In the Earth Chxrch we keep noticing that right now – the average person has knocked into the weeds. The forces on a planetary scale – corporations, satellites and drones, fundamentalist religions – such large institutions are operating at full speed and the Earth will have none of it. The Earth is completely ignored by the frantic humans.
So we walk around inside this social life that is officially in denial about where we are. This is a social contract that we all sign together. We will ignore the growing shadow of mass extinction, continue with our money-making poisons and wars. We will let corporations advertise all day, capture us, while we do daily errands, parking the car for take-out…. while the Earth’s ultimate tsunami curls above us. We walk around inside a growing shadow that we know is there.
Well, this has been going on for a while. Trump adds colors to it. Looking up at the sky and calling it all a “hoax.” He LIKES the big shadow. Thinks he can make money from everyone being afraid. He’s probably right.
Meanwhile – sign of the times – there is a growing transnational movement, The Luddites. Young people who foreswear any use of Big Tech’s screens, no iPhones or social media. They met for an conference in New York this month, hundreds of happy no-Silicon no-Musk no-Bezos fanatics. Very articulate. All their meetings were in public space, nothing on Zoom or on-line in any way. Only telephone contact and emails – and “see you in the park”.
The Earth Chxrch staged an evening for these fabulists and the shout Earthalujah! rose up in the air as the screen-free youth climbed up on their chairs and shouted and laughed. It’s like the Luddites actually appreciate reality! They look up into that tsunami curling above the clouds, they feel the growing shadow, and they smile, as if to say “I’m alive this very moment and at least I won’t die staring at the great flood on a little screen I’m holding in my hand.
Rev. Billy