Letter To Our Spiritual Leaders

Page 12

Summary 13 Over the next five years all five billion of us humans must prepare to die to 20th century ways of thinking and being. We must also prepare to see the possibilities and opportunities in our new condition in our new millennium. To make these preparations, all five billion of us must devote the next five years to learning from each other about Earth and how to live sustainably and peacefully on Earth. Every person must learn to think in a way that leaves room in one's mind for the thoughts of others. Every person must come to understand much better how Earth's natural systems function and how human institutions, governments, political systems, social systems, international organizations, corporations, and spiritual institutions operate and influence the future of Earth. Every person must learn again the immense power and value of life. (Does all the money or wisdom in the whole world have the power to restore a single life?) Every person must learn to think like Earth, to act like Earth, to be Earth. As a part of this learning process, we must all think through how our part of Earth can contribute to the new. Each person, each family, each corporate institution, each community, each country, each faith needs a plan to contribute to the new. What laws must be changed, what traditions, what beliefs, what institutions? We also need ideas of appropriate gifts for Earth on this anniversary. What gift can a person give? What can a family, a corporate institution, a community, a country, a faith give to Earth on this momentous anniversary? For this event to do what it must, the spiritual leaders of Earth must help lead the way and help plan the events. We humans, all five billion of us, depend on our spiritual leaders to make this all happen. Only the spiritual leaders of Earth--the recognized and the not-yet recognized--command the emotional energies needed to move heads of state, leaders of corporations and other institutions, and ordinary citizens to the acts of generosity and changed thinking and living that must occur. We need you to lead us in teaching each other about Earth and how to live sustainably on Earth. We need you to help us all design a once-in-an-Earth-time celebration of Earth's entry into a new era. We need you to bring every person, every community and every country to the celebration with their gifts. And most importantly, we need you to bring to the celebration a gift from your own faith tradition, a gift that will help change the course of Earth. What gift could your faith give Earth? To do what must be done, Earth's spiritual leaders of all faiths and all traditions must work together in ways previously unimagined and unimaginable. We must count on you to