The best thing, where it is possible, is to keep the patient from the serious intention of praying altogether. ... One of their poets has recorded that he did not pray "with moving lips and bended knees" but merely "composed his spirit to love" and indulged "a sense of supplication". That is exactly the sort of prayer we want. ... At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.
Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? - Matt 16
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your entire spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. - 1 Thes 5
a $ensible supplication
"There is scientific dispute over the extent to which global warming is manmade. [But since I speak as an economist and not a scientist] I will not weigh in on that controversy, except to concede that global warming is real, to some large extent manmade, and a serious problem."
"[W]hen it comes to climate change, our focus should not be on [mitigation, accommodation or adaptation] policies that cost a lot, deliver little, and in the end likely don’t even work. Rather, we should focus our efforts on developing new technology and encouraging innovation that will lead to the production of affordable and dependable green energy. It is possible for us to have a sensible climate policy without breaking the bank and without sacrificing the amazing opportunities delivered by cheap and abundant energy."
sanctify body, soul and spirit
In Breaking Together [available free in ePUB], Jem Bendell also begins with a concession to nature:
"[After] a year’s unpaid leave from my university job to look more closely at the primary science [in many different disciplines] ... I [with extensive help from an inter-disciplinary team] conclude[d] that it was too late to prevent both catastrophic change to human societies and the inevitable collapse of the industrial consumer way of life."
... but follows immediately with a multi-disciplinary, organic, diagnostic appeal to education [the "moving lips"] which Lomborg in large part skipped [because he was "not a scientist"]:
"The first step towards ... steadiness is to realise just how bad things are and will become, no matter what we do. Then we can get real about what aspects of the world we might wish to save. We can also aspire to not repeat the same patterns that caused the problems in the first place, as we try to respond to them. That requires us tackling the true cause, rather than piecemeal activities addressing the symptoms, which will be swept away by the tides of history. It also means we should not ditch what we believe to be right, just because we have become anxious and more vulnerable to manipulation."
... and then concludes with a loving call to free ourselves for cultural revaluation [the "bended knees" which Lomborg did not require]:
"The aim is not just to ‘save’ more of the world, but to sense the world more fully, respect its beauty, and help keep it worth living in. Therefore, it is critical that we keep in mind some universal values as we consider the size and significance of the troubles faced today."
Even the cursory reader can feel the discomforting energy and unsettling movement that Bendell demands ... the vigorous exercise he requires if one is to "sense, respect and keep" the world he claims to envision and value ... if one is to have any hope of ultimately attaining a "composed spirit of love" as opposed to being distracted by Lombard's siren call to "amazing opportunities delivered ... without breaking or sacrificing".
education ... tethers culture to nature
"I commence a sacred discourse, a most true hymn to God the Founder, and I judge it to be piety, not to sacrifice many hecatombs of bulls to Him and to burn incense of innumerable perfumes and cassia, but first to learn myself, and afterwards to teach others too, how great He is in wisdom, how great in power, and of what sort in goodness. For to wish to adorn in every way possible the things that should receive adornment and to envy no thing its goods—this I put down as the sign of the greatest goodness, and in this respect I praise Him as good that in the heights of His wisdom He finds everything whereby each thing may be adorned to the utmost and that He can do by his unconquerable power all that he has decreed." - GALEN, on the Use of Parts. Book III
In Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver's stereopticon reveals the external power of culture using Plato's allegory of the cave:
"The chains which keep the prisoners from turning their heads [to glimpse the real things that stand between the light outside the cave and the shadows they perceive within] are the physical monopoly which the engines of publicity naturally possess."
Socrates goes even further to assert that, for those who become accustomed to cave life, these external chains become internalized and preferable to unchained living [aka liberty] in the sunlight outside which
"would hurt [their] eyes, and [so they] escape by [re]turning [back inside the cave] to the [shadows] which [they are] able to look at, and these [they] believe to be clearer than what is being shown to [them in the sunlight]."
Bendell echos Galen ... first learn then teach. And, by his own admission, in the learning he has experienced the pain that comes from walking in the light ... something Lombard declines to attempt by claiming a "clearer" and painless view can be had from inside the cave. And yet, when reading Bendell, which of us does not feel a tugging in our heart ... something attempting to drag us from Lombard's cave of chained comforts into the harsh light outside which we want to trust?
That tug is prayer and education [which are identical] ... the unbreakable tether that pulls against the chains of culture which bind us to our dark comforts ... drawing us out of the cave ... towards freedom through submission to nature as the organic [ie. "working"] reality of which we are always a part and from which we can never be apart.
As Bendell predicts ... in the end, either we pray and work together in the universe ... or we break together ... and the choice is ours to make everyday ... by embracing or rejecting the role of prayer & education in the 3e's. Both Moses' 4th commandment and St. Benedict's dictum affirm this description of the task before us ... we must learn and work together in the creation. Ora et labora in natura ... which is the 3e's in Latin.
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