New Search for Ultimate Reality

This Café Table is titled a NEW SEARCH for Ultimate Reality.

Marie Schickel Rottschaefer is the facilitator.

Its goal is to give a brief overview of developments that have relevance for us in the early 21st century, particularly in seeking solutions for pressing people and planet problems.

NCRcafe New Search
DISCUSSION Number TWELVE August 2007

In the July discussion I said that I wanted to talk about some of the real world resources for helping us to restore the planet. There are incredibly exciting global developments to discuss but I want to postpone this until September. Now in August, we need to discuss immediate internal business. After the September discussion New Search will enter its second year if it is feasible.

Are We All On The Same Page?

This café table has had a certain purpose for nearly a year. I have recommended specific reading material some of which I have talked about in the discussions and some of which I have referred to the reader for his/her further knowledge, if he/she had the time and interest. Our immediate purpose is to increase our understanding about specific serious 21st century issues. I said that I would give a variety of scholarly and other expert sources, from preeminent people in their respective fields. If this is not sufficient for some of you, and it seems that it is not, then I am puzzled as to why you are at this table. Some of you appear at times to be more interested in giving your own perspective rather than commenting meaningfully on the scholars’ and other experts’ material -- those people who are trying to teach us about a multiplicity of issues from a variety of approaches. Also, I commented on the literature or information; but here too there has not been much meaningful response. The off-the-point interactions that have been present at this table would not go far in academic circles. Nor would they even in popular book clubs. Book clubs have basic rules: Stay with the text and keep to the subject being discussed.

May The Virtual Be As If In Fact

Beyond staying with the text and subject, there is also the matter of responding as if you were literally sitting across the table from people at this table. If a person doesn’t understand a part of what is being said then wouldn’t it be more advantageous to simply ask the person “what do you mean by what you just said?” I think that we can respectfully disagree. And with enough dialogue hopefully we will come to some agreement. Diplomatic listening and responding is the better way for us as an evolving Homo sapiens species. Being collaborative is a survival skill and we are trying to survive in this critical century. Brief and to the point questions or comments are welcome. Part of the learning process for anyone of us is bringing clarity out of confusion. But it is beyond the intended scope of this café table for me to respond to the off-the-point postings that some of you are placing.

The Right Table For the Right Topic

The New Search table is not about the kind of posts I just alluded to. Some of your entries could drive away the anticipated readers for this table and give a false impression of what New Search is about. Therefore, if you want to interact with each other but do not want to discuss New Search material in the expected way, then why not form your own table? As I understand it, the NCRcafe staff has suggested that if you wanted to discuss matters that are relevant to your own interests but not sufficiently connected to the purpose of a given table, you were welcome to open your own table.

This table is about lay education by a layperson for lay people seeking an appropriate response to the global crisis; it is a call to action. We are in a multifaceted global crisis and that includes the Axial Age religions including Christianity. There is an interconnection to this crisis. Some of you may think differently regarding religious and ethical issues. But open-mindedness and respect are I believe what NCRcafe has in mind if we are going to solve problems together. All of us have to be involved in mitigating our global crisis. Unfortunately, it is far too late to overcome it! We are well into the sixth mass extinction since life began on earth! The consequences could be cataclysmic. For instance, “Oslo (Reuters) – Human activities are wiping out three animal or plant species every hour and the world must do more to slow the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs by 2010, the United Nations said on Tuesday.” [And] Ahmed Djoghlaf, head of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity: “Extinction rates are rising by a factor of up to 1,000 above natural states. Every year between 18,000 and 55,000 species become extinct.” (Netscape News 5-22-2007)

Please bear in mind what I said in NCRcafe #9. Michael Boulter speaks unequivocally in his Extinction: Evolution and the End of Man (New York: Columbia University Press) about the probability of human extinction as well.

Is There Justification For The Continuance Of New Search?

I hope that this table has been useful to the many readers who have not commented as well as to those who have. But there ought to be an adequate feedback process to justify continuing this task in the long term, if circumstances allow. That justification occurs when relevant discussion about the issues and goals of New Search makes the expenditure of the resources of time, energy and money worthwhile. Hundreds of people have read New Search. But I think it is not equitable if I continually play the role of “giver” and many others continually play the role of “receiver.” No responsible relationship or endeavor between adults -- well-functioning people --can thrive in such an atmosphere. And we will not actualize satisfactory change in this precarious twenty-first century unless we learn to be more adequately collaborative and to solve problems together.

Change Has Consequences
And Consequences Require More Change

I realize that New Search material may be difficult for those who have not studied these areas. As I have said, I too am a layperson, not a scholar. (I have an MS in education with a specialty in nursing and health from a well known university and years of experience.) It has taken time, effort and diligent study for me to begin to grasp some of the issues.

These issues are so important for all of us in this period of enormous global change occurring in the early twenty- first century. This change requires a contemporary understanding of Catholicism and Christianity in general. The systematic way to view the Bark of Peter (the Church) is from the inside and outside. This inspection takes more than simply reading Catholic and Christian literature. We need to have a sufficient understanding of Christianity’s place and justification in history. This requires multidisciplinary study. If one seriously reads and thinks about the issues being raised, then sooner or later one understands significantly more. One experiences a break-through.

If we are permitted to continue this table into a second year, I’ll try to clarify even more some of the reading sources that might in turn encourage brief, relevant responses. Hopefully this is one way for us to be more collaborative, joining with billions of other people to help mitigate our global predicament. The environmental and social justice movement is growing rapidly, but has far to go. Next month we will focus on some of the incredibly exciting global developments that should give us further hope and a springboard for action in a time of profound uncertainty.