Charlie and I have been put into the middle of this matter, knowing not just our friend who has been accused, but several of the victims as well.  Most of the church members have distanced themselves significantly from our friend, and while I absolutely do not condone the actions that our friend is alleged to have made, I have wanted to continue to be available to him.  I have given him ample, I think, opportunities to “come clean,” but he continues to deny.  His wife, also a good friend of Charlie and me, at first tended to believe the allegations, but since then is now defending her husband.  All of this has proven to be a gut-wrenching experience for me.  Charlie and I have considered distancing ourselves as others have done, but have decided not to do so.  As a result, we have experienced distance being put between some of our other church friends and us.  I have struggled with the possibility that continuing to befriend our beleaguered friend is in fact enabling him to continue in his denial.  But all the above notwithstanding, we continue to want to continue as we have been.

This dilemma has been causing me more and more mental anguish.  We don’t have anyone (here on Earth) with whom to discuss this matter.  I have prayed on it and we have tried, unsuccessfully, to discuss it with our Rector.  I have been able to discuss it with another church friend, a retired Lutheran pastor, but I still don’t know if what we are doing is helping the matter or making it worse.

Today, I was re-reading Fr. Richard Rohr’s book entitled “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the two Halves of Life.”  Richard’s primary thesis in this book is that we spend half or more of our lives finding our identity and our sexuality and trying to achieve success and make our reputation.  But Richard also believes that most of us, at one time or another, experience some significant failure or loss and as a result begin to ask questions like; “Is this all there is to my life?”  “Is there something else I am called to do?”  I have known these failures and losses and believe that I am now in the second half of my life.  But, what I didn’t realize until now is that “falling upward” to our second time of life is not a one-time epiphany.  Apparently, once we are in the second half of life, we continue to be challenged by God to become more and more of what He wants us to do and be, and I realized that all of this fretting I have been doing and continue to do, is in fact “necessary suffering,” the title of one of the chapters in Richard’s book.  God is trying to get my attention to move deeper into this second half of life.  All at once, I began to see more clearly what I thought I have known for some time.  Jesus’ Great Commandment tells us to love the Lord with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  My friend is my neighbor.  We are not to stop loving someone because he or she has sinned, after all who hasn’t, and God continues to love us. We are not just to love someone only after he/she repents; have we repented all our sins?  God still loves us.  Jesus befriended prostitutes and tax collectors and all sorts of sinners, and nowhere have I found in the Bible that he only did so after they repented.  God wants us to repent, no question.  But that is apparently not a condition for his love.  For us to fully understand and feel God’s grace, we must repent, but God continues to love us and try to help us all the while.  Maybe continuing to love my friend is one small way of “paying forward” what God has given to me.

So, now I have a clearer understanding of why I have been suffering.  I have been suffering spiritually because my friend is suffering, and he is suffering more than I am.  While not condoning what he has done, I pledge to continue to love him and support him.

It is hard to pinpoint when, where, how, and why I became a scientist, in general, and a geologist, specifically, as it is with many of the origins of the inherent nature of human beings.  So, to try to determine what led me in this direction, let’s first begin with defining inexactly what I think are the attributes of the highest quality scientists I know and have known. 

 I think that without a question, one must first be aware of the natural world.  But a lot of people and especially young students become aware of the natural world and some of its unanswered questions without becoming scientists.  The next important attribute of a scientist is that of curiosity, wanting to know how the universe, the world and even parts of the natural world works and why it works in the ways it did.  But, again, a lot of people are curious, and many of them don’t become scientists.  So, for me still another attribute of a scientist is a desire for answers, and an impatience with unanswered or incompletely answered or incorrectly answered questions.  But, even many of the people who are impatient with inexactness of scientific knowledge still don’t become scientists.  To become a scientist, one must have all of the above attributes.  But, in addition, he or she must be willing and able to act on this impatience and delve into these unanswered questions with enough patience to stick with the often tedious task of following what we know to be the “scientific method” for answering science questions and to bear with the incorrect tangents on which we too often go, that lead to inappropriate conclusions.

 Finally, a scientist must realize that scientific knowledge is often incomplete and can change.  What we do is to strive for basic truths, scientific laws that explain why the universe and all of its components work as it does.  We must realize and we must appreciate that most of us work toward these basic truths, but that many of these truths remain out of our individual reach.

 My first memory of “liking” science came when I was in junior high school.  (Those who knew me when I was younger might have argued that my inclination in this direction began much earlier, but they are all dead now.  So, I am limited to what I remember.)  I can remember seeing a program in school that dealt with archeology and it really appealed to me.  That was probably in the 8^th grade, and apparently helped me decide that I wanted to take as much science in high school as possible.  At my high school, Alamo Heights High in San Antonio, to the best of my recollection, that meant taking biology, chemistry and physics.  Interestingly, even in Texas during one of the oil booms of the ‘50s, there was no opportunity to take a course in geology, Earth science or any of the other Earth sciences.

 Biology was interesting enough, but it didn’t grab me.  Chemistry, on the other hand, did grab me.  During the summer prior to my taking chemistry, the old chemistry teacher died.  The school hired a replacement chemistry teacher from the industrial ranks.  I’m certain now that he was not certified to teach science.  But, he was a natural teacher.  He had been a “toothpaste chemist” for Proctor and Gamble and whenever possible he used his own research to demonstrate chemical principles.  I absolutely loved this course and feel that he was one of the most important teachers in my life.  His discussion of the hardness of minerals compared to the hardness of teeth was one of the reasons why I became interested in this aspect of geology.  Physics, like biology, was interesting enough, but it didn’t grab me either.

 When I was admitted to Rice, I was still undecided between chemistry and geology for a major.  I put “chemistry” as my proposed major on the Rice application, mostly because I thought that would help me to get admitted.  Anyway, Rice did not offer any geology courses until the sophomore year.  After my freshman year, I still loved chemistry.  Chemistry provides one with a structure for understanding what natural materials are made of, and how natural materials are put together and why these natural materials have the distinct physical and chemical properties that they have.  There is “orderliness” to chemistry that is very appealing.

 In my sophomore year, I enrolled in the first geology course, physical geology, which I loved.  It was this first course that sealed the deal as far as a major goes.  I didn’t like chemistry any less, I just liked geology more.  I think what really made the case for me was discovering that I could work outside as a geologist, as opposed to working all the time in a laboratory as a chemist.  I soon learned that, unlike much of chemistry, there were still a lot of unanswered and fascinating questions in geology.  Geology provides us with the opportunity to discover answers to questions about how the Earth works. 

 I also discovered that a geologist could be involved with a lot of chemistry, if he or she chooses that sub-discipline.  I loved studying the properties and compositional variations of minerals and rocks, where knowledge of chemistry is an absolute necessity.  Chemistry is an important tool that can be used to answer some of the most fascinating unanswered questions in geology.  Not surprisingly, I chose geochemistry as my sub-discipline of most interest.  I continued to study geochemistry through two graduate degrees, and to apply geochemistry in my first post-graduate job as a research marine geochemist and when I was hired as an assistant professor at USC.

 Part II – On becoming a Christian

 I haven’t always been a committed Christian as I am now.  I was born into a very loosely committed Christian family.  I was baptized in the Trinity Episcopal Church in Galveston and confirmed in St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Alamo Heights, after my family moved from Galveston.  So by all accounts I have always been some sort of Christian.  Throughout my early years, I attended church somewhat irregularly. I believed in God; I believed that Jesus came among us and did good works, but I wasn’t sure of this business about a resurrection, and I didn’t even begin to understand this Holy Spirit stuff.

 As I have explained in an earlier blog (Christian Community in Action), my life has included a series of gifts, often received following powerful positive and negative experiences, some of which included “ah-hah” moments into spirituality. Until recently, these gifts were followed by long periods of back-sliding. I didn’t realize that these gifts were from God. When I was 13 or 14, I had one of my first personal crises, one that caused me to fear loving someone outside my immediate family. Perhaps the most profound gift of my life came in 1953 when God led me Charlie. As a result, I learned that I could love again. We were married in ’58 and we started going to church a bit more regularly.  I see now that I was moving slowly, with interruptions, in my spiritual growth.  But for much of that time, I didn’t recognize what was happening.

In 1963, on the way home from field work for my doctoral dissertation, heard Dr. King’s speech to the assemble marchers in Washington, DC.  This is when I became a strong civil rights proponent.

In 1969, I was on a geological expedition to the Japanese Islands and had the opportunity to visit the Museum and grounds at ground-zero for the 1969 dropping of the first atomic bomb.  That experience was profound.  As I walked through the grounds and park, I cried constantly that we could inflict that kind of damage to other human beings.  This was when I changed from a supporter of the Viet Nam war to a pacifist.

In the early days, the choice to become a professional geologist did not make it my spiritual growth any smoother.  It wasn’t easy to be a Christian. And becoming a science faculty member at a research-oriented university didn’t help much either.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming my environment for my slowness in spiritual growth.  I still believed in God, but I could not believe a literal reading of the Bible, especially things like the Genesis story of how God created the world and life.  Geology has showed us definitively that the Universe was formed about 15 billion years ago and has been evolving since, and that life was first formed about 3.5 billion years ago and has been evolving since.  We also learned that we did not need to call upon God or any super-natural explanation for how these processes had worked throughout time. 

In addition, I was surrounded by friends and colleagues who were either atheists or agnostics at best, and I just wasn’t strong enough to tell them that I couldn’t be an atheist, like most of them were. So I just stayed quiet. However, the doubts of my university associates about God and my own internal conflict between what I believed and what I thought I should believe started working on me and after a while in this environment, I started losing my faith. My movement away from faith continued and was “helped along” by a decision that I made to get involved with the Hippie movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement and the humanistic education movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. During that time, Charlie and I had our most serious marital difficulties and at the most serious point I had to make some changes. My gift this time was that I didn’t lose Charlie. I started going to church a bit more regularly, but focusing mostly on those prayers that were not a challenge to my scientific knowledge. I still didn’t really believe in miracles or resurrections or eternal life. As a result, I simply maintained separate professional and more spiritual lives.

In about 1978, I made a career change at USC when I formed a Center for Science Education where I could devote most of my time to working with elementary and middle school teachers who were under-prepared to teach science. God was leading me to work with people and away from my esoteric geological research. In 1988, I temporarily moved to Washington, DC, initially for only one year, but without Charlie. Almost immediately I started having serious insomnia. I was desperately homesick for Charlie, USC and Columbia. I thought about praying, but decided that would be too risky. What if I prayed and nothing got better? What would I do then? But I finally got on my knees and talked heart-to-heart with God, who answered my prayers and helped me start getting some sleep, and also convinced me that I should quit my Washington job and return home as fast as possible. I was finally starting to get it.

In 1998, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. It didn’t seem to be too bad and the doctors were very optimistic. But, I was frightened. Then I remembered God’s help through prayer 10 years earlier with my insomnia. So, I had me another heart-to-heart with God. I didn’t ask God to cure me; I simply said that if I came through this, I would devote my life to him. I came through the surgery and started trying to hear what it was that God wanted me to do. But I couldn’t hear, or maybe I wouldn’t hear, until August of 2005 when hurricane Katrina devastated the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf coast. That was it; I heard God calling me to help out the people who were and still are without anything, except maybe their faith. Our church, St. Francis of Assisi, became involved immediately and we joined in. After making one mission trip to the Mississippi coast with several of our church friends and some of the good Christians that our son in Texas was working with, the person who was organizing the trips told me that if I wanted to go back to Mississippi, I would have to start organizing the trips. We went back seven more times.

All of the above were leading me into a deeper, more intense relationship with God and Jesus, but I was still unable to internalize those Scripture readings and creed statements that compromised my scientific integrity. I knew that I was being called by God to do the mission work, and that God had a better plan for my life.  But I was still torn inside because of the differences in what I could believe and what I thought I should believe.  In February of 2007, Charlie and I with many others participated in Cursillo, an Episcopal leadership development retreat.  I learned that God’s plan was even more fundamental. To be sure he wants us as part of our mission work to rebuild structures and lives, but his primary goal was to re-build the re-builders, to make us instruments of his peace. It was at Cursillo that I also began to understand better that Jesus’ primary message to the people of his time and to us today was that to follow him was less about getting to heaven when we die and more about transforming our lives today so as to take better care of those less fortunate than we and to take better care of God’s creation.

After Cursillo, I heard another call – this time to teach an adult Sunday School class about science and religion.  It was during the preparation for this class that I began to see how science and religion don’t have to conflict with each other and in fact can complement each other.  Science answers questions concerned with how natural processes proceed, but cannot answer any questions concerned with why.  Religion, on the other hand, answers questions concerned with why, but cannot answer questions related to how.  I also determined that I would be a more holistic scientist by also being religious, and I could also be a more holistic religious person by also knowing science.

In the last couple of years, I have become aware of a transformational movement in the religious community that is known as “emerging Christianity” and several other terms, especially through the reading of the works of Brian McLaren, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crosson.  I won’t try to paraphrase all of these biblical scholars.  Suffice it to say that, they are all trying to show that alternative explanations of some of the most troubling (to me) passages can help us to form a whole new view of what the Bible is trying to tell and show us.  It was McLaren’s book, “The Secret Message of Jesus,” for example where I first understood that Jesus came to bring with him the Kingdom of God, a radical way of showing how Jesus dealt with relationships with and between the “haves” of the world and the “have-nots” in his day is a model for how we should deal with each other today.  It was at a conference featuring Borg and Crosson in Anderson, SC in February of 2011, that I began to understand that much of the Bible was meant to be read metaphorically rather than literally and/or factually.  It is less important to know whether some of the stories of Jesus, including his parables, really happened and more important to understand what these stories are supposed to mean, what they should be telling us.  I now see that if I interpret metaphorically, not literally, those parts of the Bible, in the creeds, in sermons and in religious books and papers that I thought earlier were in conflict with what I understood from science, are actually beginning to allow me to see that what God wanted me to understand from religious sources are less in conflict and more in congruence with I believe from science.

Now, as I look back on my life, I realize that early in my professional career, without realizing it, I was being led to seek a greater understanding of how the Earth works, through my studies and through my research.  But I was also being led to respond more to people who needed my help and away from isolated, esoteric professional endeavors.  I now see the congruence between my deciding to work with under-prepared teachers and my mission work.  I guess I have always been a “people-person.”  In fact, in discussions with my Charlie, she has showed me that during those times after the cancer surgery and before Katrina when I thought that I either could not or would not hear God’s calling, I was actually doing God’s calling in my work with under-prepared teachers.

I guess God got tired of me trying to understand our relationship by myself. My life has changed. Since my 60^th birthday, I have become a “permanent” Christian. I am committed to avoiding another episode of back-sliding. Still a sinner, but now, as a Christian, I am forgiven whenever I stray. As a result of my experiences the past 9 years I now believe with my whole heart that God loves me, just as he loves you, and that Jesus came into the world and died to save me, and you, and that the Holy Spirit works through me to:

… make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

 This is the prayer of St. Francis and we say it together every Sunday at our church.  It really captures where I am in my spiritual journey, why I am engaged in mission work, why I am teaching Sunday School on a regular basis, why I am involved with pastoral care in our church.  I still feel like I have a lot to time to make up for and that there is more I could and should be doing.  But at least I have started and my friends will know from one of my favorite hymns, “I am a Christian by my love.”

After retiring from my position as a professor of geology and environmental science at the University of South Carolina, I became more involved in church, religious and spiritual activities.  During my participation in Cursillo, in 2007, I began hearing the phrase “spiritual gifts” being thrown around.  A spiritual gift is something that is given to you by the grace of God, through the Holy Spirit.  I immediately assumed that a spiritual gift, then, was something that you have demonstrated that you are good at doing, and if that was the case, my spiritual gift must be teaching. 

As part of a whole series of half-day workshops that are offered by our church, mostly taught by my friend  Carl Saalbach, I participated in a “Spiritual Gifts Workshop.”  I was a bit reluctant to do this inasmuch as I already knew what my spiritual gift was.  But, Lynn wanted to go and so I decided to join her.  The workshop was good and I learned a lot.  At the end of the workshop, we all were asked to respond to a series of 130+ survey questions, the answers to which would define our spiritual gift or gifts, or at least so said Carl.  Imagine my surprise when my responses to the questions said that my spiritual gifts were, in order, discernment, wisdom, faith and exhortation.  And the two options that scored lowest were teaching and knowledge.  Well, I really didn’t know what discernment and exhortation were, and I thought that what I knew about geology and the environment were merely knowledge.  I was convinced that the survey must be faulty.  After all, I had demonstrated that I was a good teacher, and I certainly still knew geology.

That workshop was about a year ago.  I’ve thought a lot about the results of it, and until recently I was still confused.  I am now reading a book entitled “Listening Hearts,” a book about discernment, and the survey results are now starting to make sense.  I already knew that What I Do does not  necessarily define  Who I Am, and now I understand that What I’m Good At doesn’t define my spiritual gift.  So, I set out to determine what is discernment.  One working  definition would be “the ability to use silence of prayerful listening, so as to recognize and define God’s call for you.”  So spiritual gifts are related more to my calling and what I’m good at being and these gifts are less related to what I’m good at doing.  Now, it really started to make sense.  My ability to discern is reflected in why I have had for more than 30 years such a passion about the environment , or in more Christian terminology “God’s Creation.”  Very early on, I began to realize  that it was my responsibility to take care of our Planet and further that it was my responsibility to do what I can to instill that view into my family, my friends, my students and just about anyone I come in contact with.  That passion, then, is reflected in my knowing for a long time, that it was important for me to teach environmental earth science and take actions to reduce my personal impact on the environment.    But I am just the messenger and teaching is just how I deliver the message.  The most important thing is the message of the frailty of our Planet. 

And maybe it is my ability to discern the importance of the message that makes my spiritual gift of wisdom more understandable.  One definition of wisdom  is “the ability to discern (there’s that word again) inner qualities and relationships.”  I now see that entering geology as my college major and continuing to learn geology through graduate school and much of my working life were really not just my decisions.  God was telling me that this would be necessary for me to become who I was put on Earth to be, and how to use my spiritual gift of wisdom.  I needed to understand the relationship between how the Earth works (geology) in order to understand my calling to take care of it (environmentalism), in order to understand my calling.  So now I know that I must do everything in my power, with God’s help, to convince others by what I say and what I do that it is also their responsibility to ensure the sustainability of this precious island home.

OK, so what about exhortation and faith?  One definition of the verb exhort, and the one that makes the connections to wisdom and discernment to me is “to give warnings and advice; to make urgent appeals.”  And apparently this is the gift that I use to put across my message that if we don’t take of God’s creation, it won’t be available in all its splendor to our children and/or grandchildren and we will be held accountable.  But, I also have faith that, with God’s help, I can instill in the people in whom I come in contact the necessity to heed God’s calling to come to its senses before it’s too late and turn around the degradation of His planet.

Today, though, I’d like to resurrect those letters and the question, this time as related to the phrase/term “Kingdom of God.”  I have written already about what this phrase/term means to me, in an earlier blog by that title in this series..  Briefly, to me, the Kingdom of God means people continuing past just reading and learning about Jesus and beginning to act more like Jesus, especially in our relationships to the poor, the hungry, the outcasts and others identified in the Beatitudes (Matthew, chapter 5).  In this blog, I want to focus on one other group identified in the Beatitudes, the peace-makers.

I belong to a book club, which reads and discusses topics that we feel are pressing.  While reading one of these books, the group began discussing the differences between “good wars,” like World War II, and “bad wars,” like Vietnam or Iraq and Afghanistan.  I have discussed my reactions to our country’s retaliation after the terrorists attacks on 9/11/01, in still another blog in this series.  Briefly, I begged God to keep the US from retaliating , because, I felt , that would make us no better than the people who attacked us.  My views were not especially appreciated by most, as I fully expected.  But, when our book club began to view our actions immediately after 911, I expected a bit more positive reaction to my views.  Well, wrong again, John!  Most of our book club members felt very strongly that our actions were justified, and if anything a bit more timid than they would have liked, especially with respect to our retaliation against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  Feelings were considerably more divided about our invasion of Iraq, but some brought the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld view that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was an important step in beefing up our defenses against terrorism.

I kept quiet for a while, but eventually I asked my fellow book club members: If Jesus had been on Earth at the time of 9/11, what do you think Jesus would have said, if asked by Bush for advice on how we should react to the terrorist strikes?  The room became deathly silent, and no one even attempted to answer my question to them.

Of course I don’t know for certain how Jesus would have responded to that question today, but if we examine Jesus’ reactions to that same kind of question in his day, we see Jesus as a very non-violent, non-aggressive, non-retaliatory person – one who said “bless the peace-makers”, and “turn the other cheek.”  I really don’t think Jesus’ answer to our question today would have been very different, if different at all.  I think Jesus would have advised the Bush administration and the American people to rethink our belief in redemptive violence and pre-emptive war, to start a world-wide movement against war because in war we hate and kill our enemy, rather than loving our neighbors, including our enemies. 

I repeat, I don’t know how Jesus would have answered Bush, but I think I have  pretty good idea and I’m going to continue my efforts to have the people of my communities rethink their reactions to aggression that are not  working.

So, here we are with the ten warmest years in recorded history falling between 1998 and 2009, and 2010 looking like it will fall in the “top 10″ as well once the data are in.  There is essentially no disagreement within the scientific community that global warming is here and that we face dire consequences if we don’t do something about it.  There is also essentially no disagreement within the scientific community that human actions are contributing to this warming; the only “disagreement” is the degree to which human activity is causing the warming.

I fear that we may have already reached the “tipping point” where we will not be able to stop global warming.  And if we haven’t yet reached that tipping point, we soon will.  So, if as I said at the beginning of this essay, none of the actions that I mentioned alone, not even the sum of these actions will be able to stop or slow global warming, what are we to do?  Well, I for one refuse to believe that we should just accept the consequences of our actions.  I feel that if indeed greed is a major factor in what has caused and continues to cause global warming, we had better realize that physical actions alone will be ineffective because these actions are external to us.  Greed is a condition that is internal within human beings.  Energy greed is not based on survival needs, but rather on our desire to control the origin and consumption of energy.  Greed is a disease of the heart, not the mind, and the greed disease cannot be cured by just changing those actions that are controlled by the mind. We must understand that greed can only be cured/healed by changing our value system or in the words of Brian McLaren, changing our framing story.  And this change will only come about when humans stop believing that dominion over the non-human world  does not mean that humans alone are the most important specie and that we have a God-given right to dominate all the rest of God’s creation to satisfy our greed.  We must start realizing that dominion does not equate with domination, but rather it equates with a responsibility to care for the entire planet.  

The global climate crisis cannot be solved by economic change alone.  Not can it be solved by technology alone.  We can’t “fix” this problem by simply replacing all of our incandescent light bulbs with compact flourescent or LED bulbs.  We can’t fix it by driving more fuel efficient or hybrid automobiles and trucks.  We can’t fix it by recycling and we can’t fix it by reducing the clearing of rain forests.  All of these are necessary, but not sufficient.  What we need to do is to to have all nations of the world reduce energy consumption of energy and the only way to effect that change is to mandate an Orwellian requirement that consumption of fossil fuels be drastically cut.  But what country would, by itself, make that kind of change, especially if the two largest consumers of energy, the US and China, refuse to similarly agree?  Well, we can’t do much about China, so what can we do is to get people and politicians in the US to  change significantly our energy consumption?  Since the US is the largest consumer of energy and only the third largest country in terms of population, I think we must look at this problem as an issue of greed.  And greed is a malilgnant aberration of  values.  And if we agree, only tentatively for argument’s sake, then what we must do is to alter our values system.

If greed is a malignant abberation of our value system, then it is a life-threatening disease of the soul and, more importantly, a threat to the health of our planetary home.  We have to turn our greed completely around and start believing that we must not have or even desire the same level of  consumption as we now have.  We must not want any more than we actually need.  And changes of our needs and wants will require a change not just in what we do, but more so a change in our collective hearts.  But how do we turn our hearts around?  I can’t turn around the hearts of  everyone, not even anyone else in the USA, but I can turn my heart around and I have already done so.  But surely that is not enough.  Even though I cannot turn around your heart, I must work to have you do that for yourself, and once that is accomplished, you must do that for someone else.  It has to start with me, then move on to you, then on to all of us.

My understanding began to change about a year  and a half ago, when virtually simultaneously I began participating in a Bible Study and joined a book club, and continued to change when this year (2010) I began teaching a Bible study on the book of Acts in Sunday School and started reading another book.  The Bible study in which I was a participant was on the gospel of Luke; the book club selection was “Everything Must Change” by Brian McLaren; the Bible study Sunday School was on the Book of Acts of the Apostles and the other book is “The Secret Message of Jesus”, also by Brian McLaren.

In reading interpretations of what Jesus was trying to get across in his many teachings, my understanding of what the Kingdom of God meant changed dramatically.  I now believe that the Kingdom of God is not just in heaven.  The Kingdom of God is also here and now.  It is more a set of strongly held beliefs and values of people who believe Jesus calls us, while we are living, to be more like him, not just to know more about him. McLaren, in both of the books I have mentioned above, says that the Kingdom of God is a new kind of force – a counterforce to all evil human regimes.  A new kind of spirit, the Holy Spirit is entering people and forming them into a healthy, loving, gentle and kind community that seeks not  to grow through political power  or influence, but rather to grow through inclusion, shared consideration of the poor, homeless, oppressed people who are either left out of most traditional human governmental regimes or at least not listened to.  Those who are “of the Kingdom of God” are those in whom the Holy Spirit is working and in whom glimpses of Jesus can be seen.  They follow Jesus’ two great commandments – to love the Lord with all their heart, all their  soul and all  their might, and to love their neighbors, including their enemies, as themselves. They believe that when Jesus said in the Beatitudes blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, etc., he was telling us not only that he will bless these people, but also that we are to look after those who are too often left behind.  Later in chapter 25 of the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus tells about the Final Judgment and tells how at that time Jesus comes in his glory, he will separate the people in to “the righteous” and “the unrighteous”, and tell “the righteous” that they are blessed and will inherit the kingdom of God, because “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited  me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”  When the people said to Jesus that they had never seen him hungry, thirst, as a stranger, or in prison, Jesus responded to them: “…whatever you did for the least of one of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”  In the minds of many, including me, it is very clear that the Beatitudes are a code of conduct for all believers.

Why has this concept been misunderstood so long?  McLaren believes that the Kingdom of God as I am trying to explain it, is not just a message of Jesus, but rather is the core message of Jesus. One possible explanation for the misunderstanding could lie in the fact that this concept is not spelled out this way anywhere in the Bible or in any of Jesus’ sayings.  Rather the explanation is always vague and, like Jesus’ use of parables, it could be that Jesus did not want to spell out this important message; he wanted us to have to think, so as better to internalize it. It stands to reason that the Kingdom of God is where God resides, i.e., in heaven.  If that is the case and if Jesus came to save us from our sins, it must be so that we, once saved, will reside with God in heaven when we die.  But, remember, when Jesus came to Earth, things were in a shambles – wars, occupations, retaliations, people who didn’t know whom to trust. What if Jesus while on Earth wanted to create a spiritual revolution, a “new world”, where people lived and loved and cared for one another and did not participate in “redemptive violence” when someone did them harm.  (Most people consider the USA’s retaliation after 9/11 an example of redemptive violence.)  The Kingdom of God does not  grow through hatred, but love; not through war, but peace; not through revenge, but through forgiveness.

McLaren also suggests that many religious leaders of today just get caught up in some of the clearer parts of Jesus’ message, celebrate Jesus in ritual and art and teach about Jesus in songs, hymns and sermons.  They just miss some of the less clear aspects of Jesus’ life and message.  He even suggests that perhaps Jesus did not want to spell out what he meant by the Kingdom of God, so that people would have to dig to get to the real message.

But obviously some people have “uncovered” what they think is a secret message of Jesus.  What were the clues?  One very clear clue, when you realize it, comes from the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus taught the people of his day.  Early in the Lord’s Prayer, we say “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven”.  Traditionally the coming of God’s Kingdom was seen as a divine gift to be prayed for, not a human achievement.  But in this phrase, it is clear that Jesus is extolling us to bring God’s kingdom to Earth, as it already exists in heaven.

And if the Sermon on the Mount was indeed a code of conduct for all believers, then he is telling us that not only does he bless those who are too often left behind, but that we are to look after those who are too often left behind.

Finally, in Jesus’ parable of the weeds, parable of the mustard seed and parable of the yeast, he is trying to explain the “kingdom of heaven”, which is a synonym for “kingdom of God” (see Matthew 13:34, 31 and 33).  In each case the parable begins “The kingdom of heaven is like …” and in every case his analogy pertains to humans still living, not humans after they get to heaven.

So,what does it mean to live in, be in, the kingdom of God?  It means for me that I am doing what God/Christ is calling me to do.  It means that God calls me to love, to comfort, to nurture, to heal those that we too often are told by others of  us are the least of us – those who mourn, the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the down-on-their- luck and those who are persecuted for their righteousness.  Because, when I do these things, God  is pleased with me, here and now.  It is at these times that I am most fully in communion with God and Christ.  I am “in heaven” even before I die.   It is at these times that I am resurrected from what I had been before and now have cast aside. I am changed from one who  sought those human, temporal desires of more money than I need, more sex than I need (but not more  love than I need), more influence or power or good reputation than I need, and do what God/Christ call me to do.

But when I don’t do what God calls me to do, when I don’t love my neighbor, including my enemy, as myself, then I am not loving God with all my heart, my mind and/or my soul.  I am not in communion with God, I am not  “in heaven”.  And if that is the case, and it is, I know that when I think of my ex son-in-law as evil, when I don’t want him around me or any of my family, when I don’t believe he has or ever will be changed, I am not doing what God is calling me to do – I am not in heaven.  But when I start believing that he is a child of God, who can change his evil ways, but who needs love, including my love (or at least my prayers) and that it is those bad things that he does that are evil, not himself, then I will be more fully in communion with God.

So,what is going to happen to me when I die?  I don’t know and perhaps I can’t fully know.  I think that it might mean  that I will be remembered by God as one who  tried to live in, be in, the kingdom of God while I was living. That might mean that when I die, I will still  live in and be in communion with God -  one who is loved by God for those things that I did that I was called to do, and forgiven for those things that I did that I was not called to do and for those things that I did not do that I was called to do.  I can’t be perfect in life, but I can try to be good.  I am trying to be good, and more nearly perfect today than I was yesterday.

One last note.   I also believe that those who are “of the Kingdom of God” are more inclusive in their caring than just for other human beings.  I believe and the Catechism of Creation for the Episcopal Church confirms that when God “gave humans dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth,” dominion does not mean domination, but …the need for humans to take care of, and exercise responsibility for the Earth as God’s representatives.

What makes Earth such a special place  that requires us to care for it? Through God’s love, Earth is the only known planet in the Universe or throughout billions of years that the Universe has existed that is able to sustain life as we know it.  Therefore it is a very special place, obviously a small piece of the Universe that God holds dear.  Throughout most of Earth’s existence, the planet was sustainable – its plants and animals evolved, lived in specific ecosystems and became extinct. In the last few million years humans have evolved . We no longer have limited ecosystems in which to live, we have the ability to think and reason and we have the ability to upset the sustainability of the planet.  And we have done just that.

What does “created in the image and likeness of God” mean in relation to our obligation to care for the creation?  In Genesis 2, human beings are given the garden to tend and serve, symbolizing our obligation to care for creation.”  In the Book of Common Prayer, humans are called to exercise dominion over “this fragile Earth, our island home”.  From Psalm 24:1 we are called upon to serve, and protect the Earth as a sacred trust and that one day we shall be called upon to give an accounting. The God who is Love unconditionally loves all of the creation and not merely us who are able to enter into a conscious relationship with God.”  If God loves all of creation, we should as well.

What has science taught us about our relationship with the Earth and its other creatures?  From the Catechism of Creation, “Science has taught us … (that) all creatures, including ourselves – every species… are genetically related (and that) all living beings are bound together in countless ecological communities of life.  Therefore, when we exercise stewardship, we are caring for an Earth in which God has made everything interdependent.  How we carry out this our primary vocation and ministry has great consequences for ourselves and for all of God’s creatures on this good Earth.”

Why is it difficult for humans to love the creation as God loves it?  From the Catechism of Creation, “We humans have fallen into sin … and expressions of greed, lust for power, neglect, and a willingness to turn a blind eye work against the mandate to be good stewards and keepers of God’s good Earth.  Economic, political, and social structures and processes can make this work difficult.  But contrition, repentance, confidence in God’s forgiveness and the power of God’s grace … provide a pathway for carrying out Earth-keeping as a labor of love.”

To summarize, at least to this point, people who are “of the Kingdom of God” are those who are our brothers’ keeper and who are stewards of all living and the non-living components of God’ good Earth, treating  the Earth and its inhabitants with dignity, love and peace.

In the context of this talk “growth” will refer both to spiritual growth and growth in commitment to the ministries of my church, St. Francis of Assisi Episcopal, in Chapin, SC.  “Body of Christ” usually refers to the church.  But this phrase is metaphorical and perhaps needs a bit more explanation.  To fully understand the concept of “Body of Christ”, I first had to understand two other concepts, the concept of the “Kingdom of God” and the concept of “spiritual gifts.”

Kingdom of God

Two terms, “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of heaven” are often used interchangeably, and probably should not be, unless you equate “heaven” with “God”.  Too often we think of the Kingdom of God as where we hope to be when we die, when we should be talking about the “Kingdom of Heaven.”  A more appropriate definition of Kingdom of God for me is in the lives of Christians while still living.

(Luke: 20-21) Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”

Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is here.  Neither his audience nor we today need not to wait for a conquering Messiah—God is already ruling, and we should be living his way now. We don’t yet possess a territory, but we do come under the reign of God.

Spiritual Gifts

God has given each Christian two vitally important gifts. The first is the gift of faith in Jesus Christ, his work of redemption, and thus forgiveness of sin. The second is the gift of one or more special abilities, which are to be used for the purpose of unifying the body of Christ and for the growth of God’s Kingdom. We don’t choose our gift or gifts; God bestows on us one or more such gifts of grace through the Holy Spirit.  These abilities are called spiritual gifts and they are received through our baptism.  Like other presents, it is impossible to fully appreciate and make use of our spiritual gifts until they have been opened. (makedisciples.com)

(Romans 4:6-8) “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.  If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.  If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach.  If it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.”

(Ephesians 4: 11-13) “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God’s people for works of service…)

(I Corinthians 12) Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.  You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced or led astray to mute idols.  Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the spirit of God says “Jesus be cursed,” and no man can say that “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.  There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.  There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men…

Body of Christ

Paul explains further, that different parts of the body, even though not the body, are important to the functioning of the whole body.  Likewise, the body of Christ, the church, is made up of different people all with different gifts, and the body of Christ does not grow, nor does it work as well as it can if all of the parts, its members, do not give of themselves and their unique gifts.  Similar passages can be found in Paul’s letters to the Romans, and Ephesians.

We are called to use these gifts of grace to unify the body of Christ and for the growth of the Kingdom of God.  The purpose of these gifts, used together, is to produce spiritual and numerical growth in the church, the “Body of Christ.”

Growth in the Body of Christ

I think I am beginning to understand God’s plan for why I’m here and for what I’m supposed to do.  But my spiritual journey has followed a very rocky road, and my commitment to growth in the Body of Christ has been very slow in arriving.

My life has included a series of experiences with both negative and positive components.  Some of these positive components included “ah-hah” moments into spirituality, followed, until recently, by long periods of back-sliding.  Each of these cycles represented one step back and two steps forward.  Let me expand on a few of these.

In about 1978, I decided that I wanted to make a drastic career change at USC, which might have forced me to find employment elsewhere, a frightening thought.  The positive component of this experience was in the somewhat surprising support of my colleagues and Dean in my forming a Center for Science Education where I could devote most of my time to working with under-prepared elementary and middle school science teachers. I see now that God was leading me to work with people and away from my esoteric geological research.  I was starting to grow spiritually, but I didn’t realize it; I still didn’t get it.

In 1988, I took a temporary job in Washington, DC, but without Charlie. She couldn’t join me because she was starting a new teaching job.  Almost immediately I started having serious insomnia. I was desperately homesick for Charlie, USC and Columbia. I thought about praying, but decided that would be too risky. What if I prayed and nothing got better? What would I do then? But I finally got on my knees and talked to God.  God answered my prayers and helped me start getting some sleep, and also convinced me that I should quit my Washington job and return home as fast as possible. Shortly after that we joined SFA.  I was again growing spiritually, but I was not yet a member of the body of Christ because I wasn’t using any gift I had to help the church grow.

In 1998, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. I was frightened. Then I remembered God’s help through prayer 10 years earlier with my insomnia. So, I thought I’d make me a deal with God.  How’s that for arrogance?  I didn’t ask God to cure me; I simply said that if I came through this, I would devote my life to him. I came through the surgery and started trying to hear what it was that God wanted me to do. But I couldn’t hear, or maybe I wouldn’t hear, until August of 2005 when hurricane Katrina hit and devastated the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf coast. That was it; I heard God calling me to help out the people who were and still are without anything, except maybe their faith. Our church got involved immediately and we joined in. After making one mission trip to the Mississippi coast Dan Spencer, who had organized the trip told me that if I wanted to go back to Mississippi, I would have to do the organizing. We have been back five times since then and Charlie and I are planning still another trip.  Although I had experienced several false starts in becoming a member of the body of Christ, this was the beginning from which I see no end.

Sometime last year (2008), I was reading my Daily Office Readings when I came across three passages that explained that apparent absence of a calling for seven years after the cancer surgery.  The passage that I read was I Corinthians 7:17 – “Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.” When I studied that passage further, in my Life Application Study Bible, I realized that God is calling us to be a Christian wherever we are. You can do God’s work and demonstrate your faith anywhere and in almost anything you do.

 A little later in I Corinthians 12:4-11, Paul tells the people of Corinth about the different types of spiritual gifts – some have wisdom, some have knowledge that they can transmit to others, some have musical abilities, some have healing powers. I think now that passage was telling me that my gift is my ability to teach – to help people learn some of my knowledge of the fragility of our planet home, our responsibility to care for our environment and to be Christian stewards of the Earth. Later, in I Corinthians 15:10, Paul tells us “But for the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.”

After thinking about these passages, I recalled that I had discussed with Charlie my concern about not hearing what it was that I was supposed to be doing. At that time she said, “I think you are already doing what you’re supposed to be doing.” By that, she meant teaching students and under-prepared teachers.  I began to realize that I had been doing God’s calling for me for thirty+ years, even when I was an off-again/on-again Christian. In fact I was implementing God’s plan for me, even though I didn’t realize that I was.

In 2007, Charlie and I made our Cursillo. Part of the Cursillo movement is for participants to make post-Cursillo commitments.  God led me to creating a “Science and Religion” series of Sunday school or Wednesday evening classes.  As many of you know, this has evolved to my teaching “my passion” to adults and youth at SFA. 

So, where do we, or more specifically you, go from here?  That is between you and God.  God has given me my calling.  How is he calling you?  My story tells the story about one person and is not meant to suggest “The Way”.  But, as I said earlier, it took me a while to “hear” my calling.  Have you heard yours?  You may be listening for your calling without hearing it.  God calls us in a number of ways.  In a recent Sunday school class, Carl gave us a list of ways to discern our calling, and with his permission I am sharing these with you.  St. Francis has a lot of different kinds of ministries, as you will see from the next handout.  Look over that list and ask God to help you key in on one or more.  And if “your calling” is still not included in the list, ask God to help you begin a new ministry. 

William Barclay, author of “The New Daily Study Bible”, a series we have in our church library, discusses how in John 1:10-11, Jesus was sent by God to be born in Palestine, the Promised Land, as a Jew, God’s Chosen People, and yet was rejected in his own homeland.  Palestine and the Jews, perhaps unbeknownst to them, had been being prepared for Jesus’ arrival, and yet when He came they rejected him.  Like the Jews in Palestine, each of us has been being prepared by God for some special purpose.  What is it that you have been being prepared to do?  It might be an extension of something you’ve already started; it might be something totally different.   God will tell you or lead you to what he has had in mind for you.  It is God’s gift to you and to those you are called to serve.  Don’t be like the Palestinians and reject God’s gift.  Just ask.

As a result of all of the above opportunities and many more, I became an environmentalist maybe 30 years ago.  For over 40 years, I have tried to encourage others to start doing something positive to alleviate one or more issues by teaching environmental earth science to undergraduate university students, secondary school teachers, an adult Sunday School class at my church and a youth Sunday School class at my church.  Early in my teaching career, I became very frustrated at the apathy of my undergraduate students.  No matter how hard and passionately I tried to excite them, the vast majority remained non-committed.  To find out the cause(s) of this apathy, I undertook a small research project to see if there were specific stages people had to go through to become involved.  In brief, what I found was that there indeed was a step that people had to go through, after becoming aware of an issue and before they became so committed that they undertook some personal action to alleviate that issue.  That step, as you might have already guessed, was that they had to become concerned about the issue; they had to internalize the issue in order for the issue to become important enough to them that they would take that personal action that I was looking for.  With that information, I altered the grading scheme of my course so that those who became concerned about any environmental issue, to the extent they wanted to do something about it, could undertake an extra credit service project.  There was an immediate positive response from most of the students and as many as 50% took advantage of the opportunity to do something and improve their grade.

More recently I have added another dimension to trying to understand how to motivate people at least to be concerned about critical issues, by examining the positions of religious organizations and persons.  What I have found is that in the past few decades that many religious people have begun to recognize and speak out about the ethical dimension of environmental issues.  I am not aware of the degree of importance placed on environmental issues by several of the mainstream Christian denominations, but I do know that the national Episcopal Church has published a small book entitled “A Catechism of Creation” in which many issues are addressed and positions are taken.  Much of that book was incorporated into the text of my Science and Religion adult Sunday School I taught in the spring of 2008.

In preparing for my next venture into Sunday School teaching, that series to deal with the Franciscan spirituality, I was directed to a book entitled “Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth”.  That book examines the life of St. Francis of Assisi, arguably God’s first ecologist.  As a member of St. Francis of Assisi Episcopal Church in Chapin, SC, I have known for many years about St. Francis as the patron saint of animals.  What I didn’t know until recently was how complete an ecologist he was, and this was back in the 13th Century.  As I learn more and more about Francis and his spirituality of the Earth, and as I become a better and better Christian environmentalist, I am beginning to see why I am so passionate about the environment, or to use a more Christian terminology, God’s Creation. 

I also see now that even in my most agnostic period, in the early ’70s, I was even then a spiritual person even if I did not admit to that.  Even then, I was developing a passion for caring for God’s Creation; I just didn’t know that what I was passionate about from a scientific perspective was something with such a strong Christian ethos.  However now that I look back on my “agnostic period”, I can see evidence of my own spirituality.  Perhaps the most obvious example came in June of 1973 when I took the family on a three-week tour of National Parks of the Rocky Mountain west.  One of the first places we stayed was in a campground in Grand Teton National Park.  We arrived late so we couldn’t see much that night.  I awoke early the next day to a snow-covered camper and car and a beautiful clear cold day.  When I looked toward the mountains, I saw the Grand Teton, still the most beautiful sight  I’ve ever seen, and experienced what even then I called a “religious moment”.

My definition of my “agnostic period” was a period when I was uncertain about the existence of God and confused about my own spirituality.  I no longer doubt the existence of God, or Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  In fact I now see a need for their existence for me to grasp a more complete understanding about how the Universe, Solar System and Earth and came into being, how Earth works, how we as humans have desecrated this precious, one-of-a-kind home in the Universe, and why some of us are called to reverse that desecration.  I am becoming more and more clear in my understanding of the religious/spiritual component of environmental stewardship, and  I am clearer now about my personal responsibility for taking care of God’s Creation, especially planet Earth.  This is what I was and am called to do as a member of the Kingdom of God.  And I thank God for that growing clarity.  As I said in an earlier blog, for a while I wondered why it took me so long to hear what God was telling me about my gifts and what I should do with them.  Now I know that even though I didn’t think I was hearing God for all those years, I must have been, because He has been working through me for much of my life.

Finally another word about Francis.  For some time now, I have said publicly that I don’t believe in coincidences.  I believe that what others call coincidences are just not-so-suble messages from God.  Therefore I do not believe that I found St. Francis of Assisi Episcopal Church in Chapin.  I believe that God sent me to that church 18 years ago, before I knew anything about Francis’ views on all of Creation.  It just took me 18 years to realize what God had been trying to tell me all along – that I belonged in a church whose patron saint is Francis because he and I share so many beliefs.  It’s God’s Plan, John

Recently I completed the reading of a magnificent novel, “The Shack”, by Wm. P. Young.  I don’t want to give away the storyline in detail, suffice it to say that it is a story about a man, Mack, who needed to find the remains of a young daughter who had been abducted and killed a few years earlier.  In his search he came in contact with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in human form.  Mack was one who had had experiences with religion, but never anything resembling permanent.  At one point, he is starting to believe, and asks God why God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit love him after so many years in which he hated and cursed them.  He asks “…why would you even bother to keep trying to get through to me?” God replies that He knew all along how long it would take to get through to Mack; it might take as many as 47 situations of meeting God before Mack would start to “get it.”

In an earlier blog, entitled “Christian Community in Action” I recounted just a few of the many times I had cycled between believing and backsliding, and that it was 67 years into my life before I thought I heard God calling me.  All this time since then I have wondered why it took so long to realize how much God loves me.  At first I alternated between feeling guilty and not worthy of that love.  After that  I started thinking that this had all been part of my plan.

Now I realize that it wasn’t my plan at all.  I know that I really had very little to do with it.  It was God’s plan all along.  God knew all along how long it would take for me to “get it.”  There was/is no need for me to feel guilty about it taking so long and now I don’t.  I now know that God does love me very much and that I need not worry about being worthy of His love.  So now, I’m just enjoying my new-found permanent relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and trying to make for all the time when I wasn’t so happy.  God lives!

Let me set the stage for why I have begun this essay.  It is now February 2004 and I have been retired 3 ½ years from the university.   Life is good; my health is adequate, I still have my Charlie, my relationships with my three grown children are good, and I have seven of the most precious grandchildren anyone could hope for.  I also have time to do those things that please me – playing golf and doing woodwork. However, for about three months I have begun looking for something else to do.  I am not looking for more money or more time.  As I reflected on what was missing, I realized that what I was looking for was a sense of accomplishment that I had experienced at some times in the past.  I was looking to share my talents with others, including but not restricted to family, who feel that I have something to give. As I reflected on those times when I felt most complete, I began to realize that the environment in which I was working played a significant role in the permission I gave myself to do those things that brought that sense of fulfillment to me.  To me, this type of environment would be included in what Scott Peck, in his book “The Different Drummer: Community Making and Peace”, defines as “community”.  Let me try, in this essay and in the essay entitled “Center – Community II”, to explain what “community” looks like.  Believe me, it is an incredibly rich environment.

Almost immediately after returning from Japan in 1967 (see Hiroshima essay), Tudor Davies and I, with very little support from Bruce Nelson, our then department head, applied for a grant, which was funded, to run a year-long in-service institute for Junior High teachers.  The South Carolina Board of Education had mandated earlier that year that for the first time, Earth Science was to be taught in the 8^th grade, henceforth.  We were excited that our children would have an opportunity to learn how the excitement and importance of knowing how the Earth worked, an opportunity that I had never had in Junior High or High School.  However, we discovered that virtually all of the teachers assigned to teach Earth Science had virtually no subject matter background in Earth Science.  Our project was designed to provide these teachers with base-level subject matter expertise through courses offered the entire academic year. The “institute” was so successful that first year, that we were funded in the three following years, as well.

An important outcome of the first and second “institutes” was meeting and getting to know many of the teacher-participants that Tudor and I met.  One in particular stands out as someone who became very instrumental in my professional life.  It was in I think the first of our “institutes” that I met Pam Cromer, a teacher from Cayce, SC.  It was Pam who first told me that I how I taught was just as important as what I taught, because teachers teach the way they were taught.  Pam and her family became family friends, with whom we spent many happy times together.

During the four-year period, Tudor and I had the opportunity to work with the developers of a very exciting and innovative curriculum project entitled “Earth Science Curriculum Project (ESCP)”, funded by NSF and housed in the Boulder, Colorado area.  We connected with that project after it had been initially developed and was entering the teacher-training phase.  This follow-up to ESCP was known as the “Earth Science Teacher Preparation Project (ESTPP)”.  It, too, was headquartered in Boulder and staffed by “Boulder Crowd” – Bill Romey, a professor on leave from St. Lawrence University, John Thompson, Rich Joko, Bob Lepper and Bob Samples. Bill, John and Rich were working primarily in the Earth Science Teacher Preparation Project (ESTPP).  The two Bobs were working primarily in the Environmental Science for Urban Youth Project.  Both projects were funded by the National Science Foundation, and though separately funded, they shared an office complex in Boulder.  And to a large extent, the people worked together on both projects.

ESTPP was designed to teach teachers not only what to teach, but how to teach the material, as well.  After attending several workshops for project directors, I was invited to serve as a workshop facilitator for college faculty, graduate students, in-service Junior High teachers and prospective Junior High teachers.  I facilitated or co-facilitated probably a dozen or more workshops in 1970 and 1971.  But when I describe the workshops as I did just previously, that only tells a part of the story.  In addition to teaching subject matter and pedagogical strategies, our workshops also focused on helping practicing and prospective educators change their attitudes, from being a “teacher” in the traditional sense of imparting knowledge through lecturing, to becoming a “facilitator of learning”, one who helps students become active learners.  The workshop facilitators employed many strategies from such then-current movements as the Human Potential Movement and the Humanistic Education Movement.  We felt that our workshop participants needed to see themselves in this new role before we effectively facilitate their mastery of subject matter and pedagogy.

Facilitating these workshops was the most professionally and personally rewarding experience I had had up to that point in time.  It was as important and meaningful to me, in many ways, as the Hiroshima experience had been.  I guess that is because while Hiroshima caused me to expand and deepen my understanding of myself, ESTPP workshops allowed me to expand and deepen my relationships with other people.

In the spring of 1972, Bill Romey extended to me the opportunity to work full-time with the project, in Boulder, for up to a year.  I applied for a one-semester sabbatical leave to work with ESTPP, which was subsequently approved for the spring of 1973. Because I had worked with the project staff for several years, I knew, even before I accepted Bill’s offer to join them, that if I did accept, it would probably be a career-altering experience. At the time, I had been at the university for about six years.  I had earned tenure and was on my way to a satisfying career as a professor of geology and geochemistry.  I had a budding research program with good students and was becoming accepted by my peers at the university and nationally, at least to a modest extent.  But, since 1968, I had been working with under-prepared middle school teachers. That experience demonstrated to me how much more satisfying it was to me to work with people who hungered for more knowledge and who appreciated what I had to offer.  So, since 1968 I was working in two parallel but very different, but different areas of specialization.  But, my heart was in the teacher-enhancement area and so, even though somewhat frightened by the prospects, with Charlie’s encouragement, I accepted the offer to join the ESTPP staff.  In late December of 1972, I packed the family and moved to Boulder for six months.

To say that the Boulder experience was career altering is a disservice to the experience.  It was a life-altering experience.  With my newfound colleagues, we worked with prospective and practicing K-12 teachers and post-K-12 teachers, helping them enhance their knowledge base, their teaching skills, their self-esteem and their inter-personal skills, through a series of workshops in Boulder and at several places around the country.  It was our hope that we would be helpful in having these people become better educators by becoming more sensitive, caring, respectful human beings.  And we succeeded, not totally, but beyond our most far-reaching aspirations.

The Boulder experience came to an end in June of 1973, when the NSF funding terminated.  I knew that I had experienced something that would stay with me for a long time.  Many years later, while reading a book entitled “A Different Drummer” by Scott Peck, I realized that what I had experienced in Boulder was that I had experienced a sense of community in a workplace.  We had a group of people who respected and cared for each other, who listened to each other and “heard”, and who looked at each other and “saw”, and I was saddened to have to leave.  However, there were no longer positions available, and so the whole crew split to work in other endeavors.  With a somewhat heavy heart, we moved back to South Carolina.

Eventually, I was able to create a sense of community in my work setting at the University of South Carolina.  Over a period of 15 years, I was able to create and direct a separate unit within the university dedicated to helping science teachers.  In 2000, I retired and as I said in the beginning of this post, I found myself searching for a sense of community again.  It didn’t happen for about 8 years.

Later, I had another “coincidental” experience with community, this time sometime in 2008. I was watching a highly irreverent, but highly entertaining TV show entitled “Boston Legal”. In this particular episode, a dysfunctional work group was involved in a leaderless encounter session. In this show, every one of the roles let everyone else know exactly where they stood with the others. It was frequently harsh and insensitive and sometimes very funny. However, at the end of the show, all of these people in the show realized how important it was, and is, to all of them individually and as a community to be honest with each other. That is the real litmus test for real friendship in work groups, family groups, church groups and in any other group to which any one was involved, was to care for one another in spite of, and sometimes because of our individual imperfections. A group of people who cannot be straight with one another can never become a community. After seeing the importance of what I had learned by surgically examining the above TV show, I realized that what little else I wanted from my life was to experience this type of community again, and I thought that I might never be so fortunate. I was willing to accept this small hole in my life, because I had experienced it before.

Since all of the above, however, my life has been enriched again, this time as a result of my involvement in the Cursillo movement, a church leadership program of the Episcopal Church, first as a participant in February, 2007 and later as a staff member in February, 2008. Included in these posts you can find another, related post entitled “Christian Community in Action”. In that post, I did not spend much time discussing how the concept of community had become so important to me. That is what I hope to accomplish in this post.

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