What is the STAR Cluster?

As you know, our Monday night Vespers group has been studying Thank God for Evolution by Michael Dowd. This past week, we were so inspired by a passage from the book that we decided to change our name!  Here’s what Michael has to say about it in his book…

I’ve come to think of the acronym STAR as summarizing this work to increase and deepen our evolutionary integrity…

S ervice: Supporting others in maintaining integrity and providing lifegiving service in additional ways. In so doing, we not only bless the world; we support our own growth and fulfillment, while boosting our chances for long-term integrous living.

T rust: Surrendering to the wisdom of divine Wholeness—that undeniable physical and nonphysical Reality beyond thought, belief, or denial, which is at work in the world and to which each of us is ultimately accountable.

A uthenticity: Getting real with oneself and others, owning the painful truths about one’s life, and grasping the comforting truth that God loves us anyway. Then making commitments that will cultivate healthy habits and supports for living in integrity.

R esponsibility: Stepping into the shoes of those we have harmed, and then making amends—while cultivating compassion for ourselves and others. Enlisting the support of others, too, as integrity is a team sport.

I imagine people coming together in groups, locally or online, to support one another’s growth in evolutionary integrity. We might call these groups “STAR Clusters.”  And as we develop connections among such groups—email lists, conference calls, websites—for community-building, information-sharing, networking, support, action, we can imagine bridging the distances between the STARs, reaching through “interStellar space.”

If you feel inspired by this vision of intentional community, join us at our next STAR Cluster meeting this Monday evening at 6pm at First Presbyterian Church of Boonville!  Even if you haven’t been reading Michael’s book, come anyway and join in our fascinating conversation.

The most exciting new development this week is that Michael Dowd himself has generously offered to chat with out group via conference call when we near the end of the book.  We’ll be making arrangements for this to happen and will keep you updated as plans become concrete!

Sacred Evolution

Borrowed from Living the Questions on Facebook

Why We Struggle Now

Interesting TEDx presentation by Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution.

 

Too Cool To Not Share

Just cool. Thank you, Annie Wadsworth Gove

The New Theism: Shedding Beliefs, Celebrating Knowledge

Re-blogged from evolutionarychristianity.com

Interesting ideas.  Kind of feeling it…

Since April 2002, my science-writer wife Connie Barlow and I have traveled North America virtually non-stop. We have addressed more than 1,600 secular and religious groups of all kinds. Our goal is to communicate the inspiring and empowering side of science to as many people as possible…

(Click to read the full article)

Evolutionary Thoughts: Divinity Reconsidered

Image by Frank Douwes

We belong beautifully to the earth and intimately to the cosmic web of life.  Daily we breathe in the odor of sanctity that imbues creation.  Our God walks with us in the garden of life, the Originating and Sustaining Mystery who is radically transparent for those who have eyes to see.  We need a fresh approach to our theology of God, one that honors the mystery in which everything is held.  The divine is written all over creation: the quantum vacuum, the supernova explosions, the recurring cycle of birth-death-rebirth, the process of photosynthesis – these and many more are the chapters of our primary scriptures.  Divinity abounds, in and around us.

-Diarmuid O’Murchu, Evolutionary Faith, p.205

Evolutionary Thoughts: Where’s Waldo?

One of my students in class jokingly compared God to the famous stripey-shirted figure of Where’s Waldo? fame.  In the funniest rendering of the “God of the gaps” problem, he depicted the divine as constantly reshaping the earth and changing the laws of physics in order to stay hidden from the eyes of humanity.

Not quite plausible, but still hilarious!

Anyway, it reminded me of this passage from Diarmuid O’Murchu:

The universe knows what it’s about.  The fact that it does not make sense to us humans, that it often baffles us to extremes and undermines all our theories and expectations, is not a problem for the universe; it is a problem for us.  We, therefore, impetuously conclude that the universe does not care about us or about anything else; like the selfish genes, it too unfolds along its blind, lifeless path.

But is a blind, lifeless path likely to produce stars and galaxies, supernova explosions and quasars, planets and atoms, bacteria and photosynthesis, and creatures of such enormous diversity?  Instead of viewing it all as mindless, why not work with the opinion that it is mindful?  Not only would that make exploration more productive and hopeful; it would also make it a great deal more exciting, energizing, and engaging.

We also need to transcend this fretful preoccupation with where or how God comes into the whole picture.  Theologians seem to be nervously concerned with keeping God in, while scientists are desperate to keep God out.  I suspect that God is bemusedly puzzled by our human reactions.

-Diarmuid O’Murchu, Evolutionary Faith, p. 199

Evolutionary Thoughts: Consciousness

Photo by Abhisek Sarda

Consciousness is not something that can be measured, quantified, or reduced to neural, brain-based processes.  It is not something confined to the human mode of being in the world, nor can it be identified solely with what many religions claim to be the unique quality of life after death.  Consciousness transcends all the names and labels that we put on it.  It does not belong to the sphere of observable material reality; however, it is structured within universal life, and evidence for it can be gleaned from several of evolution’s creations.

-Diarmuid O’Murchu, Evolutionary Faith, p. 174

Evolutionary Thoughts: The Paradox of Resurrection

Yes, we are a resurrected people.  Evolution has been telling us that since time immemorial.  Resurrection is the mythical/religious name we give to the triumph of matter over antimatter, life over death, meaning over meaninglessness, cosmos over chaos.  But it is also the name we give to that baffling transformative process that requires paradox – apparent contradiction – as an essential ingredient in every transformation, whether personal or global…

Assuredly, not everything in our world is in harmony, and often we are overwhelmed by mysterious forces that push our sanity and sanctity to their very limits.  But before we address these big questions, let’s get our own house in order.  Let’s begin by resolving and dissolving all the meaningless suffering that we ourselves cause either directly or indirectly.  Then the chances are that the other great paradoxes that baffle and confuse us will not seem that irrational anymore.  We then will be in a position to understand with greater wisdom and equanimity the paradoxically creative Spirit who energizes the E-mergent miracle of our evolving universe.

Then, too, we are likely to be more at peace with the paradoxical enigmas of each day.  With graced intuition we will be more at ease about the fact that death is a precondition for new life; we do not know why, but it is.  Chaos is the fermenting ground for creative order; light is meaningless without the dark; pain and beauty have a strange familiarity; suffering awakens us into compassion.  The evolutionary cycle of creation and destruction manifests itself in every realm of life and permeates every recess of our being.

-Diarmuid O’Murchu, Evolutionary Faith (p. 107-108)

Evolutionary Thoughts: Kingdom Come

God’s presence in our history and in the evolution of creation at large is that of a Spirit-power, wisely shaping and forming the inter-connected web of relationships that holds everything in being.  The divine is first and foremost a wisdom-force, forging unceasingly the relationships that sustain and enhance life.  In our Christian story, that relational process is encapsulated in the concept of the new reign of God, traditionally described as the “kingdom of God.”

The wisdom that imbues the sacred writings of many great religions, the wisdom that Christians perceive to be embodied uniquely in Jesus of Nazareth, is that same wisdom that gave birth to stars, pulsars, planets, and people.  Although I have drawn mainly on the Christian story, I want to acknowledge that the wisdom story is bigger than Christianity and indeed exceeds in grandeur and elegance all the insights of the great religions.  It is the prodigiously creative energy of being and becoming.  It is the heartbeat of the evolutionary story in its elegant, timeless, and eternal unfolding.

Evolutionary theology requires us to honor the big picture where God in time begins prior to the evolution of the major religions as we know them today.  The wise and holy God was at work for billions of years before religious consciousness began to develop.  And that same creative wisdom will continue to beget radically new possibilities, forever defying and challenging the outstanding theories and inventions of the human mind.

-Diarmuid O’Murchu, Evolutionary Faith, p.72