I have been privileged to be a part of a small book group that is reading The Web of Meaning by Jeremy Lent, who will be our featured speaker at the Spirituality in the 21st Century 2023 conference on April 28–29 with Prairiewoods. This is a profound book that looks deeply into the situation that we find ourselves, which is cause for both despair and hope. Despair, because our civilization “is based on dominating the natural world with no consideration for its well-being” (p. 174) and hope, because evolution is nature’s way of fighting entropy, where order inevitably becomes disordered.
I like Lent’s approach because he realizes that Christianity, the dominant form of Western spirituality, has contributed to the body/soul dichotomy that has not allowed us to see ourselves as part of nature. Therefore, he turns to science and neo-Confucianism to find additional resources that will allow us to escape despair and generate hope.
In the Introduction to Lent’s book, he starts off with a speech from a fictional “Uncle Bob.” (I actually did have an Uncle Bob, but he was not like this one.) According to Uncle Bob, humans are basically selfish, technology and capitalism make the best use of this fact, and therefore they will ultimately save us.
Lent’s book goes deeply into a rebuttal of this argument, using the insights of evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, complexity theory, Buddhism, Taoism, and Indigenous wisdom. He is deeply read in all these subjects and uses them in the framework for his book, which asks some of the basic questions of life:
Who am I?
Where am I?
What am I?
How should I live?
Why am I?
Where are we going?
It’s like having a house that has been torn up by a flood or a derecho, and you have to take it all the way down to its studs. And then build it up again, examining each of these questions.
As a Christian from the Episcopal Church, I like having my presuppositions challenged, so that they can become stronger. It not only makes my faith stronger, but it also shows me what I should be doing to protect the Earth. And that’s what I like about Prairiewoods: It simultaneously supports and challenges me. I can find people who are like me, but who are not threatened by people who are not like me.
I hope you take a look at this book and this conference, and that you are willing to come see what it is all about.
—Charles R. Crawley, Prairiewoods board member
image of new sprouts after a prairie burn by Thomas Dean
To join us for Spirituality in the 21st Century, visit www.Prairiewoods.org/spirituality-in-the-21st-century.