PERFORMING AND DOING

 PERFORMING AND DOING

One popular word in our times is “disconnect.” There is a disconnect to most everything you see and know, like there is a disconnect between the institutional Church and the ordinary poor folks all over the country, by far the greater majority in our society. But there, too, is a massive disconnect in the way we see the earth and the actual way we use its limited resources. I believe Otto Scharmer when he says that all of us right now use up the equivalent of the resources of one and a half planets.

We only have one planet. Earth. Hearth. Home. But it is also our trash bin, our supplier of everything we fancy. In fact, twenty-five per cent of the earth’s inhabitants use up seventy-five percent of the same earth’s resources, while the seventy-five percent of the world’s inhabitants use up the remaining twenty-five percent resources.

Since Earth is our hearth and home, we are good at reading signs. We know if a storm is coming. Many people actually feel the “depression” in the atmosphere, days or hours in advance. There are those who, being close to the soil, know that unless they continue to put in massive doses of chemical fertilizers and precious fresh water, the harvest will be seriously affected for the worse. And last year, whether real or artificially induced, we experienced what it meant to be waterless for weeks on end.

But merely knowing does not take us to the level desired for us by the Lord. The call is not just to “read signs” and come to a level of awareness on the purely cognitive level. The rousing call to a decision has to do with a deep awareness that also encompasses the affective level.

But again, cognitive and affective awareness is not yet deep enough. Both have to go to the level of performative. And performative means doing more than just liking a post or attaching an emoji to a comment on that same post.

What is your game plan? Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

----------- REFLECTION QUESTION ----------

When you read the signs of the times, what is your response?

Dearest God, You give us signs everywhere, but grant us the sensitivity and the courage to respond to them. Amen.

Today, I pray for: _________________________