Eco Catholic

The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity, a Web site hosted by Rev. Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Our World and Your Life, features "Conversations at the Leading Edge of Faith," podcast interviews with Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr, Protestant theologian Sallie McFague, educator Michael Morwood, science writer Ian Barbour, scientist Ursula King, and many others. Sign up by visiting the Web site.

Michael Dowd's description of The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity's mission:

"Are you frustrated with how the mainstream media portray the science and religion issue? It's as if the only two games in town were science-rejecting creationism and faith-rejecting atheism. But for the millions of us in the middle who see no conflict between faith and reason, heart and head, Jesus and Darwin, we know that's a false choice. Religious faith and practice can be positively strengthened by what God is revealing through science!

The Organic Consumers Association promotes the production and consumption of organic food, sustainable agriculture and food security for the whole world. Its logo states that it's "campaigning for health, justice, sustainability, peace and justice."

On its Web site currently is an article from the Financial Times by Anne English describing how sustainable agriculture using organic principles and practices is a new paradigm to feed the world while empowering the poor and mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss.

English points out that small farmers already produce 70 percent of the world's food and form the backbone of food security throughout the developing world. We need to recognise the world's small farms as the most appropriate means in which to secure food supply for all, including the poor and to cool the planet, English says.

December stars seem twice as brilliant as those of summer. The sky is doubly clear; the dust of summer is washed out of the atmosphere. The Big Dipper, which is actually not a constellation but what is called an "asterism," a configuration of stars that look like something, is down on the northern horizon. The Big Dipper is part of the greater constellation called Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Native peoples say its on the horizon now because it has come down to wash its paws in the deep lakes before they completely freeze over.

Early Christianity was honed and shaped in the deserts of the Middle East. The desert fathers and mothers from the second and third centuries went to the wilderness so that they could strip from themselves all but the basics of life, to remove all the layers with which we encumber the self, in order to know who they really were, what their place in the universe was. Thoreau-like, they sought to pare life down to its essence, and in the silence and emptiness be able to know something of the divine presence, the tangible murmurings of eternity that penetrate when all distractions are swept away.

Desire and fulfilling those desires keep us so often from seeing the depth of what is. As all we thought we wanted or needed is taken away from us, we come closer and closer to the Mystery at the heart of being.

Jesuit Fr. Karl Rahner coined the wonderful definition of God as “the past-all-graspness.” He describes the emptying that is the paschal mystery thusly:

We are severely damaged by the absence of meaningful mysticism. I believe that only such deep spirituality can give us the wisdom, courage, heart and great souls needed to confront and turn around the government, religions and business institutions that work together now to destroy our world. How else do we engender hope and vitality in the face of these destructive forces?

The human spirit was never meant to live with so much fear and helplessness. So mysticism – the idea that we can directly access the divine in our human experience, in our everyday living – haunts our imagination. I would define meaningful mysticism or spirituality as a capacity for mystery, together with a longing for the infinite.