I’ve just finished reading and reviewing Re-Enchantment: The New Australian Spirituality, by Melbournian David Tacey. In reference to my question below, “What is Spirituality?....discuss” it goes along way to not totally defining what it is. However, Tacey in his search from the essence of a uniquely Australian Spirituality raises some really interesting concepts [most of which I will totally miss the point of – especially seeing as thought it is now 11:54pm, - check that, 12:06 am and I started reading this yesterday morning at 7:00am]. One such concept is around the theme Ecospirituality and Environmental Awareness.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few years, you would have no doubt been exposed to the increased rhetoric around the Other. For an interesting discussion on it, check out Sparky’s thoughts over at Knox Communities. The meaning behind the Other has changed since it was first used by the likes of Levinas and Derrida, but I found within Tacey – I think – a possible additional meaning, and layer to the Other. Another Other, so to speak….

Tacey writes:

Nature is not only outside us but also within, and ultimately, what we do to nature we do also to ourselves. In killing off the spiritual essence of the Earth, we end up killing ourselves, for this essence nourishes our own biological and spiritual life….Only something truly mythic or spiritual, such as…the notion that the world is the living body of the Cosmic Christ, is large or effective enough to bridge the gap currently separating human identity from the natural world [p 168]

Do you see where I am going with this? We have been on for quite some time about our mandate to love neighbour as our selves, (there was once a man going down to Jerusalem from Jericho…)to be the one who stands fast with the Other – the one that is alone, and is alien in the land. But what if we also viewed our natural environment as an Other? What if we did see a tree, or our water resources, or our uranium as part of the body of the Cosmic Christ? Would that change the way we live?

God tried to get humanity to care for the environment [see the Jubilee Laws in Leviticus – not only is about restoration of human dignity, it is also about sustainable use of the natural resources] but we have taken the Genesis notion of “ruling over the earth” to the ‘nth’ degree, and now our world is beginning to say “ENOUGH!!” We may well be on the verge of the apocalypse as some people believe, but not because of the War in the middle-east, but because we have destroyed God’s own creation.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? I should I find an Other?