This past weekend, Sister Alexandra Kovats, CSJP, PhD presented ‘Living Spiritually in a Time of Global Transformation’ on behalf of the Religious Life and Learning ministry of First Community Church. She is a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace, has been a spiritual director and retreat facilitator for over thirty years. Kovats studied with the late Thomas Berry and often presents alongside Matthew Fox, theologian and Brian Swimme, scientist. She is adjunct instructor at the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University. All were significantly influenced by paleontologist and priest, Teilhard de Chardin.
Kovats opening presentation Friday night, included ‘The Awakening Universe’ DVD, and she invited the modest sized audience into a bigger understanding that the cosmos includes 100 billion galaxies. To quote colleague Brian Swimme, ‘The earth was once molten rock and now it sings opera.’ As with creation spirituality and evolutionary Christianity, the story begins with the big bang and not 6000 years ago as many fundamentalist Christians adhere to, in the face of overwhelming evidence from all the fields of scientific endeavor. Kovats says in the companion brochure to the series, ‘We need to know and appreciate and reverence our origins. When we do not know where we come from, we act unjustly and we truncate our relationships. Our invitation is to listen to stories: Listen to the Cosmic story.’
Three principles are an important part of the story: 1. differentiation- every aspect of creation, every human being is different from everything/everyone else from snowflakes to people; the microscopic to the cosmic. 2. autopoesis (self-formation, self-unfoldment, and self-organizing principle) that each of us has the potential to form from the inside out as an acorn becomes an oak tree. She focused on bringing forth what is inside of us; formation from the inside out, and, 3. ‘communion’ in the sense that everything is interdependent and interconnected; if one piece is missing, there is injustice and life is oppressive; we were built for blessing and creativity in ourselves and to encourage that to show forth in others.
The influence of the new cosmology informs us that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, the planet 5 billion, human 200 million; yet Christian religion says the beginning was with ‘the fall’. Humans are not the center and do not determine the story. There are two holy books and creation is one of them. As William McNamara says, 'We are embedded in the divine. Everything is different in light of cosmic reverence if every creature is a word of God. What does polluted water say about baptism? Our invitation today is like at the time of Galileo.
A key dimension of the new cosmology is unfolding; Spirit has been with us from the beginning. Life is about learning to let go, when for most of us its about being in control. We are called to grow into the heart of the divine. To illustrate this more fully, Kovats quoted Kahlil Gibran who said, ‘Don’t say ‘God is in my heart; you are in the heart of God.’ Authentic spirituality calls us to keep growing nad expanding. Spirituality is our awareness and awakening to the divine in all dimensions of life including the mess and darkness. Ecological spirituality is not just the human-God dynamic, but the whole; love of God-neighbor-self and the entire creation. A sad fact is that we live with the perspective of isolation and separation, yet there is no such thing as a private act. Another sign of the times: ‘consumption’ used to be a disease, now it is a way of life.
Kovats introduced sung prayer-chants, body prayer, shared music and DVDs and made use of small group discussion and expressive art in her gentle, engaging way. She was careful to stress that we are subjects in creation/communion rather than objects. In viewing the enormous challenges of our time, it is important to realize that we help to create the new reality one shovel-full at a time. It was a mini-retreat in the midst of a somewhat chilly, windy Saturday at the start of Christian holy week.
Sister Kovats closed with a meditation/blessing from Jan Navotka:
‘May vision and truth companion you. May beauty be in your eyes. May peace fill your being; love hold you close. May Earth give you guidance, stars give you hope. Blessings of Life to you.
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