So, yesterday, at our Samhain retreat, we took a pause and focused on something dependable: Mother Earth. Billions of years old, with likely billions more to come, the whole of human history is a mere speck that will be brushed off as surely as were the dinosaurs. An election? Infinitesimally irrelevant. I’m likely to be branded naïve, but some perspective is needed.
We looked at Earth, and more particularly, our relationship to Earth, and G*d’s relationship to Earth. We engaged in some philosophical theology (and then some) and reflected on the wisdom of a few ancient Celtic luminaries—the “heretics” Pelagius and John Scotus Eriugena. We considered the tropes of humanity as “Earth Creature” and “Divine Child,” recognizing that, for most of recorded history, we humans have thought too much of ourselves. Clever animals that we are, we have seen ourselves as superior to other animals and superior to Earth herself. How foolish! Humility is needed to make peace with Earth, to ask her forgiveness, to kindly share Earth with our sister and brother animals.
And what of G*d? Religion, in my reading, has always been a human attempt to make sense of the experiences of transcendence and impermanence. Accounts of G*d have given people hope, purpose, and a reason to get up in the morning. Carving out meaning for oneself is perhaps unique to humans (but it’s nothing to get proud about). I sometimes envy the pugs. They live in the moment. They enjoy food and sleep, and peeing and pooing and petting. They worry not over meaning. Not so their human companions, who worry and fret and ponder and wonder.
How does G*d fit into the picture? Here’s a continuum of G*d and the Earth:
• Atheism: There is no G*d, only Earth. A tree is just a tree.
• Deism: G*d is remote, the master watchmaker who set Earth in motion and has left it to be. G*d created the tree, and the tree functions according to the laws of nature as G*d intended.
• Theism: G*d creates and provides and, every now and then, intervenes to suspend the laws of nature. G*d made the tree and continues to ensure that it thrives.
• Supernaturalistic Panentheism: G*d is immanent in Earth and all of nature but also supernaturally transcends Earth. G*d is in the tree, and the tree is in G*d, yet G*d exists beyond this world, in a supernatural realm.
• Naturalistic Panentheism: G*d is both immanent and transcendent within nature. There is no “super-nature.” G*d is a function of nature, in the tree, and the tree is in G*d. There is nothing supernatural about it. G*d’s immanence is the transcendence found within nature itself.
• Pantheism: G*d and nature are the same. The tree is G*d, and G*d is the tree.
Spend a few minutes trying to work that out—consider what gives you meaning—and all thoughts of elections are driven from your mind, if only for a few minutes.
Over the years of my studies and musings, I’ve found that naturalistic panentheism makes the most sense to me. It helps me make sense of my lived reality with all its messiness, along with those experiences of transcendence I have thankfully enjoyed. It also frees me from the theistic conundrum of a G*d who arbitrarily pops in and out of the universe. Instead, it aligns with a pragmatic naturalism, where “nature is all there is, and all that exists is nature.” In this view, G*d and spirituality are as natural as the trees, the seas, and the air we breathe.
But ultimately, you must work it out for yourself. Contemplate, reflect, and consider what resonates with your experience of the world.
I’m glad I was able to retreat yesterday. It gave me some perspective. Compared to the billions of years the Earth has been around, this election—stressful as it may be—is but a blink of an eye. True, the dinosaurs didn’t make it through their own crisis, and it’s likely that some crisis will finish us as well! But I don’t think the 2024 US Presidential election is quite that. I suppose we can manage a spell of political chaos. Earth rolls on and so will we.
+Ab. Andy