The world has become an earthquake. There is no way to stand still upon it

"The Spiral Dance of God", -- http://www.shalomctr.org/node/437

Our crisis is that we are living in the midst of a great dance of God. The dance spirals from greater Control to greater Community — from greater mastery over our planet and each other to a deeper sense of the Mystery that calls on us to live together. This process began long before the human race was born. One way to describe evolutionary and human history is as a spiral from generation to generation: From greater Control to deeper and broader Community, followed by new advances in forms of Control that bring on deeper and broader forms of Community.

The amoebae that mastered control over nearby nutriment-bearing water needed to learn to interact with other forms of life, if they were not to use up all the nearby nourishment and die. They "invented" a way to become multi-celled cooperative creatures — a new form of community. Once these cooperative creatures emerged, they learned to master more of their environs. The level of control advanced. Control, I-It, bred Community, I-Thou; and then Community bred Control. And so on.

A spiral of change.

We have the great fortune and the great misfortune to be living in the moment when the human race, through what we call Modernity, has leaped further forward in the direction of control than has any other species ever on our planet. And now we must dance the other step, the one that draws Being, Mystery, Community more fully into the world. We ARE the other step. Jewish renewal, Christian renewal, Muslim renewal, Buddhist renewal, Pagan renewal — we are this era's second step in the dance of God. We are the step of Community that must dance well, if our peoples and our planet are not to be consumed by Control that is out of control, by Making that makes a mockery of making.

The world has become an earthquake. There is no way to stand still upon it, for the earth itself is leaping, shaking. Our only hope is to join the dance. This year at harvest time when we reflect upon our lives, we are called to dance more deeply, more joyfully, more creatively, in the very midst of earthquake. Blessings that together we learn to dance amidst the earthquake. Arthur The Shalom Center http://www.shalomctr.org