The Ojai Foundation, a beautiful place for spiritual seekers, this week inaugurated a "great teacher series" by bringing deep ecologist and Buddhist Joanna Macy in to lead a workshop and give a talk.
A truly inspiring talk it was, and I don't write such words often, being a bit of a skeptic about gurus and leaders of all sorts.
It's so easy, so enjoyable really, to turn our problems over to some one else to solve.
For example: Barack Obama. I love the guy, I really do, but he can't possibly be expected to answer all the global questions he's been asked. The more we expect of him, in fact, the less likely he is to succeed.
Macy didn't address that aspect of our woes, but she did make a fundamental point, which cannot be repeated too often to people concerned about the fate of our world.
"It is natural for us to be distressed over the state of the world. We are integral components of it, like cells in a larger body. When that body is traumatized, we feel it," she pointed out. "Our culture conditions us to view pain as dysfunction. A successful person, as we conclude from commercials and electoral campaigns, brims with optimism... "Be sociable." "Keep smiling." "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."
She sees our plight as a conflict between two stories. In the first story, which is variously called Business as Usual, Late Capitalism, or the Industrial Growth Society, all the focus is on the growth of the economy -- money. "In order for us to be comfortable and safe, this system is ready and willing to do anything."
In the second story, which she calls The Great Unraveling, we see the bill for decades of extraction, exploitation, extinction, and ruin come due. "Just to speak of this, to transform it into words, seems inadequate," she said. "It takes moral imagination to see what is happening now, this moment is so huge."
But her focus is on the third story, which she dubs The Great Turning, and what's fascinating is that unlike most of our leaders -- even great ones, such as Obama -- she admits uncertainty as to our fate. We really don't know how it's all going to come out. She sees this uncertainty as a gift. As in love, as in childbirth, as in raising a garden, our success is not foretold.
"We have this notion in America that we ought to be sure [of our success in an endeavor] before we start," she said. "We are addicted to hope in this culture. But hope takes you out of the present moment. You have a chance to be alive at this moment. Isn't that what you want?"
Thank you, Joanna Macy, for articulating this thought, for helping me and countless others transform our fear for our world into a desire to act for it...out of love.
