Spiritual Alphabet
Qualities of Heart and Mind
that can nourish the soul,
enrich personal relationships,
and help build ecological civilizations
attention - beauty - being present - compassion - connections - devotion - enthusiasm - faith
forgiveness - grace - gratitude - hope - hospitality - imagination - joy - justice - kindness - listening
love - meaning - nurturing - openness - peace - play - questing - reverence - shadow - silence
teachers - transformation - unity - vision - wonder - x, the mystery - yearning - you - zeal
forgiveness - grace - gratitude - hope - hospitality - imagination - joy - justice - kindness - listening
love - meaning - nurturing - openness - peace - play - questing - reverence - shadow - silence
teachers - transformation - unity - vision - wonder - x, the mystery - yearning - you - zeal
click on each to learn more
Spiritual Vitamins
and the education of feeling
Ecological civilizations are the world's best and perhaps only hope. They consist of societies that are good for people and good for the earth. Their building blocks are local communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, ecologically wise, and spiritually satisfying, with no one left behind. These communities are caring communities. Their residents are filled with special care for vulnerable people who might otherwise be left behind or cast aside: the poor, the powerless, the forsaken, the forgotten. No one is left behind.
The qualities named above are the vitamins of an ecological civilization. They are habits of the heart that can nourish the soul; sustain personal relationships; and give people the sustenance to help build ecological civilizations. Fortunately, the habits can be cultivated, and one way that this happens is through education. This education can occur in settings both formal and informal, in school and in family life, at home and in the workplace. The word "education" comes from a Latin word meaning to evoke. Education can evoke the qualities of heart that are needed in an ecological civilization.
Such education can also occur with help from the creative and performing arts: dance, fiction, film, music, photography, poetry, and theatre. A constructive role for the arts does not mean that the arts need always make us 'happy.' The arts can inform us by showing where the vitamins are needed -- showing where we are broken and disconnected when we might better be connected, showing where we are unforgiving where might better be forgiving, where we have 'shadows' when we might better be self-aware. Provocative art can be as important, sometimes much more important, than 'inspiring' art.
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Ecological civilizations need spiritual sustenance, spiritual vitamins to be sure, but spirituality is not enough. They need responsive and responsible forms of agriculture, banking, business, governance, housing, manufacturing, transportation, urban design, family life and education, They need leaders who see the need for these kinds of civilizations and help cultivate policies conducive to the greater good of people, animals, and the earth. And they need individuals and communities who live simply and sustainably, justly and joyfully, walking the walk of an ecological way.
They also need organic worldviews: that is, outlooks on life that are alternatives to the mechanistic and atomizing perspectives of the industrial revolution. In an ecological civilization people understand themselves as included within, not apart from, a larger web of life in which hills and rivers, plants and animals, trees and stars, have value and beauty. They recognize that we humans live from, not apart from, our relationships with other people and the more than human world.
Some people believe, and I am among them, that the worldview of the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead can be especially helpful. And some believe that the vision of the late philosopher and poet Muhammad Iqbal can likewise be immensely helpful. Still others point to the worldviews of indigenous traditions in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. And others to the organic perspectives offered in Torah, the New Testament, and the Tao te Ching. In the house of post-mechanistic, organic worldviews there are many rooms.
The qualities of heart and mind idenitified above are the spiritual substance -- the vitamins. the herbs -- for such a civilization. They are spiritual in the sense that they emerge from the depths of the human spirit They can be evoked through religious practices and the arts, and they can also be understood scientifically, apart from considerations of religion and art. Many of them are now being studied scientifically in positive psychology, sociology, and neuroscience. See the work of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.
The alphabet is offered by Spirituality and Practice; the world's most comprehensive online interfaith organization. Click on each word or phrase, and you'll find a link to a page on Spirituality and Practice that describes the quality in greater detail. It will link the quality to still additional pages showing its connections, with film, photography, and other forms of art.
The qualities named above are the vitamins of an ecological civilization. They are habits of the heart that can nourish the soul; sustain personal relationships; and give people the sustenance to help build ecological civilizations. Fortunately, the habits can be cultivated, and one way that this happens is through education. This education can occur in settings both formal and informal, in school and in family life, at home and in the workplace. The word "education" comes from a Latin word meaning to evoke. Education can evoke the qualities of heart that are needed in an ecological civilization.
Such education can also occur with help from the creative and performing arts: dance, fiction, film, music, photography, poetry, and theatre. A constructive role for the arts does not mean that the arts need always make us 'happy.' The arts can inform us by showing where the vitamins are needed -- showing where we are broken and disconnected when we might better be connected, showing where we are unforgiving where might better be forgiving, where we have 'shadows' when we might better be self-aware. Provocative art can be as important, sometimes much more important, than 'inspiring' art.
*
Ecological civilizations need spiritual sustenance, spiritual vitamins to be sure, but spirituality is not enough. They need responsive and responsible forms of agriculture, banking, business, governance, housing, manufacturing, transportation, urban design, family life and education, They need leaders who see the need for these kinds of civilizations and help cultivate policies conducive to the greater good of people, animals, and the earth. And they need individuals and communities who live simply and sustainably, justly and joyfully, walking the walk of an ecological way.
They also need organic worldviews: that is, outlooks on life that are alternatives to the mechanistic and atomizing perspectives of the industrial revolution. In an ecological civilization people understand themselves as included within, not apart from, a larger web of life in which hills and rivers, plants and animals, trees and stars, have value and beauty. They recognize that we humans live from, not apart from, our relationships with other people and the more than human world.
Some people believe, and I am among them, that the worldview of the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead can be especially helpful. And some believe that the vision of the late philosopher and poet Muhammad Iqbal can likewise be immensely helpful. Still others point to the worldviews of indigenous traditions in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. And others to the organic perspectives offered in Torah, the New Testament, and the Tao te Ching. In the house of post-mechanistic, organic worldviews there are many rooms.
The qualities of heart and mind idenitified above are the spiritual substance -- the vitamins. the herbs -- for such a civilization. They are spiritual in the sense that they emerge from the depths of the human spirit They can be evoked through religious practices and the arts, and they can also be understood scientifically, apart from considerations of religion and art. Many of them are now being studied scientifically in positive psychology, sociology, and neuroscience. See the work of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.
The alphabet is offered by Spirituality and Practice; the world's most comprehensive online interfaith organization. Click on each word or phrase, and you'll find a link to a page on Spirituality and Practice that describes the quality in greater detail. It will link the quality to still additional pages showing its connections, with film, photography, and other forms of art.