Healing Earth in 4 Worlds --

Prayer, Wisdom, Activism, Hands-on

 I will be leading and weaving a Webinar on four aspects of healing the deeply wounded climate that is already flooding, burning, droughting, and diseasing many patches of our planet, and threatens far worse to human civilization in every region. 

The Webinar will run on four Tuesday evenings – May 7, 14, 21, and 28, from 7 to 9 pm, Eastern Time. It will especially address how to draw on religious and spiritual traditions, practices, and symbols to awaken into vigorous action the “sleepy giant” of our religious communities. The sessions will be recorded; so they will be available for watching if you cannot make those dates.

Why am I doing this? There is the out-there reason and the in-here reason.

“Out there,” the human race is faced with the most momentous crisis in our history as a species –- the climate crisis, brought on us by the behavior we have allowed from a group of Corporate Carbon  Pharaohs and their governmental enablers. In the Hebrew Bible is encoded a treasury of the spiritual experience long ago of an indigenous people, whose shepherds and farmers lived close to the Earth and cared for it. 

“In here”: I have been working on healing our climate, our Earth, and ourendangred humanity for almost 20 years. Many people have led or taken part in activist sit-ins, marches, lobbies; a number of people have explored the spiritual religious wisdom about Earth. Very few have done both. I am one of the few people who has both explored the deep meanings of Torah as it addresses food kashrut and energy eco-kashrut, the earthiness of festivals, and the sacred Earth-protecting covenant between the generations; and has also been an activist for change in the streets, our pocketbooks, and the halls of Congress. 

Today we can draw on the ancient sacred treasury of Earthy wisdom and of course transform it to meet the needs of our own generation –--  the most urgent and creative midrash we have ever needed – in prayer, theology, activism, and hands-on change.

The Jewish mystics taught that the Creation of the world unfolded in four stages: God’s sheer Intention to create; Intellectual and Artistic creativity; emotional Interconnection; and actual Physicality.

This Webinar will in four sessions explore how these Four Worlds can provide a pattern for human beings to undertake fiercely urgent transformational work to heal our common home.  

1) Direct prayerful experience of the Earth (e.g. going outside to hear the Trees’ prayer as part of our own prayer service);

(2) Biblical theology of Earth (e.g. the meanings of Eden, manna, Pharaoh’s plagues, Shabbat, the Sabbatical Year);

3) Public ceremonies and other forms of activism that unite spirituality, eco-sanity, and social justice;

(4) Hands-on healing action (e.g. organizing solar co-ops. 

Please click  to https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/event/register?id=24&reset=1

in order to register for the Webinar --including for access to the recordings.

Shalom, Arthur