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Prayer Evolving -- Four Essays by Dennis Rivers |
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A page from Prayer Evolving by Dennis Rivers -- www.newconversations.net/prayers/
PART FOUR
An Ecology of Devotion
(first published in EarthLight Magazine, Summer 2003)
Somewhere in his essays about the ecological crises of our time, I
remember Wendell Berry writing “What we do not love, we will not save.”
One of the many possible implications that I draw from his statement is
that the eco-spiritual life is breath-like: the more we want to reach out to
nurture the web of life (and save our own species along the way), the more
deeply we will need to journey into our own hearts to connect with love’s
sustaining energy.
Although Planet Earth needs love the way a person lost in the desert
needs water, love cannot be summoned by a simple act of will. Love, in
my experience, is not like an object already in our possession, that we
could give if we chose to do so. Love seems to me much more like a
garden that will eventually bear fruit if cultivated in a spirit of
apprenticeship, taking the time to learn about each tree and plant.
In this essay I will explore a five-fold vision of what might be called
an ecology of devotion: a way of seeing how our various loves, concerns,
gratitudes, adorations and celebrations are all part of a larger organic
unity.
These many loves and concerns call to us, often in a chaotic din,
urging us forward in many directions, appealing to us at many levels:
friends need comfort, a new baby is born, the forests are dying, the
dolphins are beaching, millions of landmines wait silently for human or
animal footstep. Where and how shall we turn toward life and begin (or
continue) the labors of “mending the world,” the Tikkun Olam of Jewish
tradition, which would also constitute the mending of our own broken
hearts? As I have experienced the web of life being threatened by the
explosive mix of greed, fear and technology, I have been challenged to
find inside myself a love stronger than all fears, a deeper reverence for
life that could be my compass through the chaos of a world unraveling.
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