What I'm thinking
In my studies and my work, I focus on the intersection between money and spirituality (or religion, or faith, or morality—whatever you choose to call the center of your values). When I tell people that, they usually respond with some kind of huh or hmm or oh!. It took a long time for me to be able to articulate this interest. But then my supervisor at my field education site shared this quote, from lawyer and environmental policy advisor Gus Speth:
“I used to think that the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
Ah, I thought. Yes! Selfishness, greed, and apathy are also responsible for the economic and community inequality that we see across our neighborhoods and the globe. Consider:
While the five richest men in the world have more than doubled their wealth since 2020, five billion people have become poorer.
White families in the United States had six times the average wealth of Black and Hispanic families in 2022.
The richest one percent of the world’s population emit as much carbon pollution as the poorest two-thirds.
The concurrent global catastrophes of extreme inequality and climate change are metastasizing, threatening cultures, places, and governments. These twin cataclysms are bound together, and the point at which they are entangled is a deep crisis of values.
I don’t mean to say that we are evil or bad people, but we remain bound by a self-oriented, self-absorbed, and self-anesthetized collective unconscious.[1][2] Materialism, consumerism, oversimplification, and isolation have infiltrated our groundwater, shaping who we are, how we behave, what we expect, and how we treat others.[3]
We are being called to a spiritual revolution, to new ways of being.
No one wants to hear this (not even me). Perhaps it sounds unnecessarily dramatic. To me, it feels urgent and necessary. Of course, it has been urgent and necessary for decades. I can’t help but think that there is something about this particular time, though—challenges (and opportunities, perhaps) that this time provides, causes and consequences of where we are right now in history.
I am trying to say: There are many things we do not know and we cannot predict, but I believe that the days ahead are going to demand some decisions of me and you. I hope I can make those decisions and transitions bravely. I want to double down on mutual responsibility and establish more consistency between what I value and how I live.
[1] It is with great humility that I use the plural first person, recognizing that it is always dangerous and potentially off-putting to presume for others. I do so to stress that, even though responsibility for causing this crisis is not equally shared, we are all—regardless of class, political suasion, race, or age—implicated in resisting and revising the structures that enable it. Many people are living with integrity, selflessness, courage, and care, lighting the way.
[2] The concept of a collective unconscious comes from C.G. Jung. It “does not develop individually but is inherited,” incubating instincts and beliefs deep within us.
[3] With gratitude and respect, I have adapted the groundwater metaphor from Bayard Love and Deena Hayes-Greene, The Groundwater Approach: Building a Practical Understanding of Structural Racism, The Racial Equity Institute, 2018. The ecological concept of groundwater serves as an apt metaphor, given that over 95% of freshwater on the planet is in fact below the surface. No matter what we do with the surface water, groundwater infiltrates the earth.