Living Beyond the "End of the World": A Spirituality of Hope

by Swedish, Margaret

• ISBN13: 9781570757679
• ISBN10: 1570757674
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-30
• Publisher: Orbis Books

Summary

Were Hurricane Katrina and the loss of New Orleans a sign of things to come? Margaret Swedish argues that we face a series of interrelated forces that could well undermine the fabric of society as we know it: global warming and climate change; the depletion of petroleum sources and a looming energy crunch; the exhaustion of other resources needed to sustain life as a result of over-exploitation and population growth; the collapse of a debtor economy; and a crisis in U.S. democracy. Ecological Hope addresses these crises and poses a challenge to people of faith: What kind of human beings will we be as we approach this difficult period in human history? After forecasting the dangers, Swedish lays out the values, a framework of meaning, and a spirituality that might plant seeds of a new human community and ensure a future for coming generations.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Permissions	p. xix
Introduction: Regarding Our Predicament	p. xxi
Science crashes up against biblical belief	p. xxiii
Cultures and ethnicities come crashing into our space	p. xxv
Founding myths clash with the real world	p. xxvi
The obsolescence of the nation-state	p. xxviii
Of Earthquakes and Hurricanes or, Learning to Face Disaster	p. 1
Living earth	p. 2
When humans try to outwit nature	p. 8
Investing in disaster	p. 14
It's about a relationship	p. 18
Climate Change or, Facing Human Extinction	p. 21
It's happening	p. 23
Because of the warming	p. 25
The End of "Cheap Oil" or, The Imminent Upset of Our Way of Life	p. 40
The energy conundrum	p. 41
A lesson shelved	p. 43
Our energy predicament	p. 46
Dirty coal and the death of mountains	p. 49
Food or fuel?	p. 55
Farewell to the energy pipe dream	p. 61
Living Beyond Our Means or, Embracing Simplicity Whether We Want To or Not	p. 66
Spending down life	p. 69
Being better off is killing us	p. 73
Multiple collapses	p. 77
What to do with all those poor people	p. 81
The setting of religion must enlarge	p. 83
A World of Trouble or, It's Going to Get a Bit Tense Out There	p. 87
The new foreign policy: It's all about access	p. 90
Blowback and the balance of power	p. 92
Oil = corruption and repression	p. 95
The United States spreads its military tentacles	p. 97
Water and food, you know, what we need to live	p. 100
Finally, inescapably, 9/11	p. 104
The End of the American Dream or, When Dream Turns into Nightmare	p. 107
An unaffordable middle class	p. 112
Road kill	p. 115
A yawning gap	p. 118
Living on credit	p. 121
How bad is it?	p. 123
But we're not happy!	p. 124
So who are we really?	p. 128
Alienation from Nature or, Letting an Old Story Go	p. 131
Living wrongly	p. 134
The problem with social justice	p. 137
Is our religion up to it?	p. 143
From alienation to connection: Restoring trust in nature	p. 148
In search of a new story	p. 151
Business as usual must stop	p. 154
Ecological Hope or, Living Beyond the "End of the World"	p. 158
A creation story	p. 162
Enlarging our sense of God	p. 166
Turning toward what?	p. 168
A dark night, a deep dying	p. 172
The role of US Americans	p. 174
Are we up to the challenge?	p. 177
And in Conclusion or, What Kind of Human Beings Will We Be as We Go Through the Crisis?	p. 180
First, restoring a primary relationship	p. 184
Kinship	p. 186
The role of religion	p. 191
Turning	p. 193
Living in a world of trouble	p. 195
Getting to work, the great work, that is	p. 197
Loaves and fishes: A spirituality for the coming times	p. 199
Notes	p. 205
Index	p. 215
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