Where do people turn for guidance in the 21st
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.
