Eco Catholic

On the NCR Today blog, senior correspondent John L. Allen Jr. reports on Pope Benedict's creation of a new in-house watchdog to promote compliance with international rules against financing terrorism, money-laundering, insider trading and market abuse. In addition to creating new penalties for financial misconduct, Benedict XVI has also criminalized environmental pollution.

In article 18, the new law establishes a penalty of up to six months imprisonment and a fine of $3,500 to $35,000 for anyone who pollutes the soil or water, and establishes the same penalties for polluting the atmosphere. The jail term rises to a year, and the fines range from $7,000 to $70,000, if the pollution occurs with hazardous substances.

Recently, a friend said, “We need to have a mindset of abundance. God is infinite and there is no lack in God.” I’m decidedly uncomfortable with this sentiment and similar popular ideas, all about material wealth with a spiritual spin to it.

I am amazed at how clever we’ve been at using the Bible and theology to justify our positions. And we are still at it, justifying our extreme wealth in the face of global poverty with platitudes about abundance.

I like the Christmas season, with its unique high spirits, days of leisure, and surcease from normal workloads. But you can’t beat the feeling I get in early January when the decorations are put away and things return to normal. I’ve had my fun and relaxation, and now it’s time to get moving with renewed purpose. It’s almost like there is a palpable, collective energy in the air whispering, “Arise. It’s a new beginning.”

So hope emerges, oozing out of the fresh pages of a colorful new calendar. The past is gone, the future allures, silently beckoning with a finger to come try again. Whether written or not, most of us make some sort of new year’s resolutions, in spite of the fact that we usually don’t keep them for very long, if at all. Is there any way out of this pattern of zeal and determination morphing into laziness and the comfortable old status quo?
t
I am here to support your desire for self-improvement. I am the Angel of Encouragement drowning out the voices that tell you not to bother trying. I am Lady Wisdom offering advice on how to make this year different.

The following little drama takes place often when we visit our nearest organic food emporium. My wife and I wait in the checkout line. We watch the persons in front of us pay for their free-range eggs, their pesticide-free spinach, their freshly-squeezed herbal tinctures and their organic vitamins. Then the checker asks them to choose between paper or plastic. Either option is a choice that harms the environment, either by destroying trees or clogging landfills.

What is spirituality? It is a steepening, like soaking tea leaves. It is a steepening of the mind and heart, body and soul. We are the leaves, the bodies immersed in a broth of mystery, absorbing the way of nature and the way of transcendence.

Spirituality is a way of living. It is an attitude, a motivation, a feeling practiced and a practiced feeling. A feeling practiced becomes a habitual way of feeling. And a practiced feeling points to the recurrence as well as the deepening that comes with a process of valuation, recurrent integration, and sustained conviction. Spirituality is not the end or purpose of living, the goal for which one lives. It is a manner, a style, process or method by which one lives in light of the goal. It is the stuff of character by which one creates character. Spirituality shows itself in the seasoning, which accompanies one's way of being…. like tea, one can be steeped! It is the steepening which gives character to one's spirituality. How are you steeped?

Are you steeped into some tradition, a way of life and being which has informed your thoughts, your words, your choices and actions? How have you steeped yourself? Lightly or thoroughly?