"Australia is not England" - LC 2000
A few days ago there was a front cover story in the Herald Sun about the drought in Australia, with a full cover picture of the dry brown land and an inset picture of a serious-looking Prime Minister John Howard with this quote, "We must hope and pray there is rain".
Which may be true, but all of this climate change stuff makes us forget that Australia is NOT England.Australia has always been "a land... of droughts and flooding rains". 'My Country' - written in 1904 by Dorothea Mackellar
"...Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain..."from 'My Country' - written in 1904 by Dorothea Mackellar, bless her cotton socks.
I hope I don't get sued for reproducing that copyrighted verse.This is a site where they do have permission to reproduce Dorothea's timely poem.
LET'S ALL GO SAILING ON THE INLAND SEA. JOLLY GOOD.
At the heart of John Howard's comically severe expression (chosen by the Herald editors) and his ineffective prayer to make this country into something that it isn't, is a lack of understanding about the nature of this beautiful land.
In Dorothea Mackella's words:"all of you who have not loved her
You will not understand..."
...Instead you will get upset that there is no inland sea, and wonder why it hasn't rained lately, unless of course you live where it is bucketing down. So when John Howard says "We must hope and pray there is rain", he is using fear as a political tool. Conservative politics is based on fear. Don't let the name of the political party fool you as to whether or not it is conservative. Liberal, Labor, Conservative, Republican or Democrat; You will know them by their fruit. - Jesus said that.
The definition of Conservatism is: “the disposition to preserve or restore what is established & traditional, and to limit change… ” - dictionary.com
FEEDING THE FEAR
Fear of change is the driving force behind political conservatism. Our economic structures are based on fear, our politicians respond to our fears, and we will look to the political party who will provide a way of easing our fears. The political strategy of many politicians is to develop policy which caters to the fears of their voters and in doing so they feed and compound the fear in people’s lives. And here in this large number of people who are locked into a cycle of fear, lies the reason for so many of our problems. Fear compounded by fear, feeds the emotions of anger and hate and is the ultimate cause of the violence and destruction stemming from our environmental vandalism, our polluting and non-sustainable methods of living, and our resource wars. The resource we're warring over at the moment is oil, but the resources fought for change according to place and time. There have always been enough resources for everybody even in these over-populated times. It is lop-sided distribution of resources, non-sustainable over-use of resources, fear of lack of resources and violent fighting over resources that remain the constant problems.
A TRIP TO DARK SIDE
In the Star Wars film, the dark Emperor could sense the anger rising from Luke Skywalker’s fear and urged him turn it into hatred, and from there to turn it into a violent act against the agent of his fear, the dark Emperor of fear himself, who would then compound that violence by turning it back onto Luke thus creating a cycle of violent destructive behaviour within Luke, whose trip to the dark side would then be complete.
"…I can feel your anger…. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete.”
The dark Emperor – Stars Wars
This is the way to the Dark Side of fear:
Step 1. We fear our Dark Emporer
Step 2. We are angry with our Dark Emporer
Step 3. We hate our Dark Emporer
Step 4. We are violent with our light sabors
Step 5. We destroy what we hate
Step 6. Our light saber now glows red instead of green
Step 7. We spit lightning from our hands, for evil instead of for good.
Step 9. Our journey to the Dark Side is complete.
Step 10. That door is closed, move on to the next one.
THE STORM TROOPERS WON'T SAVE US
Fear leads us to send in the storm troopers, which causes more suffering more fear and more uprisings of the things we fear.
There will be no peaceful answer whilst we remain in the cycle of fear. Step out of it when and if you can, but until then, don't expect the cavalry to arrive in the nick of time to save you, unless you're sitting on a sea of oil.
TECHNOLOGY WON'T SAVE US
Even if our technologies can solve each of our problems as we hit each wall one by one, if we don’t also change our whole way of thinking and living in order to lesson the impact of our existence on the environment, then we will eventually reach the ultimate limit of our environment, and that will be a wall that no technology can scale.
LOVE WILL SAVE US
To create peace, compassion and a secure environment in the world instead war, suffering and environmental destruction, imagine sending in ambassadors of Love (not Luke) instead of armies and air strikes. This needs to be imagined because it hasn't been tried yet.
THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH ! (AGAIN)
Eschatology - The branch of theology that is concerned with the end of the world or of human kind.
Climate change is giving Eschatology a good run at the moment. It hasn't had such good press since the year 2000 when the world didn't come to an end. It is a fearful notion indeed that if we don’t collectively change the way we are thinking and living, RIGHT NOW, we may be doomed. But this is nothing more than the everyday fear of death, the ultimate change, re-packaged in a different way. It's the fear of change that is scary, more than climate change. We need to make many scary changes to overcome the effects of the changes in climate we are creating. I hope we can. Eschatology is Nigh!
HUMAN 20/20 ADAPTABILITY
We normalise the situations we find ourselves in. We're good at adapting to nature's cycles and limits, but when we choose to adapt them to us, we need do so within Nature's limits or else suffer who-knows-what sort of unbearable rule-changes. For thousands of years, the indigenous people of Australia have been successful at Nature adaptation. They're good at the long version of the game. They have the runs on the board, but new arrivals to the Australian wicket have suffered a string of run outs trying to hit big sixes before getting their eye in, as if this is a 20/20 match instead of a Test. We need to firstly get our eye in and let our indigenous partners take the strike for a while until we see how the Australian wicket plays, so that eventually we will see this country like a beach ball, and finally understand that Australia IS NOT England.
We will be re-born from the Ashes like a cricket bat made from a Eucalyptus-tree.
(This cricket analogy has clearly gone too far.) Rain stopped play.
IT'S TIME FOR CHAT ABOUT THE WEATHER
...and how we cause it. It's much easier to see how the human emotion of fear creates everyday problems like terrorism and road rage, than it is to see the relationship between human emotions and the weather. That human fear can cause excess droughts and flood maybe explained by seeing that fear causes us to cut down trees and to disrespect and pollute the nature of our environment in order to grow and make more and more so that we always have enough to survive and so that we have nothing to fear. Our fear then becomes the ultimate cause of environmental collapse. But there is an even more direct causal link, which can be used to affect change for better or worse more immediately. Physicists and enlightened people tell us that every part of us is energy; even our thoughts and our prayers are energy, which at the quantum level is interconnected with all other energies. Each of our acts in the world is the physical manifestation of pure thought energy.
A thought is energy that links us to the manifestation of our next physical act.
A prayer is a thought that links us to everybody else’s thoughts and their subsequent physical acts. The more positively and quantifiably we link our thoughts to others (i.e. pray), the more quantifiable and positive will the acts of those others be. Prayer is direct connection to all of the energy around us. And there’s no reason to leave out of that equation, those bits of energy that make the weather.
The overall effect of this energy-connection between all things, impacts either positively or negatively on all of our surroundings including the weather. Love, joy and compassion, transmitted en masse through prayer, can heal our environment, and once healed, our overall respect at the physical level and our continued prayer at the level of energy will keep the environment healthy and whole.
HOW TO PRAY
Every prayer that asks for something out of the fear that the thing might not be given is an affirmation of the belief that the thing will not be given. When you pray for the WANT of something, the WANT of something is what you get.
Fear of not getting something is the very thing that prevents you from getting it. Instead, simply be thankful for what you have and for what is already on it’s way. A prayer of sincere thanks with no hint of fear concerning whether or not you might get what you ask for, puts up no fear barriers between what you need, and it’s arrival at your doorstep.
If you want something, the best prayer is a one word prayer, “thankyou”.
(I know, my spell checker says that's two words.)
When John Howard says, "We must hope and pray there is rain,” he is affirming his belief that we aren’t getting any rain. If enough people are influenced to make the same fearful prayer, then those large numbers of fearful prayers will be the very thing that will keep the rain away.
So either go to the beach and get a tan, or…
With love and compassion for all souls, just say…
“Thank you for the rain, God” Amen.
After all, Yahweh is a Storm God.
…………………….
p.s. God, can you also throw in one of those large TV screens with surround sound, I really want one of those. And a new car please, I promise I’ll wash it with a bucket. And also… a new Prime Minister! Either Peter Costello or Kevin Rudd will do, but I would prefer The Dalai Lama.
Thanks God, mate.
p.p.s.
7th July 2008 - Thanks for the new prime minister.
