Conscious Choice: The Past as Prologue

August 2002

The Past as Prologue

Our writers reflect on earlier issues, and bring us up-to-date.

Revisioning Revisited: Sea Change

In 1988, I wrote "Revisioning Our Planetary Future" for the winter issue of Conscious Choice, which featured the amazing photo of the rising Earth seen from the moon. The cover caption was "Rising Global Awareness" and the article focused on the concept of "paradigm shift" — the power of an emergent and sharable global vision of the essential interdependence of the planetary community. It also explored some essential elements of the "process of re-valuing" the universe and the human place within it. Fourteen years later, I’m heartened to realize that the hopeful enthusiasm reflected in that essay hasn’t dimmed and that, despite the darker omens of war, top-down globalization, and systemic corruption, there’s more than ample reason to believe that cultural evolution is still struggling ahead.

In "Revisioning," I observed then that "like all previous paradigm shifts (e.g., the Copernican-Newtonian scientific revolution) the present process is accompanied by the first signs of a broad-based challenge to the definitions, values, and presuppositions of the era that preceded it." Today, we are beginning to see signs of that process in what might well be termed "globalization from the bottom up." A self-organizing global consensus is now emerging with respect to the most urgent issues of our age: human rights; political, social, and economic justice; preferential action for the poor; redressing north-south imbalances; the empowerment of women; children’s rights; ecological sustainability and sustainable development; and non-violent conflict resolution.

One discerns the new resonance of vision in the mission statements and actions of countless non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and in the internal dynamics of inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), from the United Nations to as unlikely a den of activists as the evolving World Bank. The new consensus resonates throughout civil societies, north and south. While vast differences exist with regard to what are considered best policies and practices, the paradigmatic convergence has already reshaped the language and culture of activism.

It’s essential, however, to remember that for every vision of new possibilities and every articulation of new hopes ascending today, there’s a waning but still-powerful allegiance to an older weave of belief, habit, memory, and privilege. When a society reaches that critical point at which the emerging vision is roughly equal in influence with the declining, the moment is precarious, fraught with danger, and rich with opportunity. Ours is arguably at that point. Out of the chaotic interference pattern created by the cresting and subsiding struggle between competing worldviews can come an extraordinary evolutionary transformation — a sea change. — Jim Kenney

Pride Goeth Before a Turkey Sandwich

"Your piece...is offensive to many and confusing to others," charged one reader. "It’s too bad that animals have to die to satisfy Ms. Reda’s need for gratitude," commented another. "Would Ms. Reda raise and cuddle and feed her daughter, only to slit her throat and eat her?" asked a third. "Thanks for writing your article," commented one lone letter-writer.

Just one month before, I had written an autobiographical essay about my decision to begin eating meat after twenty-two years as a vegetarian. The decision had not been easy. And writing the article had been difficult, too. But nothing compared to reading the letters I got from passionate vegans and vegetarians who were firmly opposed to killing animals. I felt like the murderer I already knew I was: helpless in the face of the fact that beings must die to feed me.

Since that time, when I began eating small amounts of meat for health reasons, lots about food has changed — for the worse. Mad Cow and other, similar diseases have emerged; people who contracted it died. Hoof and Mouth Disease resulted in the slaughter of millions of animals whose market value had plunged. Conventional factory farming was thoroughly exposed for the cruel and unusual punishment it is. Genetically manipulated crops became ubiquitous and are now routinely fed to livestock — and humans. Family farms have continued to disappear.

On the other hand, free-range, hormone-free, and antibiotic-free meats have become more common. Organically raised and biodynamically raised animals enjoy healthier diets and kinder lifetimes than most humans on the planet. And I’ve met a farmer who plays violin for his animals every afternoon at four.

Compassionate diners today can choose between humanely raised meats, vegetarian fare, vegan fare, and raw food, all of it produced organically. In cities like Chicago, we find it fairly easy to shop co-ops, farmers’ markets, and CSAs. We can even buy organic, highly processed junk, if we crave it. Like Americans in every sector of society, we face an array of decisions about our values and the way we express them.

Who is kinder? More correct? I still don’t know. But I learned in May of 1996 that Conscious Choice readers are passionate and concerned in trying to figure that out. We care about our own health, but also about animals, the environment, our souls. And while we squabble sometimes over the best way to live, we remain engaged in the issues. We’re a community — a community I am proud to know. — Sheri Reda

Celibacy

A good bit of e-mail has come my way recently regarding an article I wrote for Conscious Choice in January, 1997 titled, "Creating Intimate Relationships Within Celibacy." It is being picked up on the Conscious Choice Web site by people concerned over the current meltdown in the Catholic Church.

After rereading my words written some five years ago, I find myself holding the same position today. Being for or against celibacy treats the issue a bit too simplistically. I still believe that the heart of celibacy is the capacity to genuinely befriend and love others. In this sense, we all share the call to celibacy, whether it’s part of a religious vow to avoid all sexual contact or a promise to remain committed exclusively to one person.

All friendships require expressions of intimacy and love, and celibacy can provide the context for these expressions. There are endless ways to be thoughtful, kind, and loving to others. The task at hand is to welcome home out of exile our sexuality — to recognize it as a gift and to express it, not prosaically in the act of sex, but appropriately, both in committed relationships and in friendships. — Joseph Kilikevice, O.P.

Holistic Pregnancy

In the September 1999 edition of Conscious Choice, I wrote an article entitled "Pampered Pregnancies: Top Holistic Health Treatments for Chicago’s Expectant Mothers." The health treatments I wrote about included massage therapy, yoga, shiatsu, and acupuncture. While writing this month’s column on prenatal yoga, I thought about the article I had written three years ago. After reading it, I picked up the phone to call Joanne Lindberg, director of Birthlink resource network, and one of my sources for the article.

I asked Lindberg if there were any other holistic health treatments being embraced by expectant mothers. She said the treatments I highlighted back then were the very same ones that women ask about today when they call or contact Lindberg via e-mail. She added that expectant mothers also want information about hypnotherapy for pain control during childbirth.

While there are many expectant mothers bold enough to try these non-traditional health therapies, the vast majority of soon-to-be mothers are skeptical about trying any therapeutic treatments that aren’t recommended by their doctor, Lindberg adds. "They’re nervous about doing something that isn’t in the mainstream," says Sharon Fullington, a shiatsu practitioner at Shiatsu Bodyworks located in Grayslake.

But there’s good news. "Women are becoming more educated about alternative health and alternative birthing options," Lindberg says. And now expectant women log on to Lindberg’s Web site and find holistic healthcare practitioners who work primarily with soon-to-be mothers. — Darlene Paris

Creative Connections

In the time since I wrote "Creativity and Spirit" (November 1999), I have continued to play with their relationship in the realm of my own life, as a facilitator of Artist’s Way workshops, and in expanding those workshops to include art experiences. I believe that the power of spirituality, ritual, magic, soul healing, and play therapy all intersect in the act of creation.

In the act of creation our unconscious is in communication with our waking self, creating a dreamscape that we can experience with our conscious mind and senses. Put out into the world, creative acts are a form of communication between souls — like maps or bread crumb trails — to be discovered by others who are also questing to find their way home to themselves. Even when our conscious minds do not yet possess the entire key necessary to decipher the meaning of what we see or hear, our souls understand and are inexplicably drawn to the source to be reassured, soothed. Art speaks to us of the stories beneath the surface, stories for which literal translations are inadequate. Compared to the rich, multi-dimensional language of art, the relatively new language of psychology is grunt-like in its attempts to communicate the travails of our souls.

I believe that to be creative is to see connections — to create connections — where they did not previously exist. I also believe that in doing so, we become part of the web of creation and connection, simultaneously touching our ancestors, ourselves, the present world, and the divine. I believe that all magic exists in the sparks, the electricity, the power of those connections. Creativity is a gift, but like the sun and the earth and the water, it’s available to everyone. It is a gift that should be taken out and played with often, not stored on a high shelf in the closet. — Meg McGowan

Dissidence and the Personal

Congratulations to Conscious Choice on its 100th issue. As a journalist, I appreciate the chance I’ve had to bring a more personal voice to my writing. It’s been my desire to share some of what I have learned about finding meaning and hope in our troubled world, about making sense of suffering, and about living with honesty and integrity in your relationships (including the one with yourself) — is the most powerful healing tool.

I especially appreciate the opportunity I had to write the two-part Choice Books feature on the work of Noam Chomsky, noted MIT linguist and political dissident (March and April 2001). Professor Chomsky has been writing critically about terrorism and U.S. foreign policy for decades, exposing the "manufactured realities" that so often pass for news in the corporate-controlled mass media, and bringing to the public a much-needed counterpoint for so much official subterfuge. His is a voice as methodical as it is courageous and remarkable, and it was an honor for me to interview him and write about his life and commitment to social justice. I think it’s so vital to hear from such alternative voices for peace, especially in these days of a "War on Terror" that I fear is leading us down a path not to the eradication of terrorism, but only to more war and killing, more fear and less justice. I know it’s my commitment as a writer to keep speaking to the vision of a world beyond war. I share Chomsky’s belief that such a world is possible. — Mark Harris

Ecotourism

I wrote a piece on Ecotourism for Conscious Choice last year (April 2001). I had recently written a book (Natural Wonders of the Florida Keys, published in 1999) urging travelers to become more conscious of the special needs of the places to which they travel. My goal was to have visitors want to protect the area, not trash it. But as I unearth the complex, many-faceted definition of ecotourism, I realize that ecotourism and socially responsible tourism are more far-reaching than I had anticipated. They include, for example, eating locally and supporting places that hire locally, even in places that draw tourists from around the world.

As one of my heroes, writer Wendell Berry, wrote so eloquently for the April issue of Harper’s magazine, "We have an‘environmental crisis’ because we have consented to an economy in which by eating, drinking, working, resting, traveling, and enjoying ourselves we are destroying the natural, the God-given world."

I do not want to promote less travel; it is one of the great joys of life to see and experience new cultures. In this country, we are extremely lucky that many of us have the means to do so. But we need to continue to respect all these other cultures and not to harm any of the life that exists within them. When we travel, we need to think about more than escape — because we cannot escape the consequences of what we do. This is still an extremely urgent reality. If anything, it has become more important than ever before. — Deborah Straw

Family Farms: Final Requiem or Route to Recovery? Revisited...

A year later, folks (Fading Family Farms, May 2001). Life outside the big city ain’t lookin’ so pretty. Maybe life inside the big city ain’t lookin’ so good, either. Family farmers continue to be squeezed out of existence at a time when "food security" really ought to mean something to us all out here. Our food system is being systematically hijacked and looted by agribusiness thugs, at a time when "hijacked" really ought to mean something to us, too.

Lest you think I use these allusions inappropriately, consider this: More agribusiness giants are now moving food production overseas or sourcing their commodities from developing countries to reduce costs. This strategy translates to more than cheap food for you and me. It also means that you are still eating banned pesticides. It means that your food is the product of slave labor. And it means that family farmers continue to lose their farms because prices for food fall well below their cost of production.

Some university folks, such as Steven Blank, believe that agriculture should be moved off the American continent; it is not economical, they say, to grow food here. This may make sense to a computer, which can afford to burp "oops" as history proves the results. You and I, however, do eat. Losing the capacity and the political will to feed ourselves seems pretty stupid at a time when the dismal and tragic consequences of being dependent on foreign energy have become all too evident.

I firmly believe you get what you pay for. Cheap food bears its own costs — and, inevitably, we are the ones who will pay. I can’t help but remember a quote from William Jennings Bryan, a turn-of-the-century politician known as‘The Great Commoner,’ in a speech written in Chicago in 1896. "Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country." — Juli Brussell

Looking Back While Looking Forward

We were still in the first wave of shock at the events of 9/11 when the December 2001 issue of Conscious Choice appeared. In it was an article of mine related to this tragedy, but considering the angle of moral responsibility of the Islamic spiritual leaders and scholars to a virulent, ruthless, irrational, arrogant form of terrorism. The 9/11 terrorists claim to speak for Islam, and it should be self-evident that the Islamic commonwealth, or ummah, has a grave and urgent mission in relation to this crisis. It has an obligation from the Qu’ran itself to speak with moral clarity in a collective voice, illuminating what is an outrage against Islam as much as against America.

Perhaps my article gave the wrong impression or my intention was misinterpreted. I was not trying to blame, or point a finger at Islam, or any of its membership. It was not a polemical thrust I had in mind, but a dialog. This war on terrorism is as much a struggle for the soul of Islam as it is a concerted campaign against those who want to destroy the United States. And this struggle is not directly our task, but that of Muslim Quranic scholars and Muslim religious, spiritual, and legal figures. It is they who have to lead their flock, lest they lose it and the rest of the world to an orgy of destruction and death.

Whatever our religious tradition is or isn’t, no matter the spirituality that shapes our lives, we all have a universal responsibility for the earth. The peace and well-being of the planet as a whole is the only focus worthy of our attention, be we Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Native Americans, or skeptics. This is the practical common ground we share, and in pursuing it together it’s well to remember the importance of preserving our interfaith ties. It’s well to remember the greater community to which we all belong. Nurturing healthy interfaith and interspiritual relationships should be a primary concern: no difference is greater than this guiding value. — Wayne Teasdale

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