Living Practical Applications of Process Thought

What is Process Thought?

by R.E. Slater

November 2, 2020

Below I have posted three articles reflecting on the practical outcomes of process thought (otherwise known as process philosophy) and how process thinking may be applied into life situations.

As a Christian, I find process thought to cross many, if not all, of the barriers of communication between humanity and with creation. If it has any reality at all then process should be found pervasively across all academic disciplines; across all structures of society; across all languages, cultures and religions; and, across our innermost core and well as God Himself. The way God is, and how God communicates, is the essence of process.

For myself, as a Christian, looking for philosophical and theological foundations on which to build, I see process thought's essence coming directly from observations of our Creator-Redeemer God who is the ground of our being and essence. All that we are, all that creation is, is very God Himself (sic, process relational panentheism).

As such, process theology builds upon process thought and philosophy to say that God's generative love and goodness is the force which impells process-driven life forward: its becoming, unfolding, emergence, and experience.

Four Characteristics of Process Being & Creation:

1 - Divine love and goodness is an embedded and driving process inhabiting all aspects of life. But it can be defeated by a freewill creation whose agency can foul up its main constitutive driving forces. 

2 - Our Creator-God has set in motion hope, promise, love, and goodness as a constitutive basis emmenating from all that He is.

3 - By God's own divine atonement and redemption (which also must be looked upon as divinely embedding processes) God's-Self has doubled down on bringing harmonious fellowship between all creation with itself and with Himself.

4 - And finally, process theology expands on these ideas by recognizing process as the fundamental driving force behind all other driving forces.

Thus and thus whether evolutionary, social, or religious processes, all are subtended in the initiating God of compelling love from whom all things flow.

For practical applications of process thinking I highlight three examples: (i) The building of ecological societies in China; (ii) the building of compassionate communities in relationship to Black Lives Matter and social justice; and, (iii) the advocacy of listening, literacy, and communication between interfaith beliefs. All three examples are due to the alignment and involvement of Jay McDaniel year's earlier into these living communities of practical process applications. Thank you Jay.

- R.E. Slater

* * * * * * * * *

Why Process Philosophy?

http://www.permuted.org.uk/process1.htm

The Process Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead prioritizes freedom and creativity. The system in its fully developed form is also deeply complex, and its professional discussion is weighed down with jargon. But in its simplest form, process philosophy is about engaging in the process of what we are, what we do, and how we can guide, develop and create our own future.

Events

Process emphasizes the space between two points. It's neither the start that's important, nor the end; but the travelling between. In the case of Whitehead, this travelling in between is what makes up reality. That is, Whitehead, in contrast with much philosophical - and everyday - thinking, doesn't regard 'matter' as the stuff of reality, but instead treats 'events' as the most real things that there are.

Novelty and Adventure

As a philosopher, Whitehead focused on practical matters. He recognized the barrenness of theory without practice, of education in a vacuum, of authority without responsibility, and action without purpose. His aim always was a 'creative advance', the creation and engendering of something new, something novel, something that was in a literal sense 'new under the Sun'. The past was relevant for Whitehead, but not overly so. The authorities of history were interesting, but not to be followed blindly. Experience and adventure, and the risk of the unknown: these are what drove his metaphysics.

Nothing is True

A key implication of his work is that reality doesn't have to be like 'this' or like 'that'. There's no ultimate reason why we are living in this way, in this world, in this universe. Our existence can be thought of as something like a particular rhythm set within an infinite beat, it being the rhythm that sets the tone of reality. But there is nothing to stop the establishment of new rhythms, new realities. Process philosophy is thus partly an 'aesthetic metaphysic'. What tends to succeed are those rhythms of creating which bring forth the most effective and most elegant patterns. I sometimes think of this as the Collaging of Reality.

* * * * * * * * *

R.E. Slater -

One of the areas process philosophy is being examined is in China. China has been driving forwards since the 1990's towards the idea of ecological societies in balance and in rhythm with nature.

Because of process philosophy's all encom-passing nature, it can easily serve as both foundation and driver for China's vision. The reason it can do this is because nature, planet earth, and the universe are all process mechanisms unfolding every moment in interactive, collective community with, and impact upon, one another.

Process is a cosmic (cosmos-based) mechanism on which process evolution runs. So too with all of life - including humanity. Humanity's job is to find it's balance and rhythm again with nature, synch up to it, and to each other. Such effort would be the start of discarding our biased attitudes of superiority over creation.

An attitude that uses nature only for our wants and needs rather than recognizing the biotic communities we live within with it's own wants and needs. How we each impact the other for good or for ill.

Biogenic and communal biotic process equalization is an aspect of the larger idea process philosophy identifies as essential processes humanity must learn to inhabit in compassionate communities moving through open futures filled with chaotic challenge inhabited by an agency driven creation.

As example, the Chinese civilization has enough of its old cultures left to perhaps offset the adverse affects of the Westernization of its land and peoples by moving towards the idea of process communities.

Similarly, Western civilizations should take note and begin doing the same as we face the rigors and chaos of crises from weather events to rolling pandemics to resource challenges such as  fresh water to drink, fresh air to breathe, and  fresh, unpolluted greenways to recreate and grow food (known as agricultural beltways or regional habitat zones). If not, we can expect more of the same crises as humanity remains unsynched with nature.

In summary, process-based societal living addresses how to reorientate and manage Western cultures gone unhealthily rogue in their economic and political policies, theologies of usury and theft, and practices and attitudes habituating ignorance and the blind eye to what is happening all around itself as the prime cause and motivator.

Teaching & Learning Process in China

https://www.openhorizons.org/process-in-china.html

by Jay McDaniel of Open Horizons

process in china article link

Teaching Whitehead in China today, with Kevin Clarke, and students from the

department of education at Harbin Normal University, all teachers-in-the-making.

Emerging Hopes in China

The Sunshine Eco-Village, Process Philosophy,

and the Resurrection of Tao Yuanming

Go to the Website for Complete Reading of Each Subtitle:

• Why This Page? A Word from Jay McDaniel and John Cobb
• Audio Version of Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Spring
• The Sunshine International Ecovillage in Zheijian Province
• The Resurrection of Tao Yuanming
• Process Philosophy in Five Sentences
• Further Reflections on Sunshine Village
• The Way of Creative Compassion: Process Philosophy in Action
• ​Lessons to Learn from Tao Yuanming

1. Why This Page?

A Word from Jay McDaniel

In The Ecological Era and Classical Chinese Naturalism: A Case Study of Tao Yuanming, Professor Shuyuan Lu proposes that the great Chinese nature poet, Tao Yuanming, can be "resurrected" when people reclaim their felt bonds with the more-than-human world and live accordingly. This page offers two illustrations of that resurrection: the inspirational work of the Sunshine International Eco-Village in Zhejiang Province and that of Process Philosophers in China. Along the way I explain what process thinking is for those who do not know it. Readers might also be interested in another page on this site: Open Horizons China. At the end of the page, I offers a "process" appreciation of core themes in Professor Lu's book. (Jay McDaniel)

A Word from John Cobb

​"Many of us speak generally and appreciatively of classical Chinese thought and of its potential relevance to our time and need. Some of us know that there was a great Chinese thinker by the name of Tao Yuanming whose thought was especially significant and useful to the Chinese tradition. Now Professor Lu Shuyuan has not only described that thought in nuanced detail but located it in relation to Western thinkers so as to display the value of Tao Yuanming's insights." (John B. Cobb Jr.)

​Addendum: Powerpoints for Use in

Introducing Process Thinking

Ecological Civilization and Whole Person Education:

A PPT on Process Thinking for Chinese Readers

Download File

Collecting Light:

A PPT on Process Thinking for Chinese Readers

Download File

Ecological Civilization and Whole Person Education (In Chinese)

Download File

5

Process Philosophy in Five Sentences

Process Thinking in Five Chinese Sentences

1. 一切皆在联系中，一个现实实有存在于其它现实实有之中。

 

2. 万物皆流变，流变皆有其模式。

3. 万物有情，一切生物都值得被尊重。

4. 人类是宇宙关系之中的一小部分，但是人类的使命是伟大的。即带着尊重去关心他者，特别是弱者，以及不遗余力地建设生态文明。

5.  享受生活，关爱他人，宽恕他人，身心愉悦，眼里和心底都是美

A Very Rough Paraphrase in English

1.  Everything is connected to everything else: every actual entity is present in every other actual entity even as each entity is also unique.

2.  Everything is flowing and changing, and there are patterns and rhythms within the change.

3.  Everything is filled with energy and feeling, and all living beings deserve respect and care.

4.  We humans are small but included in a larger web of life, and our mission – our great work – is to help build ecological civilizations: that is, communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, humane to animals, in harmony with the rhythms of the earth, and spiritually satisfying, with no one left behind.

​

5.  Enjoy life, care for others, forgive others, be healthy in mind and body, and keep your eyes and heart on beauty.

* * * * * * * * *

R.E. Slater - 

Here is an example of process thought in action in society. One of its outcomes is the formation of compassionate communities. In this instance its support of Black communities in need of being heard socially against despair, depression, active racism, and so on. To be welcomed, embraced, wanted, enjoyed, respected, and invited. Process thought speaks to social equality, justice, equal opportunity, fair housing, food availability, and locality. This can easily be applied to poor whites, Muslim communities, Catholic-based Hispanic neighbor-hoods, transgenders, gays, and so forth. An open democracy allows all voices to be heard, recognized, and respected. This would be an example of Process in action. Such action forms the basis for an ecological society moving towards balance, harmony, and generative values.

Introduction by Jay McDaniel

of Open Horizons

An essay by Dr. Richard Rose, friend par excellence of the Cobb Institute in Claremont, CA. Influenced by Howard Thurman and active in interfaith circles, Dr. Rose is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of La Verne (Ca), program director for the Ecumenical Center for Black Church Studies.

Dr. Rose is a powerful voice at the Cobb Institute. One mission of the Institute is to take the general ideas of process thought and apply them to local initiatives in southern California. The Institute focuses on "compassionate community" as an embodiment of the 'integral ecology' of which Pope Francis speaks in Laudato Si.

An integral ecology is sensitive to the cries of the Earth and the cries of the poor, neither to the exclusion of the other. It emphasizes just, loving, and harmonious relations among people and respective and compassionate relations with other forms of life, responsive to the sacramental beauty of life itself. "Ecological Civilization" is the name given to a community and society that embodies these qualities.

In this imaginative dialogue between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Socrates, Dr. Rose shows how no compassionate community is truly compassionate, and no Ecological Civilization is worth working toward, lest it realize, and cast its lot in, with the Black Lives Matter movement.

- Jay McDaniel

    

 Photo by Maria Oswalt on Unsplash | Photo by Tandem X Visuals on Unsplash

​On Black Lives Matter & Institutional Racism:

A Dialogue Between Socrates and Martin Luther King, Jr.

article link

Dr. Richard A Rose

Dr. Rose is a Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of La Verne (CA)

and serves as the Program Director for the Ecumenical Center for Black Church Studies. 

​

SETTING: The year is 2020. Each participant is at home, comfortable in their study. The conversation takes place on Zoom.

SOC: Hello Doctor King? Glad you could dial in. Looks like there is dissatisfaction in your community these days. I have been a well-respected citizen in this area since I left Athens over 2,300 years ago and I have never seen this much discontent. Can you explain to me what’s up?

KING: Sure Socrates.. I know you are busy with your teaching of the youth, bugging city officials and everything. It is nice for you to take time off from your position of social privilege and ask about our condition. So, I’m going to be marching with these young people from BLM this Evening. Even though this march was not approved by the City officials, it is important that we make this statement against the system.

The TRUTH of the matter is that the nation is not living up to its promises and it has practices that make us feel like Lincoln has yet to pronounce the Emancipation Proclamation. 

SOC: Im afraid I’m confused. What do you mean?

KING: Give me a moment. I will be happy to explain. The Declaration of Independence states as I said at the March on Washington. “In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.”

SOC: Sir, I must admit you put forth a strong position. Yet, there are several key ideas that it appears you did not consider prior to your response. 

KING: Pardon me?

SOC: When I had to decide whether or not I would obey the laws of Athens - the laws themselves spoke to me. Hear carefully what they said: “He who disobeys us is triply wrong: 1) in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents. 2) we are the authors of his education. 3) He has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands. (204a) [“But he who has experience of the way we order justice and administer the State, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract to do as we command him.”]

So, although you have legitimate complaints the way to eradicate what you see as systematic racism, is not by marching and causing a disruption of normal life; the best way is to work within the system and change the way people are doing business. Let your little light shine, Dr. King!

KING: Socrates, you and I have much in common. You are in some ways correct, I grew up in a good home, I went to good schools, I was ordained and earned a Ph.D. degree. That is why I’m going to shine my light on you Soc. I’m doing well, however, the vast majority of my folk, especially in the inner-cities, do not have access to the same quality of EDUCATION that allows for full participation in the system. That same system, that abused them, they are then asked to obey. 

SOC: Your marching is leading to looting and even some instances of people being hospitalized and some deaths have occurred. Don’t you bear responsibility for that evil? If I had been shown how my actions, before the trial, were harmful to the larger society, I would have discontinued my behavior. Now, you are aware of your error. As a man of honor, certainly you will do the right thing.

KING: Again, Socrates, you are a man of wisdom. Yes, I try to live a life of honor and I do plan to do the right thing. However, those many years since you left Athens have left you a bit rusty. It is always right to do the right thing. In this case the “right” thing is to disobey the law; I’m not calling for violence, but I do understand the anger of some with the system.

Should, I repent of their sin? I believe my mentor Gandhi would acknowledge your concern and he would encourage me to do so. But my repentance for my brother’s anger, does not erase the original concern. Institutional Racism is still preventing us from breathing in an unobstructed way. You see how Covid-19 has impacted “all” people of color disproportionately. There are too many places where we do not have access to the rooms where decisions are being made. The result are laws and policies that are made that are not good for our community.

SOC: Ah ... yes, but can you begin to pick and choose which laws you like and don’t like? I’m confident that the city officials put a great deal of thought into each law that is on the books. You are placing yourself above the law when you and your crew decide which laws are good for you. What about the rest of society? Don’t they deserve consideration?

KING: I’m glad you asked. Of course the others in society are important when making laws that effect the whole country. There are a few necessary ideas to keep in mind when drafting laws. This is essential:

A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

An unjust law a majority inflicts on a minority and is not binding on itself. A just law a majority compels a minority to follow and it is willing to follow itself.

SOC: So change the laws!

KING: That is what the Civil Rights Movement did. But the policies and practices remain.

SOC: So you are telling me there are practices and policies that have been in place for hundreds of years and in other cases corporate policies that affect your lives, but you do not have access to the places the decisions are made.

KING: That is correct.

SOC: And these conditions are causing hardships on workers and their families. That is a concern. And have you approached them and tried to negotiate a better arrangement, better conditions?

KING: Yes, and every time we have been misled, one excuse after another. My people are tired and frustrated. So we have a plan. We have identified our concerns and sought negotiations and have been put off. We believe our cause is just:

So, because of our commitment to justice and truth, we cannot participate in this corrupt system. So we are bringing attention to the institutional corruption in the very system that brings you, Socrates, such satisfaction.

SOC: Well, I see why they call you King. You are the type of person I would want to be King of my ideal state. I like the way you think. The Eternal Truths on which you are building your movement are impressive. Where is this March headed? I think I will join you. Maybe we can work together to get them to reconsider their behavior in the light of self-reflection.

KING: Great! We are always looking for people of outstanding character to join us. I will have a BLM T-shirt for you when you arrive, we will be honored if you will wear it.

SOC: You know I only wear this piece of cloth that looks like a Toga.

KING: Okay, no problem, I will see if I can get you a BLM mask! See you in the Streets!

* * * * * * * * *

R.E. Slater - 

If process thought is any good at all then it must be pervasive. Here's an example

of process at work spiritually crossing the boundrylands of differing faiths and religions...

 

Growing in Spiritual Literacy

Interfaith Center

Site Link Home Page

Fall Session: Sep 30 - Dec 16

Moderated by Jay McDaniel & Sophia Said

Spiritual vision can come through art, scripture, theatre, service to the poor, meditation, dreams and countless other ways. It is how we find our own wisdom and align ourself with Spirit. Sometimes this process involves developing good judgment, deliberative skills, and common sense. Other times we may experience extraordinary perceptions, what are often called revelations. This wednesday’s (10.28.2020) spiritual letter is “V” for Vision. Our guest is Rev. Susan Sims Smith, who is the visionary and founder of two non profits, The Interfaith Center and House of Prayer in Arkansas. She will talk about three key times in her spiritual journey of service where fresh new vision upended her personal plans and brought her to places that she never imagined You can join the class by emailing us your name at theinterfaithcenter@gmail.com Jay McDaniel Sophia Said

Is A Pandemic a God-Sent Plague or Something Else?

Theodicy (noun) 

from Greek theos, “god”; dikē, “justice”

explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty,

and all-knowing God permits evil

the vindication of God's divine goodness and providence

in view of the existence of evil.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Concrescence (verb)

the coalescence or growing together of parts originally separate

a relational, interactive, interconnective evolving of parts to the whole

the consequent nature of God interacting with the world, prehending fully every

single actual occasion in the world, upon its concrescence to thus preserving

the past, affect the present, and produce greater generative networks of

wellbeing and novelty

Process philosophers characterize God's relation to the world as one of

mutual transcendence, mutual immanence, and mutual creation.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Is A Pandemic a God-Sent Plague

or Something Else?

by R.E. Slater

March 22, 2020
rev. July 31, 2020

When it comes to plagues and disasters a church may chose the loving God approach (my preference) or, as many will do, chose the condemning God approach. One seeks restoration. The other blame. One seeks communion. The other seeks disunity and division.

If theology is any good at all then a bible centered on God's love is the more meaningful, helpful, and easily transportable path to healing and peace. Good things come out of it like forgiveness, mercy, and fellowship.

The uglier approach of surmising God as a vengeful, condemning God but creates communities i) of fear, ii) rules-based faiths and formulas for legalism, and iii) ascetic living (trying to be holy by personal or social restrictions, a set of stoicisms, a self-harming form penitence, and so forth). This kind of God-perception withholds goodness and love, excludes many of God's children for many made-up religious reasons, is always sharply critical of everything, preaches guilt and unworthiness, and justifies its gospel of fear on every occasion.

Why Do Bad Things Happen?

As to why bad things happen in this world is a question of theodicy. I've been asking it for a very long time. For myself, as well as for many others, it is the simple observation that we live in a freewill creation which God doesn't control but rather guides by partnering where He can with man and nature.

Our restless and brooding souls are not unlike the whirlwind or troubling seas. But when hearing the Lord's words of peace and goodwill we must chose either by saying "Yea, Lord, I hear you," or, "Be gone from me and let me have my own way." This is the nub of an indeterminate freewill creation and sentient life.

The Agency of a Freewill Creation

Choices, as they can be made, blending with divine guidance and goodness, where it can be made possible, lived out in a cosmos boiling with restless energy yearning for life, is often expressed in ways of unbecoming rather than in ways of nurturing becoming.

Believing God to be in control is hopeful, but it is using the wrong word. God is never in control of a freewill creation with an open, undetermined future. Yet through loving guidance He seeks a kind of control in what can better be described as a fellowship or a partnership. A fellowship which guides, allowing the fullest of creation's energy to create, imagine, and become all it can be under a fulfilling divine guidance.

A virus, illness, natural disaster, or suffering is the unfortunate result of a freewill creation exercising un-nurturing agency. Within this environment - as God can - He will deliver and guide, but when not, He will always be present with us in all of life's events in a deeply personal communion.

Does God Damn and Condemn?

In this sense then, our sins do not force God away towards condemnation and judgement as many will say. As a God who is always loving and filling life with goodness, He cannot be a God of damnation. It is our own sins which fill us with grief and feelings of cursedness, not God. This, He would take away in an instant, as we let Him, filling our lives in times of harm or in times of fullness, replacing condemnation with mercy, unforgiveness with love, feelings of hurt and harm with forbearance, wisdom, and deliverance.

More simply said, God's compassion is present with all His creation. There is nothing with may separate us from God's love. And though the bible narrates stories of judgment believed by the ancients as God-sent it would be more accurate to say that these events of suffering, hardship, ruination, disaster, were more in line with how a sin-marred creation operates. Not as acts of a loving God but as acts of agency from a creation willfully exhibiting itself.

How Does God Act in a Freewill Creation?

Once an initiating process bubbles forward it may bubble for good or bad releasing succeeding bubbles of goodness or badness. This is the essence of process theology. Through these bubbling consequences God is there throughout its process doing what He can within and without a freewill creation. This is not to speak of God as limited, but as a fully sovereign God guiding creation without coercing creation.

The easiest idea is to speak of God as determining and controlling creation. But if so, creation is not open, nor free, to become in its own way. Process thought will say that creation has an open and not determined future; and that its is not controlled by God but free to become what it was initial given in its essence... that of becoming like the image of God. That is, God poured God's Self into creation. In its bones, or DNA, is the strong yearning to exercise generative bubbles of goodness, nourishment, and wellbeing for all beings. To creative novel bubbles of relationships amid thriving continuity.

Sadly, with sin came a marring of creation. It is neither wholly good or wholly evil. But it is in need of redemptive atonement which God gave through His own sacrifice on the Cross. An atonement which has placed the path of creation back towards fellowship with its Creator. Empowering it from an old creation to a new creation.

Process theodicy does not need to defend God for the evil humanity or creation groans under. It states that any judgment type of events in life testifies to the struggle of creation to either give in to itself or to God. God is not sinful or evil. Nor is He powerless or weak. God has spawned God's Self into a process that will never end which He may have eternal fellowship with.

And like Himself it has agency. And with agency it has opportunities to move from being to becoming. From being what it is to becoming all that it might be in the image of God exhibiting deep fellowship not only with God but with itself. Between these tensions of being and becoming will be a titanic history of redemptive struggle.

Our Response in Time of Evil

We might incorrectly call these times of God's judgment but in actuality these will be times of opportunity through crisis to regain what was lost at Eden. Times of challenge to meet devastation with compassion, wisdom, mercy and love. To take loss of life, or loss of social justice, or loss of personal freedoms and rights to remake a crisis into a good thing rather than to perpetuate its evil.

In terms of today's coronavirus, to find effective vaccines, to double down on helping each other, in rebuking - or not encouraging - views of scapegoating, hatred, or slandering talk of the whys and hows and wherefores of the crisis being experienced. Of refusing lies by speaking truth. Of refusing racism by embracing the other. Of withstanding voices or churches or faiths which speak death to society by speaking life and love and wisdom.

Our responses may be like the effervescing bubbles of creativity, novelty, life-changing goodness by praying forth newer, more whole societies of healing, helping, and affecting responses. Perhaps an ecological society in place of a capitalistic or communist society with all the associative ills these have presented to the history of the world.

We may lean into the atoning sacrifice of God that His redemptive power bubbles forth new communities of healing, new ecologies of restoration, new personages of embracing multi-ethnic pluralistic cultures of strength. When such earthly "judgments" come our way we repent, we change our course in life, we mend broken fences, and lean into God even more to teach us wisdom and love.

These are times of restoration. Not loss of heart. Time of Courage. Not sobbing and worry as the lost world does. These times will want for vision. This then is our challenge... to be women and men of courage, vision, love, and healing. Go forward in God's empowering power. Raise up new generations of concrecsing beauty and imagination.

R.E. Slater
March 22, 2020
rev. July 31, 2020

PS...

The link here will graphically illustrate how traditional Christianity has

interpreted bad events through fear and judgment. I submit, there is

another way as expressed above when we change our idea of God.





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What Is a Virus? How Does it Work?

How Viruses Work - Molecular Biology Simplified (DNA, RNA, Protein Synthesis)

Learn or review basic molecular biology to understand how viruses work with illustrations from Dr. Seheult of https://www.MedCram.com. See our first 25 videos on the novel coronavirus outbreak that started in Wuhan, China:

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 25: Vaccine Developments, Italy's Response, and Mortality Rate Trends: https://youtu.be/UImSVhLLeGY 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 24: Infections in Italy, Transmissibility, COVID-19 Symptoms: https://youtu.be/UImSVhLLeGY 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 23: Infections in Kids & Pregnancy, South Korea, Spillover From Bats: https://youtu.be/JGhwAGiAnJo 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 22: Spread Without Symptoms, Cruise Quarantine, Asymptomatic Testing: https://youtu.be/OqpHvK0XADY

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 21: Antibodies, Case Fatality, Clinical Recommendations, 2nd Infections?: https://youtu.be/9BYaywITXYk

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 20: Misinformation Spread, Infection Severity, Cruise Ship, Origins: https://youtu.be/Ka48UZDDzLY 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 19: Treatment and Medication Clinical Trials: https://youtu.be/4HK9QEy1KJ8 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 18: Cellphone Tracking, Increase in Hospitalizations, More Sleep Tips: https://youtu.be/vE4pBkslqS4 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 17: Spike in Confirmed Cases, Fighting Infections with Sleep (COVID-19): https://youtu.be/wlbM6VVkVZM 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 16: Strengthening Your Immune Response to Viral Infections (COVID-19): https://youtu.be/qqZYEgREuZ8 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 15: Underreporting, Prevention, 24 Day Incubation? (COVID19) https://youtu.be/o804wu5h_ms 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 14: Hospital spread of infection, WHO allowed in China, N-95 masks: https://youtu.be/pDnmHu8x9C4 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 13: Li Wenliang, nCoV vs Influenza, Dip in Daily Cases, Spread to Canada: https://youtu.be/0UgrPgJdzp0 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 12: Unsupported Theories, Pneumonia, ACE2 & nCoV: https://youtu.be/GT3_A1bf9pU 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 11: Antiviral Drugs, Treatment Trials for nCoV (Remdesivir, Chloroquine): https://youtu.be/pfGpdFNHoqQ

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 10: New Studies, Transmission, Spread from Wuhan, Prevention (2019-nCoV): https://youtu.be/gPwfiQgGsFo 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 9: Fecal-Oral Transmission, Recovery vs Death Rate: https://youtu.be/8Hjy3UfaTSc 

- Coronavirus Outbreak Update 8: Travel Ban, Spread Outside of China, Quarantine, & MRSA: https://youtu.be/GpbUoLvpdCo

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 7: Global Health Emergency Declared, Viral Shedding: https://youtu.be/nW3xqcGidpQ

- Coronavirus Outbreak Update 6: Asymptomatic Transmission & Incubation Period: https://youtu.be/UGxgNebx1pg 

- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 5: Mortality Rate vs SARS / Influenza: https://youtu.be/MN9-UXsvPBY 

- Coronavirus outbreak, transmission, and pathophysiology: https://youtu.be/9vMXSkKLg2I

- Coronavirus symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment: https://youtu.be/UCG3xqtcL3c 

- Coronavirus Update 3: Spread, Quarantine, Projections, & Vaccine: https://youtu.be/SJBYwUtB83o 

- How Coronavirus Kills: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) & Treatment: https://youtu.be/okg7uq_HrhQ

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Jacob Preciado

Reflections: Winter Solstice Day + One

The contemplation of nature means that we see all things, persons and moments as signs and sacraments of God. In our spiritual vision we are not only to see each thing in sharp relief, standing out in all the brilliance of its specific being, but we are also to see each thing as transparent: in and through each created thing we are to discern the Creator. Discovering the uniqueness of each thing, we discover also how each points beyond itself to him who made it. So we learn, in Henry Suso's words, to see the inward in the outward: “He who can see the inward in the outward, to him the inward is more inward than to him who can only see the inward in the inward.”

- Bishop Ware, Kallistos, Bishop of Diokleia, The Orthodox Way, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Kindle Edition

Christ Be Our Light

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Winter Solstice:

A Crisis of Growth Amidst the Darkness

by H. Coverston.

Jesuit mystic Teilhard de Chardin observed processes of evolution taking place all around him in a world in which all is moving toward an Omega Point of reunification with the One. For Chardin, writing amidst the horrors of WWI, all events play a role in the evolution of our world. Even dark times like our own were necessary parts of the larger picture.

On this Winter Solstice Day when the darkness holds the northern hemisphere in its deepest grip, it is comforting to consider that even in the midst of our most anguished moments as peoples living in unsettling times, we shall not perish. No evolution can occur without the leaving behind of that which has preceded it, the new creation transcending and leaving behind those aspects of its former self which are no longer viable while transforming and bringing forward those aspects which continue to be useful to the new creation.

This may well be “a crisis of growth” we are experiencing, but even that is “more reason to hope.” For far sighted prophets and their words of hope, I give thanks this Solstice night.

“Whatever disorder we are confronted by, the first thing we must say to ourselves is that we shall not perish. This is not a mortal sickness: it is a crisis of growth. It well may be that the evil has never seemed so deep-rooted nor the symptoms so grave; but, in one sense, is that not precisely one more reason for hope? The height of a peak is a measure of the depths of the abysses it overtops.”

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Remembering Who We Are & the Spirituality of Surfing

This next is a little off beat - some personal, some not - but let's go with it...

In Jay McDaniel's accompanying article below what I like is how he weaves large large words and ideas like Process Theology, Panentheism, Creational Expression, Creaturely Freedom, and Spirituality into an integrated whole when selecting as his subject matter the recreational sport of surfing with its deep passion held by many having the blessed acumen of balance required to enjoy wind and waves.

Though I never had an opportunity to learn this sport a very distant relative of mine had, so much so that he has held the world championship record for surfing for many years. Who? You might have guessed it... its easy enough... Kelly Slater. Neither he nor I know one another yet we're from the same family tree out of Rhode Island through our common relative, yet another famous personality in his day, known as the Father of the American Industrial Revolution, the American Factory system, and of the American Sunday Schools. This same had established the Black River Valley textile industry throughout the New England Colonies which served the clothing needs of colonialists and an early nation growing up.

His name? Samuel Slater of Pawtuchett, Rhode Island, whose early textile factories spawned complex manufacturing machinery to meet the burgeoning needs of a populace fortunate enough to have one pair of clothes to their name. If you had a fire in your house the first thing you grabbed was your clothes. They were that rare or hard to come by. When we visited Pawtuchett several years back we drove through block after block of heavy textile factories - think Ford Motor but on a massive Textile scale and you get the idea. And when finally finding the Slater Mills, discovered the US National Parks Monuments had an immense museum, guided facilities, tours, movies, and public discussions ongoing through the year. Amazing. Who knew?

President Andrew Jackson: “I understand you taught us how to spin, so as to rival Great Britain in her manufactures; you set all these thousands of spindles at work, which I have been delighted in viewing, and which have made so many happy, by a lucrative employment.”

Samuel Slater: “Yes Sir. I suppose that I gave out the psalm and they have been singing to the tune ever since.”

- George S. White, Memoir of Samuel Slater

Anyway, Kelly and I are from this side of the family, come from England, whose descendants had migrated as white refugees seeking opportunity in a land promising freedom and hope. Not unlike the millions of worldwide refugees (61 million at present) dissettled from home and family looking for a homeland to live in, raise families, and grow businesses.

At present, we are witnessing America's deep difficulty with its previously rich heritage of having been the Land of the Free but is now in the process of relearning how to become the Land of the Free as opposing forces to human dignity and creational being lurk in the shadows disrupting and destroying those same passionate fires borne within the souls and breasts of those early colonialists seeking justice while fleeing the inhumanity of religious fanaticists across the face of England and Europe. Which sounds much like today's current events, which, I'm sad to say, proves the age-old adage true, that history ever seems to repeat itself.

R.E. Slater

July 1, 2018

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

- Emma Lazarus

    

* * * * * * * * * *

​Surfing and Panentheism

http://www.openhorizons.org/surfing-as-spirituality.html

​a short reflection for my son, Matthew McDaniel, a surfer

by Jay McDaniel

Pan-en-theism means everything is part of God even though God is more than everything added together. 

​Developed by process theologians in the 20th century, but with precedents in many world religions, it is the view that the whole universe is unfolding within the mind and heart of a single life -- God -- in much the way that a living embryo develops within a womb. God is a womb-like Consciousness in whose life the universe unfolds, and the oceans and waves on our small planet, along with us, are among the cells in whose Life all things unfold. 

This does not mean that everything that happens on our planet or anywhere else is God's will. The hills and rivers, the trees and stars, the oceans and the surfer -- all have their integrity and independence; all have power of their own which cannot be overridden by the divine life. God is all-loving, but not all-powerful; just as a Mother in whose womb an embryo unfolds may well be deeply loving, but not all powerful. Many tragedies occur that even God cannot prevent. They affect God even as they affect the world. God, too, can suffer. Still, just as a mother has a will, a desire, that her embryo enjoy safety and happiness, so it is with the Life in whom the universe unfolds. God is Love. God's aim is that we love our neighbors and the whole of life as we love ourselves.

Spirituality is the act of connecting with this Love. The word "spirituality" means many things, but most deeply it means becoming fully alive in whatever ways are possible, relative to the circumstances at hand, in a loving way, and in consonance with the Life in whose mind the universe unfolds. There are many moods the spiritual alphabet. Indeed, so we learn from the work of Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat in Spirituality and Practice, there is one and sometimes two for every letter: attention, being present, creativity, connectedness, courage, devotion, enthusiasm, faith, forgiveness, gratitude, hospitality, imagination, justice, listening, meaning, nurturing, openness, peace, play, questing, reverence, silence, transformation, unity, vision, wonder, X (the mystery of life), yearning, and zest for life. 

The practice of surfing can open a person to many of these moods. It may be part of a new religion, as Bron Taylor suggests, and it may also find its home in a more traditional religion such as Christianity, as the video "Spiritual Surfing" makes clear, as narrated by an Episcopal priest. Surfing is a trans-religious practice that can be enfolded into many different religions and also practiced by people who are "spiritually interested but not religiously affiliated." It is a form of meditation and faith. It is faith that waves will come, even in tough times, filled with fresh possibilities for life and love, no matter what the circumstances. And it is faith that we can respond to these waves creatively, with skill and effort and a little balance., to help build a world that is good for all, as best we can.

- Jay McDaniel