What is needed to establish the continuity and the unity of the whole universal order of things. St. Thomas says, as regards the universe, he says why are there so many different things in the universe? He says and he posits, first of all difference which is the perfection of the universe, the primary direction of the universe is toward differentiation. No two things are ever alike, no two snowflakes, even in time no two moments are the same. When you leave this room you'll be different from when you entered this room. We are different, things are different, life moves differently. Now this, but he also says, why are there so many different things? And he says, because the divine could not image itself for it in any one being, it created a great diversity of things. So that the perfection lacking to one would be supplied by the others. And the whole universe together will participate in and manifest the divine more than any single being whatsoever. It was a great continuity and Saint Thomas further goes into the question of, that things cannot be envisioned simply in their isolated selves. Nothing is itself without everything else. That is why in the total story of the universe, it has taken 14 billion years to have us here. For each of us to be who we are is 14 billion years of earth history, of universe history around them. Four billion years of earth history, and this is the great worth. Now, this project, the project earth, has entered this period of endangerment. And must move from the discontinuity to the continuity of the universe. Because the universe can no longer endure discontinuity where the humans, for instance, in law. The difficulty, politically is that we, our Constitution is politically the ultimate term of reference in judging how things are to function in the society to which we belong. But in the Constitution, the Constitution based on participatory government, individual rights and private property, it's individual. It's participatory government by humans and for humans, and no rights for the non human. And so far the individual rights and ownership of property, it's always the human served at the expense of the non human. To move now from a world governed by discontinuity to a world of continuity requires several things. First of all, it requires an understanding that the universe is communion of subjects, not a collection of objects. Just think of that, a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects. And we have this from our first awakening to the universe, we have it to this day. An awareness that a tree is not an object to be exploited. Your first impress when you see a flower or see a tree, or see a sunset, or see the ocean, or see anything in the natural world. Your first impress is a communion experience. How wonderful is this. How wonderful a reality and to live in a universe where there are flowers, where there are sunsets, where there's a sun in the heavens. Where there is so many wonderful creatures of earth. Where there's a song of the birds and the butterflies and the cicada in the evening. Where there's all of this, obviously it's not a collection of objects to be used, obviously it's a world to be venerated. It's a world to be communed with, to be present, to be delighted in. And together to have a certain experience that might be called ecstatic experience, that's the first. And to keep that in mind, if we kept that in mind, how could we devastate the forest? How could we take the wetlands aways from the migratory birds? We would recognize the rights of the salmon to their spawning ground, the rights of birds to their migratory paths. The rights of the rivers to flow, and not be destroyed by being needlessly dammed and so forth. We would not pollute the oceans, we would not absorb the vast shoals of fish out of the seas in this way. We would be sensitive and we would see that if that is damaged, our souls are destroyed. Because this is not simply to lose these things, it's not an economic loss, it's a soul loss. We lose everything worth living for. We lose the divine, we lose our better selves, we lose our music, our poetry, our whole capacity to be present to ourselves or to each other. We lose any possibility of fulfillment. And when the children in our cities are no longer able to see the stars because of the light pollution in our cities, it's not just pollution of some kind. It's a soul loss, that the children, it will affect them forever. And, so, with their loss of other things. I don't want to just talk too long on the dark side of things. But simply to bring to bear the fact that we do have this rapport, which is primary. The second thing in healing of the situation and to establish the continuity, is to always be conscious that the human is a sub system of the earth system. The human is the sub system of the earth system in all four areas. In the, in the economics, so obviously, we cannot have a rising gross human product with a declining gross earth product. And the first law of economics has to be to preserve the integrity of the economic integrity of the planet. The first law of medicine has to be to preserve the health of the planet. You cannot have well humans on a sick planet. A five year old child would know that. You cannot have a healthy human economy without a healthy earth economy, and so for everything else. And so the need of education, of first educators is the universe about us. Read Maria Montessori, particularly the instructions she gave in educating six year olds. And pointing out very clearly in her book to educate the human potential, the role that the universe plays in the shaping and formation and the development of children of six year olds. And you see quite clearly the education that's necessary in the sense of the universe. So that's the second thing in carrying out the great work. The third thing is to, and this is a difficult one I think, is that the planet earth will never again function in the future the way it has functioned in the past. That is the burden of educators at the present time. Is to educate not for the declining sinusoid, but for the emerging eco siod, the period when people will be present to the planet in a mutually enhancing way. Because in the future, there's more to think about, because we have intruded so profoundly into the functioning of the planet. That whereas the planet developed in its all its gorgeous qualities and all its splendor and its radiance completely apart from humans, because we didn't exist. So that what we see so beautiful, the river here, the palisade, the trees, and all of this, we didn't exist when all this came into being. But in this beauty, in the future, we have so intruded on the functioning of the soil. We've changed the soil, we've even changed the chemistry of the planet. We have changed the conditions to life in such a profound way that almost nothing is going to happen that we will not be involved in. And when I was born, there were less than two billion people on the planet. Young people now will see 8 to 10 billion. And the luxuries that I enjoy, that we enjoy, they will not enjoy for very long. Because the petroleum based way of life, industrial way of life that we are living,. Our food is petroleum, our transportation petroleum, our clothing is petroleum, our transportation is petroleum, just about our entire utensils are so extensively, well they would be all gone. This immense population to take care of, but without this basic resource that will never exist again. And we have to prepare the next generation for that. But we have to prepare them first of all in their minds. They have to understand how to have a fulfillment of soul and not simply how to mechanize things. But that's a difficulty we have tried to exploit without developing the soul. So that's the third thing, and things like the ozone layer, my generation didn't have to worry about the ozone layer. All future generations will have to worry about the ozone layer. And take care that it keeps its capacity to fulfill its role, as regards the dynamics of the planet earth, and the life systems of the planet earth. So there are these things that I would suggest in restoring a sense of the continuity. We cannot do anything without everything else and the planet earth lives or dies together. It's not simply that humans prosper or decline together but the planet earth prospers or declines in a unity. You cannot have an illness of one part without that being reflected on another, we are that intimate with each other. And with everything on the planet and our history is so woven into this process that we cannot tell the story of anything in the universe, you have to tell the story of the universe. Of course, the universe in it's every deed is contained in our own bodies in the structure of our own being. And that is an ascent to greater self. When I ask why scientists are so driven to understand the universe, understand the planet. Why, take Steven Weinberg who wrote such a marvelous account of the first three minutes of the universe. And he told us a wonderful story of how things came to be. And our modern story of the universe is that exciting, it can be considered in many ways greater than any creation story ever to be thought of by humans. Our story is a great and wonderful story. But, at the end of his book, Steven Weinberg says the more you know about the universe, the more pointless it seems. You have to wonder why he was so dull of mind that he didn't respond to that. So coming back to the great work. And the reconstitution of the continuity between the human and the non human, and the salvation of the human to the non human. And the non human of course now depending so profoundly on the human. It's a great issue and it is a great work.
