Man made the buildings that reach for the sky,

and man made the motorcar and learned how to drive,

but he didn’t make the flowers and he didn’t make the trees,

and he didn’t make you and he didn’t make me,

and he’s got no right to turn us into machines,

he’s got no right at all ‘cos we are all God’s children,

and they’ve got no right to change us,

we got to go back the way the good Lord made us all..

                                                                                                                        Ray Davies

Jesus talks a lot about the world, particularly in John’s gospel.  In a previous blog post I said that I believe he is talking about the civilised system.  The world is not the same as the earth.  The earth, the natural world, is part of God’s creation.  The world has been made by human beings.  Genesis chapter 3 pictures what we call the Fall, the break with God which occurred when the human mind, the egoic, wanting, worrying, emotional self, took control of humanity.  The world represented by the civilised system has been made by, and is an extension of, this self.  The civilised system is not static.  Since the Fall it has advanced in institutional and technical complexity so that it has become more and more intrusive and controlling and is now our master rather than our servant.  The effect of this has been to distance us further and further from the original creation and therefore from the sources of meaning in that creation.  The world offers distractions but it can never give us real meaning in our lives, indeed it is actively destructive of meaning by capturing the purpose in life that these sources give us.  So what are the sources of meaning? 

The main source of meaning in our lives is our conscious being [1].  This is God’s dimension in us, the kingdom of God is within you as Jesus said (Luke 17:21).  This is where we relate to God, and this is where he communicates with us.  This is where we experience God’s love and the presence of his holy spirit.  Indeed, God is love (1 John 4:8 and 16), it is his defining feature.  This love is unconditional and may be experienced as the sensation of the joyous rightness of a life which is the gift of God.  The world sees love as an emotional response to a particular person or object.  This can never bring us lasting joy and peace.  As Jesus says, my peace I give you, I do not give as the world gives, do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid (John 14:27).  As the world invades ever more of our lives, it destroys this conscious awareness, the presence of God’s love.  As Jesus said, because of the increase of wickedness the love of most will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). 

A second source of meaning in our lives is the natural world of creation.  There is a strand of protestant thought which sees creation as fallen and the redeemed as being saved by being taken out of it.  Nothing could be more damaging to a right relationship with the natural world.  The creation accounts in Genesis tell us that we are an integral part of creation, albeit made in the image of God and having a conscious relationship with him.  Genesis chapter 2 tells us that God put the man in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Gen 2:15, although the Hebrew word “abad” translated as “work” is usually translated “serve” in the Old Testament, another possible interpretation) so the relationship with the rest of creation is intended to be an intimate one.  This is how hunter-gatherer people lived.  The Fall has damaged that relationship so that the world we have made has separated us further and further from the natural world.  The civilised system we live in is dependent on the destruction of the wild and the extraction of its resources.  Many now live their lives with little contact with any other living thing which might be described as wild. 

Another source of meaning is our relationship with other people.  God made us for fellowship with others.  Hunter-gatherer peoples generally lived their lives in relatively small groups.  The anthropologist Robin Dunbar calculated an optimum number of about 150 people (flexible depending on circumstances, say 50 to 250) which allowed everybody in the group to know and have relationship with each other.  Such groups shared the following features: egalitarianism; mobility; a pattern of concentration and dispersion; and a common property regime [2].  That might be a description of the early church as described in the book of Acts.  This is not the church as an institution; the institutional church is a creation of the world.  Indeed the word “ekklesia” in the Greek New Testament translated “church” actually means “congregation”, the coming together of Christians for relationship with each other and with God.  This is how it was translated by William Tyndale, the first person to translate the whole New Testament from Greek into English, and is the main reason he was burned at the stake by the institutional church.  The world seeks to impose isolation on us, so that interaction with others is mediated completely through the things of the world, for example our technology, with all communication being via the screens of our devices. 

A final source of meaning is purposeful work.  This does not mean work as the world understands it, paid employment in the civilised system.  Work for hunter-gatherer people comprised the direct provision of survival needs from the natural world, food, shelter etc., and this process was social and cooperative and integrated with the other aspects of life [3].  The world has taken away the direct relationship between what humans do and the provision of their needs.  We are now totally dependent on the civilised system of the world for our survival.  We must work in employment to earn money to pay for food, shelter and our other needs.  It is impossible to live apart from the world and its structures. 

The industrial system which makes up our global civilisation is clearly in crisis as it outgrows its support in the natural world in terms of the resources it needs and the environmental damage it causes.  As we see more and more the effects in our lives of this decline and probable collapse it will be vital for us to recover the meaning which the world has destroyed. 

What can be done in practical terms?  Attempting to silence the thinking, worrying mind of the self is a good start [4].  This allows us to experience the stillness of our conscious being and God’s love which dwells there.  We sense what is needed in the moment, what the person in front of us needs from us.  In doing this we can find a true relationship with others and with God. 

Spending time in nature can help us to feel more a part of the natural world.  Sitting in a wood, still and silent with a soft focus, we can experience the sights, sounds and smells of the plants, the soil, and the birds, and be connected to them.  A great sense of peace can be found like this as we reconnect with the wild of which we were created to be a part.  The gospels tell us that Jesus did this, going out to deserted places or up a mountain to pray (e.g. Luke 5:16; Luke 6:12; Mark 1:35; Matthew 14:23).  Being close to nature is easier said than done in the middle of a city I know, but almost anywhere we can find something natural for contemplation, even if it is only the clouds in the sky.  Even something as commonplace as a tree leaf is a miracle of creation. 

Fellowship in our church family can counteract the dehumanising, isolating pressures of the world.  The early church of Acts is our model, mirroring as it does the forms of the original human communities of hunter-gatherers.  This means an egalitarian structure, and authority exercised only so far as necessary for the context.  It means individuals being sensitive to and looking after the needs of others in the church family. 

Work is the final area where meaning may be reclaimed from the world.  The world keeps us captive by supplying all our needs.  We can counter this by doing things for ourselves.  Growing food is a good place to start.  You don’t even need a garden for this, vegetables or herbs sown in pots indoors or on a windowsill can be very productive.  Plant a fruit tree if you have a garden with space, or you can get trees on dwarf rootstocks which will happily grow in a large pot.  Try to make some at least of what you need for the home rather than buying it.  Learn to make your own clothes.  Learn to make your own furniture (even with my rudimentary carpentry skills I have made very acceptable bookcases sized to fit particular spaces).  Bake your own bread.  Some of this may not be any cheaper than buying it from a shop, but doing things for yourself is very satisfying.  It builds confidence and makes you more independent of the world. 

In summary, the world separates us from God by nullifying our conscious awareness and removing the possibility of purposeful action [5].  By recovering these as far as possible we can minimise worldly influence and so be in the world but not of the world (John 17).  I sense that we will need this because of the uncertain future we face.  And remember that Jesus said: I am with you always to the end of the age (or world as some translations have it, Matthew 28:20). 

Notes

[1] I have taken the structure of this piece from an essay in Ad Radicem by Darren Allen.

[2] See the introduction “Foragers and others” by Richard B. Lee and Richard Daly in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers.

[3] See “Hunter-gatherers and the Mythology of the Market” by John Gowdy in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers.

[4] You might find this helpful (particularly the first five minutes) – How to stop thinking: https://youtu.be/zekRtrwO4q8

[5] See The Myth of Meaning by Darren Allen: https://expressiveegg.org/2018/12/03/the-myth-of-meaning/