Compassion

I have just found two items that are absolutely at the heart of what we need most for healing this Wounded Earth;

And that is Compassion!

My first find is the website for Charter for Compassion, calling upon all people to restore compassion to the very centre of morality and religion, for it to be a "luminous and dynamic force in our polarised world." In this selfish Me Millennium we need compassion more than anything else, to restore relationships, to be at the centre of a more just economy and for a more peaceful global community.

And behind Charter for Compassion is Karen Armstrong, whose latest book, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate World, is just being published now. I have ordered a copy and will be reviewing it in the New Year, when I will also write more about that Charter for Compassion.

Spirit, the Me Millenium and Scientific Reductionism

Yesterday I wrote that spirituality rather than materialism is something that should infuse our lives at all times. But spirituality and the sense of spirit or soul is compromised by two modern phenomena.

First is our narcissistic obsession with personal growth and success measured in terms of material rather than spiritual wealth, and with little or no concern for the needs of society as a whole.

This is most obvious in the self-help, self- development and ‘How to Succeed’ genre of book that are so popular today, and that too often fuel what has been dubbed by many as the new egocentric ‘Me-Millennium.’

Secondly, those who would yearn for a more spiritual approach to our lives and the world’s problems also have to fight scientific reductionism. Whilst deeper scientific understanding is important, and we have made wonderful discoveries and advances in our knowledge, this does not mean that we have to lose sight of the transcendent or spiritual dimension of human life, with its own healing significance.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously warned of the dangers of losing our faith, our religion and our soul to rationalism, scientific thought and to Darwinism, when he predicted the total eclipse of all values by the 21st century. This loss, he predicted, would be the cause of the awful wars that we did indeed experience, and continue to do so.

The Dalai Lama also warns that "we are apt to overlook the limitations of science. In replacing religion as the final source of knowledge in popular estimation, science begins to look a bit like another religion itself. With this comes a similar danger on the part of some of its adherents to blind faith in its principles, and, correspondingly, to intolerance of alternate views."

Certain best selling authors spring to mind here!?

The Me-Millennium

In the context of the Wounded Healer the ‘thriving’ response is seen in the person who experiences a traumatic or stressful event and benefits or gains in some way from the experience. An example would be Beethoven who overcame his deafness to find joy in his music making.

But this response type may not always be what it seems. I believe it may sometimes be similar to what I prefer to call the ‘self-help response.’ Those popular ‘self-help’ shelves in the bookshops groan with the weight of titles on how to overcome adversities, how to succeed, even how to get rich or how to achieve our own personal dreams. These can perpetuate the selfishness of the ‘Me-Millennium’ and are very often written at the expense of other people who are more vulnerable, weaker, more wounded.

We have to take healing beyond this potentially egoistic self-help genre that is so often aimed purely at personal gain; we have to travel beyond that goal to help others and stop being so self centred and selfish if we hope to heal the world.

Winchester Writers' Conference 2008

I went to the Winchester Writers' Conference again in June. This has been organised by Barbara Large of the University for many years, and is an extremely motivating and worthwhile experience. Alongside the plenary session on Saturday, (amusingly droll, delivered by Colin Dexter OBE, creator of Inspector Morse), the conference holds workshops and mini-courses over a few days, alongside the opportunity to submit your work to three different agents, publishers, or other writing consultants of choice, for a 15 minute free appraisal. There is also plenty of opportunity to share stories with other budding authors, some of whom each year find a publisher as a result of their visit.

This year I received encouraging feedback for my book in progress, Ripples of Hope, from Annabel Wright, a senior editor at Harper Press, (who had a gorgeous new baby in tow!), Alison Baverstock, author of Marketing Your Book, an Author's Guide, and Zoe King literary agent for the Darley Anderson Literary Agency.

The big problem with the publishing world these days is that is has been swallowed up and changed beyond all traditional recognition by the 21st century celebrity culture, and the so called Me Millennium! Ripples is definitely NOT a self help book in the "How to achieve Material Success and find spiritual happiness" genre! I find though that the commercial potential of a book in progress in the so called Mind/Body/Spirit genre is judged by that very same oxymoron!

Ripples is the antidote to all that. It offers a refreshingly new angle to self-help by applying ancient spiritual wisdom to our daily activities, showing how healing our own behaviour rather than relying on Government intervention is the real key to solving the world's problems of climate change and violence that threaten our very existence!

People in "the trade" tell me that I must show clearly "what is in it for the reader!" Oh dear reader, isnt it sufficient that we will find spiritual peace and leave a planet for our grandchildren to enjoy? Read Ripples to find out How!