Healing and Reconciliation as the Basis for the Sustainability of Life: An Ecological Plea for a "Deep" Healing and Reconciliation (1)

Jung, Lee Hong, International Review of Mission

Abstract

The global free market has become the complex venue where all living beings in the web of life have been turned into commodities. Globalization is the accelerated global integration of capital, production and markets, and has become a code name for the transnational "corporatization" of the world. Globalization is incompatible with justice, peace and security, diverse cultural identities, socio-psychological sustainability, and ecological environmental sustainability. Globalization is a process that brings about disintegration between economy and ecology, history and nature, lifestyle and spirituality, and the local and global The impact of globalization has brought the web of life to near-total chaos, and to the point of a critical breakdown of sustainability. Put another way, globalization has led both to the impoverishment of many peoples' total life experience, and to the detrimental effects that are taking place upon the ecosystems of the "earth household" The equity and balance of the web of life based on the principle of interdependency are being totally disordered and destroyed. Therefore, the fundamental sustainability of the whole living system that makes up life on earth is now at a critical stage.

Behind the path of globalization is an anthropocentric worldview. This holds a dualistic view of humanity and nature; it believes that unlimited material progress is to be achieved through economic and technological growth at the expense of nature. An alternative to anthropocentric thinking is life-centric systemic thinking, which shifts our view of the world from the mechanistic worldview of Descartes and Newton to a holistic, ecological view. This requires us to integrate history with nature, and economy with ecology, and to do so from the perspectives of inseparable relationships, interconnectedness and contexts. Life-centric systemic thinking can only provide the in-depth foundational perception, strategy and praxis for a "deep" healing and reconciliation of the wounded and broken web of the 'earth household'.

Today, what sustainability really means should be extended to the entire web of life, on which our long-term survival depends. We need to understand the principles of organization that ecosystems have developed to sustain the web of life. We need particularly to reflect on the interdependency between humans and the earth, because the paradigms of human relationships have been intrinsically and intuitively shaped by the relationship between humans and the earth. To realize and socialize principles of sustainability, principles of ecology, principles of community, or even the basic facts of life will be the most important parts of being an ecologically conscientious human society. Healing and reconciliation is a process of restoring and empowering the ecological nature of human relationships, and, by doing so, of strengthening the sustainability of the whole living web of relationships. Only through an ecologically conscientious human society can the proper relationship be re-established between economy and ecology, between history and nature, between life style and spirituality, and between the global and local in which all truly participate in the manifestation of God's life-creating love that desires the fullness of life for all.

A life-centric systemic perception of history with nature

As the new century moves with apocalyptic uncertainty down the path of globalization, the concerns for the sustainability of the 'earth household' itself have become of paramount importance. We are heed with a whole series of global-local problems that are harming both the biosphere and human life in alarming ways. This process may soon become irreversible. We may be the last generation of humanity to have the opportunity to avert ecological collapse and irreparable damage to the systems that sustain complex life on earth. "We are sawing off the branch that we are sitting on" (Paul Ehrlich), and, "It is as if the brain were to decide that it is the most important organ in the body and started mining the liver." (James Lovelock). The 'earth household' has been critically wounded and broken, and is now crying for a "deep" healing and reconciliation in order to ensure the sustainability of the whole interconnected and interdependent living systems.

What is the underlying perceptual psychological distortion that afflicts modern humanity, and allows us to shred the ecological fabric matrix out of which we are woven? Ultimately, all the global-local problems must be seen as different facets of one substantial single crisis, viz., a crisis of perception. This derives from the fact that most human societies, especially those that are the driving forces of globalization, subscribe to the concepts of an anthropocentric worldview, a dualistic view of humanity and nature, and a perception of reality inadequate both economically and ecologically for dealing with our globally-locally interconnected world. Based on anthropocentrism, humans have been obsessed with their self-importance. Humans perceive themselves as the centre of the earth, and therefore the centre of the universe, as if the earth were still the centre of the universe. This anthropocentric, dualistic view of the world has provided the conceptual legitimacy of a view of life in society that sees the world as a jungle, and life within it as a continual struggle for survival. This approach to the world also believes that unlimited material progress is to be achieved through economic and technological growth at the expense of nature. Such a view has also legitimized the belief that a society in which the female is subsumed under the male is one that follows a basic law of nature. (2)

In spite of the modern delusion of alienation, of separation from the living earth, humans are not aliens; we belong to the 'earth household'. The human psyche is also earth-born, and it contains ecological and historical memories of continuous evolution in God's economy. According to John Seed, the complex, dynamic biology from which psyche emerged necessarily remains the matrix and the grounding of any sane psychology. (3) However, through continuous anthropocentric conditioning, absorbed by osmosis since the day we were born, we humans have inherited shallow, fictitious selves, and have created an incredibly pervasive illusion of separation from the earth. On the one hand, people are willing to die in defence of one social fiction or another, e.g., a religion, nation, or political ideological system, and yet, on the other hand, people attack the earth, which gave rise to all of these social structures, even though without it no one can exist. We have not learned to identify with the 'earth household', though we are born, live and die in her; we have made ourselves forget this. We are losing the eco-psychological nature of human society, which makes us able to integrate ourselves with the 'earth household', and to serve it. (4)

The apocalyptic reality of the 'earth household' today, which is an inevitable consequence of a history of anthropocentric conditioning, now requires a radical shift in our perceptions, thinking and values. New concepts in physics have brought about a profound change in our worldview: from the mechanistic worldview of Descartes and Newton to a holistic, ecological view. By calling the emerging new vision of reality "ecological" in a much broader and deeper sense than usual, i.e., in the sense of "deep ecology" (5), we emphasize that Life (Sangmyung in Korean) is at its centre. In the old paradigm, physics has been the model and source of metaphors for all other sciences; the roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches are all the other sciences. Today, the paradigm shift in science, at its deepest level, implies a shift from physics to the life sciences.

To "deep ecology", the world is seen not as a pyramid with humans on top but as a web. Humans are but one strand in that web, and as we destroy other strands, we destroy ourselves. Deep ecological awareness recognizes the fundamental interdependency of all phenomena, and the fact that, as individuals and societies, we are all embedded in and ultimately dependent on the cyclical processes of the 'earth household'. In this interdependent living system, every organism is an integrated whole, i.e., it is a living system in its own right, and all systems nest within other systems. The …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: Healing and Reconciliation as the Basis for the Sustainability of Life: An Ecological Plea for a "Deep" Healing and Reconciliation (1). Contributors: Jung, Lee Hong - Author. Journal title: International Review of Mission. Volume: 94. Issue: 372 Publication date: January 2005. Page number: 84+. © 1998 World Council of Churches. COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.