Imagine!: a response to Rabbi Lerner

What a pity that Rabbi Lerner's voice was not heard during the recent presidential campaign. I find his article strangely comforting. Not only does the good rabbi help me overcome some unhealthy judgmentalism by reassuring me that the motivation of the voters who put Bush back in the White House had something to do with seeking "value in life beyond success in the marketplace"--but he sparks my imagination! He inspires me to begin dreaming about how we whose moral values differ from the "Christian right" can begin to appeal to our common desire for "some sense of transcendent purpose."

As much as we might wish that we lived in the carefully maintained secular society of a country like France, separation of church and state seems to be less and less the case here, judging from the political discourse of those in power. It is because of that reality that Rabbi Lerner challenges those of us whose values actually caused us to vote the Democratic ticket to speak out about ethical living.

Since I have the advantage of wearing a round collar, as an Episcopal priest and a life-long spiritual seeker, I am hoping that people will listen to me, as I respond to the deep disappointment of the 2004 election by inviting people of every political stripe to broaden and deepen their vision of morality.

Several years ago, I had the privilege of taking David Orr's introductory environmental studies class at Oberlin College. As I sat in his class, I began to identify a new "ethical language," expressed through a vocabulary based on the way both the natural world and the world of human society really works.

It was the phrase "ecological design" that first caught my attention. David explained that, when we act according to the design embedded in the natural world, things work. In other words, they are sustainable--on-going. Agriculture is sustainable when nutrients, like compost or manure, are continuously added to the soil, so that farming does not deplete its fertility. Energy is sustainable when it comes from renewable resources, such as wind and water. The economy of our town is sustainable when the small businesses that line Main Street are not sabotaged by the building of a WalMart on the outskirts of town. Our lives are sustainable when they do not jeopardize the lives of those who follow us and when they contribute to the health and well-being of those who share the planet with us. In terms of human society, sustainability is another way of talking about "loving one's neighbor." It helps draw us beyond our egocentricity and selfishness, through a response to a higher principle, whether you call it ecological design, Gaia, or God.

The problem with "moral values" is that, for many religious people, moral values are stuck in the mire of a past time in history, when ethics was understood primarily in terms of interpersonal relationships, or in terms of relationship with a judgmental God. The emphasis on sexual ethics, as understood by the Christian right, is a prime example.

I wonder how much good it does to insist, "You are wrong," to those people whose spirits are firmly fixed in this kind of moralism. Instead, it might be better to think quietly to ourselves, "You can grow," and to begin to sow seeds that will perhaps initiate that process.

How about beginning with Scripture--to be specific, Genesis 20:1-17. There, we can read the story of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. We can look at these commandments through the lens of fundamentalism, or we can look more deeply into them for the spiritual and ethical truths that they express. Here is my attempt at doing the latter, in the light of today's moral issues, written in the form of what spiritual writers of earlier times would have called "examination of conscience"!

1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

Our "gods" are those things we worship (or "give worth to") in our lives. Who, or what, is really our "god" when it comes to our decision making? What do we put first? Money? Success? Power?

2. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.

Idols are not real; they are human fabrications of "gods." Our present-day idols are the ultimate in unsustainability, because they replace core values with lesser, artificial values which do not work. One example is the "shop until you drop" mentality in which we amass possessions in order to fill a psychological void. In the civic arena, an idol might be public opinion, to which a politician responds, rather than speaking his or her true mind.

3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.

This commandment, at its base, concerns using religion for our own purposes. Using religion as propaganda, or trivializing other religions, is entering dangerous territory. Some would even call it blasphemy--an arrogant lack of reverence. The spiritual teachers of every religion teach that language about the divine is only a human attempt to express the mystery that is beyond words, and that we must never act as if we "own" God or even completely understand God's purposes.

4. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.

Sabbath is rest: a time for cessation of work, and a time for being, rather than doing. It is an opportunity to savor what it means to be alive. This challenges the workaholism of our culture, which provides little time for repose of body, mind, and spirit. Such workaholism steals from us "holy time": the opportunities to take delight in the natural world, or to spend unstructured time with family and friends.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

...and also the generations who will come after us. This affirmation of human community throughout history now calls us not merely to honor our elders (which we are not very good at doing, either!) but our descendants, by living in such a way that we bequeath to them a healthy and beautiful world in which to live.

6. You shall not murder.

Murder is usually defined as killing other human beings--something from which, tragically, we have not yet learned to refrain. But it can also mean violence against the planet or other people or species through more subtle forms of murder: when our purchases or actions (or lack of action) create death, harm, or ugliness, here or elsewhere, now or in the future.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

My dictionary defines "adulterate" as corrupting, debasing, or making impure by the addition of a foreign or inferior substance. It is obvious that, while this commandment was probably originally intended to refer to adulterating a covenant between two married people, there are many other foreign substances which adulterate the integrity of this planet and of human society. Among those which debase the planet are PCBs, nuclear waste, CO2, herbicides--even many of the household products touted by TV commercials and used by the pious, seeking cleanliness after godliness! Probably a good proportion of the list of "seven deadly sins" are on the list of adulterants of human society, from greed and anger to what has long been considered the worst of all, pride.

8. You shall not steal.

Do the comfortable life-styles of our affluent society steal life and well-being from people in poorer countries far away, or from the poor in our own country?

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

In short, don't lie. But bearing false witness can also be our tendency to act like ostriches, "burying our heads in the ground" so as not to hear the truth about the consequences of the choices that we make. Or it can be not speaking the truth when we know it, because of lack of courage.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

This is about both gratitude and justice. The insidious habit of covetousness steals from us our gratitude for our own good fortune as westerners living in a land of relative security and plenty. It nurtures discontent, greed, and fear. This commandment is not merely about not feeling envious, however. It has to do with acting envious. Do we take more than our share of the world's resources? Do we work actively toward justice?

I don't know about you, but I will never be able to read the Ten Commandments again now and come out with a clean slate! Just by living when and where I live, I am implicated in immorality--a far more dangerous breach of ethics than those "sins" considered immoral by many of our compatriots.

Rabbi Lerner writes, "Imagine!"

Imagine that we can begin to insist that a moral person "would never turn his back on the suffering of the poor, that the bible's injunction to love one's neighbor required us to provide health care for all."

Imagine that "building a stronger America" meant discovering the sustainable strength that comes from love and generosity.

We must imagine this.

For this is the way to inspire other imaginations: the imaginations of those who, we thought, were so different from us because they voted differently.

Imagine beckoning them up onto Sinai with Moses to hear the words of the Ten Commandments in a broader and deeper way.

Imagine inviting them to stand beside a first-century Jewish preacher beside the Sea of Galilee, hearing his message of non-violence, justice, and love.

Nancy Roth is working on a book about spirituality and environmental ethics, and this article is only the beginning. Contact her at [email protected]; for additional articles and a list of her books and workshops, check her website at www.revnancyroth.org.