The Living Universe - Duane Elgin [66]
• Economic reconciliation. Disparities in wealth and economic opportunity between the rich and the poor are enormous and growing. Reconciliation requires narrowing these differences and establishing minimum standards of economic well-being that support everyone in realizing their potentials.
• Ecological reconciliation. Living in sustainable harmony with the Earth’s biosphere is essential if we are to build a promising future. Because we are over-consuming the Earth, depleting resources, and destabilizing the climate, our future depends on establishing a new relationship of full integrity with the Earth’s ecology.
• Generational reconciliation. Current generations are over-consuming the Earth’s resources and giving little thought to the needs of future generations. Because our actions reverberate far into the future, it is essential that we reconcile ourselves with generations yet unborn who will feel the impact of our choices.
• Species reconciliation. Balancing human needs with those of other species is vital for our future. To maintain the integrity of the Earth’s biosphere, we are challenged to restrain our impact upon the larger community of plant and animal life. Doing so will enable us to secure greater abundance for the human enterprise over the long run. Beyond restraint is the need to nurture our ailing planet back to health.
Deep wounds of the human psyche and soul will need to be healed if the human community is to live sustainably on the Earth. Without authentic communication across barriers of suffering and misunderstanding, humanity will remain divided and mistrustful, and our collective future will be gravely imperiled. Great personal and social maturity will be required for people to give up their resentment for past abuses and to make good-faith efforts to resolve injustices and heal injuries so that the human family can work together for its common good.
The first step in being healed is being heard. With the communications revolution still accelerating exponentially, the human community is just beginning to experience an explosion of conversation. Voices that have been shut out in the past can now be heard on the world stage. Martin Luther King, Jr., said that “injustice must be exposed, with all of the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”2 Injustice flourishes in the darkness of inattention. When division and injustice are exposed to the healing light of public awareness, that exposure creates a new mindset among all involved. It may seem unwise to bring the dark side of humanity’s past into the light of day but, until we do, unresolved suffering will forever pull at the underside of our consciousness and diminish our future potentials. When those who have suffered can tell their stories in the public sphere and be witnessed authentically, the healing of humanity’s soul will be real. In bearing witness to the reservoir of unacknowledged suffering that has accumulated through history, we can release an enormous store of pent-up energy and creativity and achieve an evolutionary leap forward.
In the previous chapter we explored humanity’s first axial age and saw that love and compassion have ancient roots. More than 2,000 years of history attests to the impact and enduring power of love. Compassionate sages such as Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and Lao-tzu all lacked wealth, armies, and political position. Yet, as the late Harvard professor Pitirim Sorokin explained in his classic book The Ways and Power of Love, they were warriors of the heart. They have reoriented the thinking and behavior of billions of people, transformed cultures, and changed the course of history. “None of the greatest conquerors and revolutionary leaders can even remotely compete with these apostles of love in the magnitude and durability of the change brought about by their activities.”3 In contrast, most empires built rapidly through war and