Thanks to the nonviolent worm for doing the posting last Saturday after we attended a conference on Cosmology at Marquette University called “And God Said It Was Good”. The description of the conference by the nonviolent worm was short, simple and concise. However, we humans need to make life a little more complex, so here goes my description.
The best explanation I can give you of the conference is to direct your attention to two web sites. One Thank God for Evolution is by Michael Dowd, the main presenter at the conference. Rev. Dowd is an evolutionary evangelical. He and his wife Connie Barlow, a scientist, travel the USA preaching the good news of the universal creation story. The other web site is The Great Story where Connie also includes ways to explain this great creation story based on science to children.
The nonviolent worm said last Saturday that I needed more time to digest the conference since I do not have the miraculous digestive tract of a worm. This is true. However, unlike a worm I am more distracted and tend to ‘move on’ and get busy without fully digesting and casting off what I take in. I am guilty of this all the time, getting more information, experience and facts instead of going deeper into what I already have inside.
However, here are a few observations about the conference. The vast majority of persons at the conference were Caucasian adults over 35. Many knew each other. Although I am no longer inside this circle of persons in my daily life, I did know many of them from past experiences and conferences. They are good, open-minded persons and it was great seeing so many of them in one place.
As others I was fascinated with the clarity and enthusiasm of the main presenter, Michael Dowd, on creating a common creation story for all persons, Christians, Muslims, Atheist and other types of belief systems. The first day I thought something was missing but as soon as I named it, “death”, he mentioned it as the focus of attention during the second day. I still sought a little more explanation of how death plays a role in the creation story, but he did recognize its significance.
One way death is mentioned is the fact that we have all have stardust from dying stars in us and in the air we breathe.
The conference provoked many thoughts and memories in my mind, from my early college days when I became aware of the science-spirituality writer Tielhard De Chardin S.J., to the present day and my writings on the www.NonviolentWorm.org .
In the workshop by John Dear S.J. on nonviolence and the creation story, John asked us for descriptions and symbols of nonviolence. My first thought was of the worm. As the nonviolent worm said in the posting last Saturday, the worm, like the nonviolent person, takes in all kinds of stuff; with the worm it is waste and organisms and with the human it is insults, injury and violence. But the worm, like the nonviolent person, does not react or give out more waste or violence. Instead the worm and the nonviolent person digest what they take in and cast it off as rich soil or love and kindness. By absorbing waste or injury they give out growing power.
A friend Paco, whose vision inspired this conference, probably summed it up the best in a comment he made on Saturday’s posting: “Everything in existence is unique, has an inner force, and allures to connect, share, create, enrich, and integrate into the whole (common) good. So, nothing is “lowly” in the universe. We humans have the task of developing willful consciousness about everything that exists. That was one of the purposes of the conference. Other purpose was to expand networks. A third purpose was to celebrate and be grateful the gift of our individual and holistic existence.”
Thank God for worms. “They enrich and aerate the soil; Charles Darwin found that worms turn over the top six inches (15 cm) of topsoil every 20 years.” (worm in wikipedia). They are, like nonviolence, at the heart of growing power amd the Great Story.
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