of special interest:

One is a link to an on-going discussion he's been having with the head of a major Baptist seminary (look for "Is Biblical Christianity Bankrupt?"):

http://thankgodforevolution.com/node/2070. 

The other is a list of some of the world's top science and religion leaders, including a number of Nobel Prize winners, who support his work:

http://michaeldowd.org/endorsements/endorsements.html

sam@macspeno.com

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#45. Midnight Wisdom: Sophia as Provider

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This post is the last of four dealing with the four main groups of images of Wisdom/Sophia found in the Hebrew Bible's wisdom literature.

I find these images tremendously helpful for a renewed understanding of the western religious tradition in the context of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution. They seem especially appropriate for the major transitional period humanity is experiencing in our movement beyond the limitations of a static cosmology and the patriarchal attitudes of religious dualism.

As in the previous three posts, my efforts here are to relate this fourth group of wisdom images to the other four-fold perspectives about which I've shared my thoughts in earlier posts. This includes the Jungian consciousness functions, the imagery connected with the four directions found in pre-civilization traditions such as the Native American Medicine Wheel, the four traditional ways of being religious, Karl Rahner's existential aspects of human experience, and the Immense Transition itself.

I've called this post "Sophia as Provider" because this fourth group of images sees Sophia as the source of food, shelter and protection for the Earth's children. Alternative names might be "Sophia as Protector" or "Sophia as Caretaker." It's an image of Divine Wisdom taking care of us, Sophia providing for our life and existence.

I've also called it "Midnight Wisdom" because it relates to the North on the Medicine Wheel. "North" especially evokes the darkness of night and the cold of winter, threatening times when alert attention to potential danger is needed and there is little leeway for carelessness or error. If an emergency arises in the middle of the night or in the dead of winter, delay in immediate action can easily result in major injury or death.

The primal element associated with North is earth; in some traditions it's said to be metal. The basic idea is the rock-hard solidity of stone or a chunk of iron, which is in strong contrast to the fluidity of water (the element associated with the West) and the fleetingness of wind, air and breath (East's element).

The solidity of rock and metal represents the harsher aspects of reality, what's sometimes called the world's "obduracy." So "earth", as the North's element, is an especially good expression of our need to attend to the material aspects of our lives, particularly to the needs of our bodies and to the safety and survival of those too young, too old or too ill to take care of themselves.

The main idea is that life is fragile and we need to give our attention to the details of the rock-hard realities of our physical existence.

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On the Medicine Wheel, the animal associated with North is the White Buffalo. For the Plains Indians, the buffalo was not only the main source of food but also of many other things needed for survival. The buffalo provided its skin for covering tepees, its fur for clothing, and its bones to make necessary tools such as scrapers, needles and knives; even the bull buffalo's scrotum was used to make rattles for religious ceremonies. The buffalo quite literally gives itself for the life of the people.

And as in the archaic hunting cultures, where hunting was considered a religious activity, the buffalo was understood to give itself willingly. It's not all that different from the understanding of creation by divine kenosis-- which I described in posts #33 (Talking About God) and #34 (Talking About Us)-- at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The buffalo is indeed sacred. Even today when an occasional white buffalo is born Native Americans hold it in high honor as an image of this divine self-giving.

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It's important to keep in mind that, although the imagery is very different, contemporary scientists working in fields such as Systems Theory, Chaos Theory and Unified Field Theory are also saying something very much along these same lines. They see the world and ourselves in it as manifestations of an underlying order of reality for which they use terms like the "Cosmic Fullness," "Implicate Order" and "Quantum Sea." An Asian version of this same idea is the traditional Chinese description of the Tao as "the no-thing from which comes every thing."

As I mentioned in several previous posts, the Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov expresses a similar understanding when he describes the world and human persons as "actualizations of the divine potentialities." Jungian analyst Michael Conforti, a contemporary pioneer in matter-mind studies in the realm of psychotherapy, uses a more traditional religious term; he says "the patterns of reality are continually being incarnate in space and time." Karl Rahner says something similar, too-- that we experience ourselves as the "embodiment" of the "incomprehensible source." Perhaps the best name for this self-giving on the part of the Mystery behind the universe is cosmologist Brian Swimme's phrase, "the all-nourishing abyss."

Contemporary scientists, cosmologists, theoretical physicists, psychotherapists; Orthodox and Catholic theologians; followers of ancient traditions such as Taoism and of teachings going back to Paleolithic times-- all are attempting to express the same insight. Like the White Buffalo, the mystery behind the universe provides us with what's needed for the survival and fullness of our lives.

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In the fourth group of the Bible's wisdom images, Wisdom/Sophia is pictured in way that sounds very similar to the White Buffalo's self-giving. The Hebrew writers don't use an animal image, since the Hebrews were farmers, not hunters. In the wisdom literature, Sophia is pictured as a tree, plant or vine-- a source of food and shelter for humanity.

Here are some comments from Hal Taussig's book, Wisdom's Feast, Sophia in Study and Celebration, which I've referred to in each of these four posts dealing with images of Sophia. This group of images is especially relevant to these midnight and caretaker aspects of Divine Wisdom.

Taussig notes that in many of humanity's cultures "a tree comes eventually to symbolize almost every major mythical figure," and he suggests that this may be the reason the "Hebrew scriptures include a number of different images of Sophia as a tree or plant." Some well-known examples are Buddha under the Bo tree, Jesus on the tree of the cross, Thor hanging on the World-Tree.

Taussig says that the "most striking of these" wisdom images is in Ecclesiasticus 24. Here, Sophia herself is speaking: "I have taken root in a privileged people, in the Lord's property, in his inheritance," she says.

And this is followed with a series of wonderful images: "I have grown tall as a cedar on Lebanon, as a cypress on Mount Hermon; I have grown tall as a palm in Engedi, as the rose bushes of Jericho; as a fine olive in the plain, as a plane tree I have grown tall. I have exhaled perfume like cinnamon and acacia, I have breathed out a scent like choice myrrh, like galbanum, onzcha and stacte, like the smoke of incense in the tabernacle."

Sophia compares herself to a glorious oak tree: "I have spread my branches like a terebinth, and my branches are glorious and graceful." And also to a delicate vine: "I am like a vine putting out graceful shoots, my blossoms bear the fruit of glory and wealth."

Sophia gives of herself no less than the sacred buffalo of the Plains Indians: "Approach me, you who desire me, and take your fill of my fruits."

Taussig notes that this is likewise the case in Ecclesiasticus 1, where Sophia is described as a tree providing out of her own abundance: "She intoxicates them with her fruits; she fills their whole house with their heart's desire, and their storerooms with her produce."

Sophia also provides shelter along with her fruits; in Ecclesiasticus 14 she becomes a sheltering presence. Taussig notes that here the writer "mixes metaphors to describe Sophia's sheltering presence" as both a tree and a house. In this text, the writer is speaking of "one who meditates on Sophia."

"He peeps in at her windows, and listens at her doors; he lodges close to her house and fixes his peg in her walls... he sets his children in her shade, and camps beneath her branches, he is sheltered by her from the heat, and in her glory he makes his home."

In all of these images, Sophia gives of herself for the life of the people. She provides the food, shelter and protection especially needed in the dark of night and the cold of winter which are associated with North on the Medicine Wheel.

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It makes good sense that the Jungian consciousness-function associated with the darkness and cold of north on the Medicine Wheel is Sensation. With its attention to details, our Sensation function fits right in with the idea of care-taker and provider.

Sensation is a perception function (as is Intuition, which is associated with the west), and both Intuition and Sensation differ from the two judgment functions (Feeling and Thinking) because, rather than making a judgment about whatever environment we find ourselves in, the perception functions simply look at what's there. The difference is that while Intuition sees the forest, Sensation pays attention to the individual trees; it sees the details.

So the White Buffalo/Sensation function is in great contrast to our Black Bear/Intuition function. While Intuition is concerned with possibilities and potentialities, with the "what might be" of the future, Sensation is concerned with the immediate details of life in the here-and-now.

The mind's Sensation function is apparently based on the activity of the brain's Frontal lobe which allows us to focus our attention on particulars and is concerned with how we make use of things. It's a part of our evolutionary heritage from the ancient past when, as the Biogenetic Structuralists like to say, the main concern of our animal ancestors was to "get food without becoming food." People with a strong Sensation function focus more easily than the rest of us on the details of everyday life. We couldn't survive without them.

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Medical people, nurses and doctors, for example, are often better than the rest of us at being able to handle the immediate details of life and death situations. So are many others who give of themselves for the safety and protection of the rest of us-- firefighters, police, crossing-guards, construction workers, those who care for patients who have highly contagious diseases-- any who have dangerous jobs and are especially good in emergencies.

Care-takers devoted to the more routine service to others are also examples of this White Buffalo ability. Those who run drug rehabs, day-care shelters and food banks, those who provide for the homeless on cold winter nights, those who maintain houses of hospitality and soup kitchens, those who keep our homes and streets clean, those who see better than the rest of us the details of climate change and help us see what we can do about it-- all are examples of our White Buffalo/Sensation function. And as I said, we couldn't survive without them.

The need for this White Buffalo quality in political leaders has recently emerged as a result of the media's references to "the 3 AM phone call." But it's just as much needed by any mother or father when responding to a child's cry in the middle of the night.

These are all examples of our White Buffalo/Sensation function in action, providing the care and protection needed, not only for our safety and survival, but for life in its fullness. They are all expressions of our providing for the shelter and protection for others just as Sophia does.

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It's not surprising that the focus of the Sensation function and the Medicine Wheel's North finds expression in one of the traditional ways of being religious, the way of service. In scholarly circles, it's referred to as "the way of cosmic harmony."

Here, social action is seen as our contribution to keeping the world in balance; service to those in need is a way of being in harmony with the cosmic flow. We take care of one another simply because that's the way the world works; it's "the right thing to do." We provide for one another, as Divine Wisdom provides for us.

This White Buffalo way of being religious contrasts greatly with devotion to the Holy Presence, the way favored by the Green Mouse/Feeling function. In the Sensation function's "way of cosmic harmony," the Holy Presence is understood to be present wherever anyone is in need.

Many of us will remember the traditional works of mercy-- feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, visiting the sick, burying the dead. Martin Luther expressed this perspective well when he said, "Ever, ever goes the Christ in stranger's garb." Mother Theresa describes a leper dying in the streets as "Jesus in a distressing form." The Dali Lama says he can describe his religion in one word, "Compassion."

The native Maori people of New Zealand have an especially simple and powerful image that captures well this way of service and cosmic harmony. They see each individual who is born into the world as something like a fragile fern frond, to be taken care of until it grows up enough so that it can take care of other fragile fern fronds. The image of fern frond is found everywhere in New Zealand. It's even used as a logo for their "All Blacks" Rugby team and the "Black Caps" Cricket team.

What this way of being religious comes down to is offering a helping hand wherever it's needed. And as a "way of cosmic harmony" it fits right in, not only with these older insights of the world's religious traditions, but also with the vision of the New Cosmology we have from modern science.

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In the perspectives of the New Cosmology the idea of service to those in need is simply extended to include our taking care of the Earth itself. The focus is still in terms of survival and protection, but now the care is extended to include endangered species of wildlife and the details of the dynamic environment. In the New Cosmology our sense of the Holy Presence is extended to everything.

It's easy to see that this inclusivity is a major aspect of the Sensation function's focus on details.

In posts #39 (on Hebrew Thought) and #40 (on Sophia/Wisdom), I mentioned the French philosopher and author of A Study of Hebrew Thought, Claude Tresmontant, teacher of medieval philosophy and the philosophy of science at the Sorbonne. Tresmontant observed that from a dynamic-evolutionary perspective, war and violence are distortions of the cosmic process. We can see better now, thanks to the New Cosmology, that patriarchy is too. I have in mind specifically those attitudes of the patriarchal mind which result in the exploitation of the Earth's resources or the exclusion of people from full participation in life because of their age, gender, educational level or ethnic background.

In the New Cosmology, we see that it's a distortion of the cosmic process to exclude anyone. In our care of the Earth and its peoples, nothing is to be overlooked, no one is to be left out.

And this is not just the concern of Peace Prize recipients such as Mother Theresa, Al Gore and Africa's Wangari Maathai. In the Immense Transition, we are coming to see that care for ourselves and for "all our relations" is one of the main practical ideas in the new view of ourselves and world that's offered us by modern science. Just as we are coming to see, too, in this time of Great Turning, that humanity's cultural history is a continuation of the embodiment-- the actualization, incarnation, manifestation-- of the cosmic fullness, the incomprehensible source and all-nourishing abyss we know as Divine Wisdom.

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This understanding of ourselves as manifestation of the Mystery behind the universe is expressed especially well in Karl Rahner's existential analysis of our experience of being "a person in the world." He says that we not only experience ourselves at the deepest level as aware, open and free, but also that we experience ourselves as "blessed" or "graced."

The blessing we experience is nothing less than the fact that we belong to the universe. We know ourselves as blessed to be part of it all, graced to be not only participants in the cosmic process but also called to personally contribute to it.

In my experience, many who are interested in the New Cosmology find it surprising that the western religious tradition has a word for our participation in and contribution to the cosmic process. They find it even more surprising to know that the word is "liturgy."

Originally, "liturgy" just meant something like "public work." In the early days of the Roman Empire, when wealthy people donated funds for public works-- for what today we would call "civic improvements" which are of benefit to all-- that work was referred to as "liturgy." Basically, the word means work done "by the people and for the people."

Christians in the Roman Empire used the word "liturgy" to express their understanding of being called to act for the benefit of the whole human community. In theological texts liturgy is still defined as "the work of the people." And even today, in the liturgical services of the Eastern Christian churches, it's said explicitly that the service is being offered "on behalf of all and for all."

It's easy to miss that we still use the word "service" to refer to a religious ceremony. And it's fascinating to see that the term "liturgy" has become more widespread as a synonym for what used to be called "divine service." Jews have long referred to the "liturgy of the synagogue" and even Buddhists nowadays sometimes refer to their gatherings for meditation as their "zen liturgy."

But the connection between the existential experience of being graced or blessed and the subsequent sense of service to the world is found even in one of the oldest known religious "services," the sweat lodge ceremony of Native Americans. 

Sweat lodge rites go back many thousands of years, perhaps to the time of the Paleolithic hunting cultures. And even today the sweat lodge structure is covered (at least ideally) with buffalo skins. But even if it's covered with plastic tarps, the participants still proclaim, as they crawl naked through the small door that leads into it, that what they are doing is for the benefit of all. Each one says, "All my relations!"

I've never heard the sweat lodge ceremony referred to as a "liturgy," but Native Americans are as explicit as are Eastern Christians in their understanding that what they are doing in the sweat lodge is service on behalf of the world: "We do this so that all the peoples might live." And by "peoples" they mean the winged nations, the finned nations and the four-legged, as well as we two-legged peoples. It's not surprising that this ancient hunting culture ritual has become an important ceremony to many in the context of the New Cosmology.

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From Paleolithic hunting cultures to theoretical physics and modern existentialist analysis of human experience, the same fundamental vision emerges. Although in very different words and expressions, they all seem to be saying something much like the perspective that's at the root of the western culture's religious tradition: Divine Wisdom gathers us, guides us and provides for us, and calls us to contribute our service on behalf of all and for all.

In Taussig's words: "Sophia calls out to us to participate in the world in which we live."

And once again the question is, in Karl Rahner's words: "Are we are willing to make the effort to be sensitive and responsive?"

sam@macspeno.com