Regaining Our Sense of the Sacred

“Know what it is to be a child… To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” ~William Blake

Looking out at the world around us there are so many problems, with so few solutions in sight. Unemployment, poverty, war, pollution, global warming, crime, etc. They all seem so difficult to solve. Yet if we dig a bit, examine the root causes, most seem to grow out of the same soil. 

Over the centuries, human beings have come to care more about collecting material things than supporting people, valuing “precious” stones and manufactured products more than Nature’s gifts and living creations. There has been a loss of our sense of the Sacredness of Life, that came about as economic systems based on the “value” of money and property became more dominant on our planet. 

It’s a value system that has created great suffering over the course of history, infecting our cultures, education systems, social class structures, politics, media, life styles, everything…

We’ve placed more emphasis on wanting, getting, measuring, comparing and having than on living, loving, learning and being. We’ve built great empires and civilizations based on delusional materialistic thinking, losing sight of what’s truly valuable and important.

What we’ve forgotten is that every life is precious and unique. Every day, every moment. Every forest, meadow and stream, every tree, child, river and lake, is a sacred gift from the Universe. We are children of God (or Nature), all of us so lucky to be here on this planet, with so much to be grateful for.

We just need to open our hearts and minds, change our priorities, reconnect with our spiritual values and the sense of wonder we had as children. To return to a way of living in the world where we care more about life, love and people then we do about money, status, property and material things…

To be humble, generous, joyful and grateful, once again, as a species, would solve most of our problems.

~Christopher Chase~
Creative Systems Thinking