Step Out and Breath the Peace

Step Out and Breath the Peace
..by dr. michael a. bengwayan

...it's 4 am, far from being bright. i step out in the garden, greeted by the cold whiff of siberian wind..the terrace spotlights reveal frosted grasses, lemon and cherry leaves awash with icy dewdrops. such mornings call us to brightness of spirit and to healing the deep hurts of the soul. step out and breathe in the peace. turn up the palms to give thanks and receive strength for the day and wisdom to begin this year. because nature thrives where humans give up, the negative is turned away. all around us the breathtaking views tell us to do the same...

Weep Earth, Weep Poor

Weep Earth, Weep Poor
by Michael A. Benngwayan

Today, we mark a new year. Millions all over the world rejoiced. But behind this reality is a grimmer picture. Billions as well are weeping.

Today, never in the history of human civilization  have the poor's plight become so central, especially the oppressed and the outcasts.

The poor, the most threatened of nature's creatures comprise 79 per cent of all humankind. One billion of them live in the state of absolute poverty, 3 billion out of the world's total population of 7 billion plus do not have enough to eat; 60 to 70 million die of hunger every year; and,  14-20 million under fifteen years of age die each year as a result of hunger-related diseases.

Earth as well is crying out.

The logic that exploits the poor and oppressed and subjects them to the interests of few rich and powerful countries is the same as the logic that devastates the Earth. Plunders its wealth. Showing no solidarity with the rest of humankind and future generations.

This logic of standing above things and above everything, has shattered the fragile balance of the universe, built up with great wisdom by nature through the Maker's design, through 15 billion years.

During the past four centuries humans felt they are all alone in the universe and that nature was to be subjected and tamed.

They have instead become Earth's Butcher as they have proven they can commit not only homicide and ethnocide but biocide and geocide as well.

When from 1500 to 1850 one species have been wiped out every ten years, a species a day is disappearing since 1990.

Humans' death machine is mowing down life in its most varied forms.

And whatever is left of most life forms--plants and animals-- especially those for food and medicine, are now owned, patented and kept/exploited by the richest countries and multinational groups. Far from the reach of the poor.

The poor and the oppressed must be liberated.  Nature's last remaining life forms must equally be liberated from the tentacles of greed.
    

Learn to Respect Creation and Treat Them as Sacred

Learn to Respect Creation and Treat Them as Sacred
by Michael A. Bengwayan

The world of the 19th and 20th centuries can be considered as the time  that Earth was pillaged at its worst.

During those centuries, it was not a sacral world.  It was a world losing its quality of enchantment because of mechanistic science and spiritless spiritualities.

The captains of the extractive industries rampaged around and inside Earth--taking by force anything that could run their industries and put money in their pockets. Tribes, communities, countries, habitats,forests, lands, lakes fell by the ways of the masters of disasters.

The powers that be and their partners in research laboratories pushed to transpose the workings of nature into precise mathematical language as if they were dealing with a complicated machine. This Cartesian-Newtonian method, domineering and disenchanting brought forth industrial development, wealth and high standards of living.

But it also  resulted to grave ecological consequences.

The consequences we all now feel is increasingly hard to sustain. Worse, it is creating a graveyard for the future generations.

As our economic and environmental limitations become more obvious every day, we  are obliged to shift to a new framework of thought. We must revise our assumptions about nature and the role of humankind.

We must see ourselves as  part of  a larger, integrated totality. A part dependent on a whole, just as a whole depends on the perfect functioning of every integral part.

So where do we fit in this whole system?

We fit in it as part of an interdependent component, which someone  has planned since the beginning through a deliberate design. A design made by some infinite creative capacity  and inexhaustible imagination.

There is no scientific method that can prove God's existence. And there is also no  method that can deny God's existence and His presence in this design.

Because there is nothing to prove.

Even one of the great early scientific minds who denied the presence of a Maker accepted before his death-- astronomer and philosopher Sir James Jeans--  "the universe is  not a machine. It is the result of a great THOUGHT by someone.

And as part of that great thought, we were created with non-humans in an environment where we are partly matter. And partly spirit.

As part  matter, we are able to reach out to other humans.  Either with love. Most often, hate.

As part matter, we reached out to other creation as humans. Mostly using, exploiting and destroying.

As part spirit, we are able to reach out to our Designer and Maker who is pure in spirit. Pure in being.

Today, this new year,  and as part spirit, we must now start reaching out to other creation with sacred respect and reverence.

Something we have not done so for the past 2,000 years or so when we were told to be "good stewards".

That is, if we want to preserve our very own home. Because there is no other Earth. And time is running out.

For the Designer will not take it lightly to see His other creations destroyed by those He has entrusted these to be protected.

Living in Eco-Spirituality

Living in Eco-Spirituality
By Dr. Michael A. Bengwayan

As we face a new year, we equally realize the gigantic problems mankind faces because of his own-making. That of destroying his own home. His own world.

A believing Christian may lead a fruitful spiritual life and reach union with God without being very concerned about ecology. Similarly, someone may be a good ecologist without practicing any religion or even believing in God as revealed in Judeo-Christian scriptures. Yet there is an area where contemporary ecology and Christian spirituality overlap.

The area of eco-spirituality.

This is one of what humans today lack. Among the billions of us, many  fail to seek and find God by reverencing life in all its diversity and non-living things in all their nobility as reflections of an all wise and loving Creator.

We should not limit our spirituality only in prayers, sacred scriptures, the sacraments and in loving service to our neighbors.

Spirituality and ecology deal with common reality--cosmos--the world where humanity dwells together with all plants and animals. No one escapes the fact of being situated in this world in physical and material reality. The living human spirit is always enfleshed in material body, always being in the world  with other beings, all interacting and interdependent.

When we live spiritually,  we breathe the same air, drink the same water, walk on the same Earth as people who are living ecologically.. Beyond this obvious commonality, we share many values such as reverence for life and appreciation for beauty.

We must explore ecology and spirituality to merge a single eco-spiritual vision and a style of life.

Because of my personal experiences for more than 30 years in working with the environment, local peoples, farmers, forest dwellers, indigenous people and social entrepreneurs in my own country in the Philippines, India, China, Taiwan, Nepal, Indonesia, Tanzania, Ireland, Sweden, United States and Germany,  I approach eco-spirituality from the side tradition--expanding awareness rather than seeking spiritual validation.

Rev 21:1 adheres that as believers in the Redeemer we should expect "a new heaven and a new Earth" as revealed to the seer of Patmos. We equally  believe in the value and meaning of the present material cosmos which is mysteriously foreordained to share in our human destiny.

Eco-spiritual style of living collaborates in the divine plan to bring about the new creation for the praise of God's glory.

I end my faint call from this obscure side of a forest by affirming my conviction that the land and all in it are holy by recalling Chief Seattle's voice:

    "..every part of this soil is sacred....every hillside, valley, plain, grove hallowed by     some sad or happy event in days long vanished; even the rocks which seem to be     dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun, thrill with memories connected to the     lives of my people"....

Christmas Message --Being True to Our Spiritual Calling

Dear friends,

As the year ends, and we are once again brought to prayers to remember the most unforgettable time in Christendom, we have plenty to thank for even as our lives and that of our countrymen have been plagued by natural disasters, government-tailored chaotic events, divisiveness, disagreements, economic necessities and our hidden longing for peace of mind. I hope each of you had better days than bad ones, I have not met many of you recently. Still, I am positive we will be working together again by next year.

I have not been in the best of health this year, squeezing tree-planting work with appointments with doctors and spending time within the confines of the hospital for some time and hopping off to Mindanao now and then to work with Lumads.

We have heard or read what they all agreed on at Paris last year. But agreement is one thing. Doing something about the deal is another thing. The work still rests on us who are on the front lines, we the locals whose accumulated work affects global. There is much to be done, still. So tree planting must not only be hastened but made more extensive as forests have been named --our best hope in having a cleaner, less warm world.

It must be remembered that bringing down CO2 emission levels is more of rhetoric than a reality. For as long as the rich nations and corporations burning fossil fuel have not imposed mandatory self-penalizing honorable promises, not too many will work along the deal. But tree planting is a reality we can do. Something we can make work with no rhetoric.

So I urge you to stay focused. To stay true to what we have committed. To plant a tree. No one can question the positive contributions of trees, not unless you are a greedy corporate tyrant, a bribed legal mind, mindless mining company or vision less politician. Let us continue planting trees.
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May God bless us all and keep us true to our spiritual calling on this Earth.

Merry Christmas..

2016: Ravaged Earth, Changing World, The Need for an Ecological Revolution

2016:  Ravaged Earth,  Changing World, The Need for an Ecological Revolution
By Michael A. Bengwayan, Ph.D

The year 2016 was a picture of Earth dying faster than before.

The desecration of the world's forests is accelerating and deserts continue to expand. Soil erosion is not just sapping agricultural production but also the livelihood of millions, while the extinction of plant and animal species is rapidly diminishing our biological heritage.

For a worsening part in history, we are altering the atmosphere itself, destroying the ozone layer that protects us from ultraviolet radiation and raising the level of greenhouse gasses that are warming the Earth.

The deterioration of the Earth's physical condition is now accelerating. And there is nothing in prospect that will reverse it in the foreseeable future. We are now in a race to stop or stymy environmental deterioration, before it becomes unmanageable, before it leads to social disruption and economic decline.

On the encouraging side, there is a global agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emission. But there is little concrete action by corporations and countries guzzling fossil fuel. But all over the world, there are scattered social action of people taking the matter into their own hands--by planting trees.

Social change occurs when people alter the way they perceive some of the elements constituting their world. People cross a perceptual threshold that forces them to see and judge some aspect of their world in a new light.

Tree planters, in a microcosm, take it upon themselves to plant trees voluntarily because of perceptual shifts that ingrain ethical components. Their effective response to environmental threats require a perception of the Earth's natural system crossing a paradigm shift. They give rise to optimism in dealing with the larger threats because they believe that major climate change problems will happen to a dangerous point before societies respond.

Perceptual shifts of profound proportions are needed to respond adequately to global warming. Indeed, crossing the perceptual threshold launches humanity toward a new moral frontier. A growing sense of interdependence and connectedness takes shape--the beginning  of a second ecological revolution.

Without a strong sense that people favor the fundamental changes needed to respond to ecological threats. governments do not take necessary actions. Instead,  individuals everywhere must raise their understanding, concern and voices to a point where political leaders are forced to respond.

So on 2017, will you cross these perceptual thresholds to avoid major ecological backlash? Through a major transformation of attitudes and priorities, will you ride the bull on the horn and offer a glimpse of hope in the horizon?

Will you help forge a better ecological destiny?

Grassroots: Earth’s Last Vanguards

Grassroots:  Earth’s Last Vanguards

By MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN Ph. D.

The villagers of Marilog and Pacquibato in Davao surviving on logged-over parched hillsides may have never heard of the word desertification but they know better than any agriculturist that their soil is exhausted.

That the land is dry. That hunger is on their  heels. And that death stalks the land.

Women on the banks of Marble River in Kidapawan, North Cotabato may not know what an infant mortality rate is. But they know all too well the helpless agony of holding an infant as it dies of diarrhea.

Forest dwellers in Lusod, Kabayan, Benguet may never have been told of mass extinction of species occurring in their Mount Pulag but they know far better than any biologist the death feeling as they watch their primeval homeland raped by commercial farmers and tourists.

These women and men understand global deterioration in its rawest forms.

To them creeping degradation of ecosystem has meant  diminishing source of food and medicine, declining health, failing livelihoods, and longer workdays.

But they are not standing idle to watch death reap them away.

In villages, tribal homes, shanty communities, people are coming out to discuss and respond to the tightening ecological conditions confronting them in the midst of climate change.

Viewed in isolation, their initiatives may look modest. But in fact, collectively, it is the best approach to fighting global warming—25 mothers plant trees around their kaingins, 100 children reforest a balding hill, a gang of farmers collect wildlings and replant these atop a spring gushing with crystal clear water and a group of NGO volunteers prevent erosion of a mountain..

All over the world, you can see these images. From a global perspective their scale and impact are monumental.

Indeed, local organizations are the frontline in the worldwide struggle to lessen environmental degradation.

While scientists, politicians, policy makers, funders and technocrats crow, grandstand and puncture the air with rhetoric, hardly experiencing or walking their talk.

Although individual groups are little known outside their locality, the overall movements they form is a latticework of human organization, so effective that if only coordinated with a fine mix of rigid institutions of leadership and coordination, can be like a colony of ants or a hive of bees all focused with one mission.

Farmers groups, mothers clubs, student groups, religious groups, peasants unions, tribal networks and neighborhood organizations—these are grassroots.

These are hope. And in saving Earth, they may be the only ones left effective.  

Compared to powerful alliances often tainted by countries and organiizers' hidden motives and bureaucracy.