SUSTAINIBILITY AND THE PRAIRIE

I had the privilege of having a conversation with a friend of mine about how an earth based spirituality could impact how to approach some challenges at work. After being taken a bit aback by the question, I offered her some of what follows.  I’ve also fleshed out what I said to be clearer. 

First, I said that I always ask what the potential lessons are in this for me when I encounter a situation that isn’t working and I’m frustrated. I don’t believe that things happen to us because we have a lesson to learn from it—I think life is much, much, much more random than that. But I think the posture of approaching our challenges as spiritual challenges from which we can grow is a really fruitful approach, and beats the hell out of whining about it or attempting to manage it.

Second, I sit or wander with the question of what I might learn or how I might approach the challenges in the more than human world.  Why?  Because going out into the more than human world can ground you, and it certainly offers a different perspective than the human centric view in which we often find ourselves imprisoned. Sometimes I get an “ah ha” I can use, sometimes I get that the problem isn’t nearly as serious as the ash borer is to the ash trees that are dying all around me, sometimes I just feel better because I give myself some space away from the noisy human world.

Third, I offered her something I learned from Wes Jackson, the founder of the Land Institute, about taking his cue about sustainability from the prairie.  There are going to be some years that are wetter  or dryer than usual, some hotter or colder.  An intact prairie is fine with that, because it has this wide variety of plants that can take advantage of the specific conditions, while others, being perennials, can basically wait for the more favorable conditions that will follow at some point. Prairies prioritize sustainability over the maximum yield orientation of our agriculture.  Our organizations should focus on how to be sustainable organizations, not just growing fast with the chemical nitrogen fertilizer of Foundation grant money, but grow in a way that they can be balanced, to allow for the ebbs and flows that are inevitable. If we don’t focus on developing sustainability in an organization, then sooner or later, there’s going to be a late frost, or a super wet fall or a really dry summer that will lead to the premature death.  All beings will die—there is no death without life and there is no life without death.  But too many beings die prematurely because of our human actions.

Spiritually healthy organizations are sustainable.  If an organization isn’t sustainable, that’s evidence that there is a spiritual problem.  Full stop.

Lastly, I offered this person the developmental perspective that in a well functioning society, adults are the workhorses of society by design. They do a great deal of caretaking of the young and do all the heavy lifting of meeting material needs so that kids can be kids, and the elders can be elders. But if the adults are only chronological adults and not spiritually mature adults, they wind up acting like adolescents and you get a lot of organizational dysfunction in the organizations they lead or in which they participate.

I think this person found what I said provoking and I wish this person great blessings on their journey of self discovery and development.