Toward a New Foundation

Where do people turn for guidance in the 21^st Century?  Open minded, deeply committed people working together have great opportunities for providing a new foundation for making decisions about taking creative action today.

Three main factors have changed the criteria for responsible action and provided additional possibilities for human interaction – a growing awareness of environmental degradation, the interconnectivity of people around the globe and the scale of the human presence on the planet.  From the streets of New Delhi, India to the costal shorelines of North Carolina, people are becoming increasingly aware that human actions are having long-lasting effects on the natural ecological systems.  Whether a person lives on a remote Nepalese hill-top or in a downtown high-rise apartment of a thriving metropolis, they more than likely have access to a cell phone and may well be in direct communication with friends and acquaintances anywhere, any time.  Finally, the seven billion people now living on Planet Earth have arrived at a place where their collective actions affect all the life systems of the Planet.

In a series of eleven sermons delivered to the congregation of the Unitarian Universalists in Covenant in Greensboro, North Carolina, Rev. F. Nelson Stover examines the real opportunities that are available to liberal religious congregations to make contributions to the enhancement of the quality of life for the larger community of which they are a part – to provide practical ways to develop mutually enhancing relationships between the human and the non-human realms.  Links to the sermons that are now available as YouTube videos can be found at www.EmergingEcology.org/FNS.  The final three sermons in this series will be given on Oct. 1, Nov. 5 and Dec. 3.

The perspectives shared in these sermons are based on the writings of Thomas Berry and have influenced the programs of Emerging Ecology, a non-profit organization promoting a worldview for the next generations’ solutions.  Emerging Ecology hosts a blog dedicated to exploring these themes.  People who are interested can join the discussion at http://tell-new-story.blogspot.com.