W E L C O M E
to
about Origins, First Things,
and Human Wellbeing
Where Faith and Reason Meet,
Where Religion & Civility Greet,
Where People and Nature are one
In Purpose, in Reality, in Relationship;
Where Trust is a State of Mind
Sustaining Life in informed Wellbeing;
Where Life is Consciousness, Pursued
In Daily Context; and Church is
Word and Work of People United;
Where Joy is Fulfillment; Growth is
Self-Understanding; and Knowledge
Is Personal Bliss Experienced
In Altruistic Giving.
We are born to Seek beyond Horizons,
To know Reasons of Being beyond Self,
To experience Unfolding — not just
To have and to hold, but to Become,
To Grow in Grace, in Spirit, in Place,
In Destiny — Told and Untold.
Reason is a Process; Faith is a Process;
Hope is a Process; Love is a Process;
Purpose in Life is joined in Process,
In intelligence, as God is in Creation.
We seek Other in one Another;
By fulfilling Other, our own Persons
Are fulfilled. Fulfillment is step-by-step,
Becoming personally better,
What Evolution is, does.
In the unfolding of Possibilities
Differences are reconciled, Desires
Are respected, and Destiny opens
Nature, Life, to flourish as one.
In the Trustful Bonding of Faith,
Hope and Love, Reason becomes Wisdom;
We become Community; in the fullness
Of Joy we Celebrate Oneness.
The Community of Trinity, of Faith,
Hope and Love, is religious Vision,
Oneness of Person, of Civil Humanity,
The Community of Civilizations.
For our lifetimes we are a Learning People,
A Teaching People — to this all are Called.
A VALUES-FOCUSED SYLLABUS
— Wisdom, Age and Grace —
From times immemorial, the more prized values treasured by elders and cultures are wisdom, age and grace. This curriculum of study points the self-fulfilling way to and through these values.
The focus of this Joined Evolution/Faith Syllabus is intensely purposeful in intention to raise appreciation for those values that have proven to be universally reliable in advancing life and sustaining nature and wellbeing.
Evolution 101 is a humanity-oriented overview of how things have come to be the way they are, how we have come to be and continue to develop in the expanding universe of common origins, and how humankind understands nature and self, and, how different the understandings of today are from those of the past.
From awareness of changing nature and self, we have a sense of where we have come from, where we are going, what we must do in self-interest, and how nature suffers and benefits, how we suffer and benefit, from wrong and right actions, and how we belong to nature and each other.
Evolution is about life, about deep desires, about destiny, about the joys of life, about hope in the future, about good order, about who we are, individually and altogether.
What we know about ourselves is that we can think, that we can speak to and reason with each other, and, that by thinking and speaking we can come to understandings that let us as a people find security, friendship, trust and wellbeing.
Thinking, reasoning, and talking are about evaluating ourselves and the world we live in, and about making the most of it not only for ourselves but also for all who will come after us — what is the intelligent design — love’s method of evolution.
Word Unlimited
All Rights Reserved
August 2008
FAITH — REASON — New “WORD Made Flesh”
The last thing we do becomes first for it reformulates all that precedes it. “Updating” is reason’s intentional reformulation of faith, for it is how faith recapitulates and is perpetually reborn in consciousness. The process of faith-reformulation is by way of reason’s analyses and synthesis of knowledge.
So it is with the analyses and synthesis presented here, the unfolding syllabus of evolution101, 202, 303, and 404, and so it is with evolving consciousness by way of “trimorphic resonance”.
By continually recapitulating the resonance (sense) of intelligence, reason and faith relate to each other; this is what functional religion does, and what intelligent design is about.
The rebirth of consciousness is a perpetual “groaning”, an ever new, perpetual Eucharistic birthing process of the conscious reformulation of Word, how God’s Word is ever at work on Earth in the understanding of divinity and humanity.
Eucharist, the intentional resonance of Word-Light-Love, is how the community of global humankind is constantly being made flesh in the recapitulation of Godhead Divinity — what divine/human hypostasis is, what intentional living by faith is about.
VOX DEI, VOX MUNDI: God's Voice is Earth's
VOX MUNDI, VOX TERRAE: the Earth's Voice is the Land's
VOX TERRAE, VOX POPULI: the Land's Voice is the People's
VOX POPULI, VOX DEI: the People's Voice is God's
THE RIDDLE’S ANSWER
At first men try with magic charm
To fertilize the earth,
To keep their flocks and herds from harm,
And bring new young to birth.
Then to capricious gods they turn
To save from fire or floods;
Their smoking sacrifices burn
On altars red with blood.
Next, bold philosopher and sage
A settled plan decree,
And prove by thought or sacred page
What Nature ought to be.
But Nature smiles—A Sphinx-like smile—
Watching their little day
She waits in patience for a while
Their plans to dissolve away.
Then come those humbler men of heart
With no completed scheme,
Content to play a modest part,
To test, observe and dream.
Till out of chaos come in sight
Clear fragments of a Whole—
Man, learning Nature's ways aright,
Obeying, can control.
The great Design now glows afar;
But yet Its changing scenes
Reveal not what the pieces are
Nor what the Puzzle means.
And Nature smiles—still unconfessed
The secret thought she thinks—
Inscrutable she guards unguessed
The Riddle of the Sphinx.
[Author unknown]
Calligraphy by Monica Steffen
1. Evolution 101: Cultural Orientation
The Religious/ Civil Purview: Civility and morality are co-dependent virtues of social/ personal wellbeing. The “intentional” harmony, of persons, of families, of communities and of nations, depends from the conscious grounding of life in faith, hope and love.
The ultimate civil virtue is love, as represented in the paradigmatic divine/ human commitment to interpersonal service and communal (Trinitarian) harmony.
The Global THINKING Community and 2000: A SUMMARY PREVISION toward Global Revitalizationprovide topics for discussions that challenge all to develop mature approaches to faith/ life issues. [Free downloads]
2. Evolution 202: Programmatic History
The evolution of consciousness and moral sensitivity (conscience) are by way of communication. The “process of reason” (communication-consciousness-conscience) is a natural dynamic of interpersonal exchange and social evolution. The cultural history of humankind is encoded by and in the webs of interpersonal/ social exchange — nature and nurture.
“The SECOND ENLIGHTENMENT Trilogy” presents a historical overview of the global influence of the Western world on global cultures, ecologies, their religion and civility, their irreligion and incivility, up to the present time. The trilogy books are:
PRIMARY SCRIPTURE, Cosmic Religion’s First Lessons;
QUANTUM RELIGION, the Good News of Rising Consciousness; and
RELIGION & CIVILITY, the Primacy of Conscience
[See at www.authorhouse.com]
3. Evolution 303: Plateaus of Consciousness
Child Faith Formation / Adult Faith Formation: Faith is the evolving insight of certitude upon which all other virtues, religious and civil are based. Fidelity to virtue obtains and maintains personal/ social harmony. Integral consciousness, what conscience enlightens, creates bonds of trust; the failure of integral fidelity seeds distrust and interpersonal, social problems.
“The CONSCIOUS LIGHT Trilogy” provides material for interpersonal/ social dialog by which citizens (people of faith) can come to social enlightenment in matters of everyday practical concern. The trilogy books are:
The POSSIBLE JOURNEY, Uncompromised Trust; [www.authorhouse.com]
WHAT SELF-DONATION IS, Kenosis, Eucharist and Green Religion; [free download]
GREEN RELIGION, Inside the Cultural Spectrum [to be published 2009]
4. Evolution 404: “Cosmic” Intension/Intention and Spiritual/Secular Continuity
History, consciousness, morality and civility transform and are transformed by cosmic energy/matter in the dynamic dialog of spirit/body (soul/substance) qualifying subjective/ objective relationships. The harmonic interplay in orchestrated evolution produces the “music of the spheres”.
“Energy and Reconciliation” are co-essentially related in the continuing dynamic of social evolution, qualified by the agency of personal conscience. Cosmological evolution, Philosophical evolution and Theological evolution advance together, and/or, fail together. In word, rhyme and rhythm, the POETREE Trilogies are:
I. NOVOGENESIS: Faith-based Communication;
1. Word Beginnings
2. The Ground of Faith
3. The Spreading Word
II. METAGENESIS: Hope-based Consciousness;
1. Becoming Conscious
2. The Ground of Hope
3. Reflective Symbiosis
III. THEOGENESIS: Love-based Conscience;
1. Wisdom’s Choice
2. The Ground of Love
3. Personal Conscience
IV. “HOUSE OF BREAD”
Eucharistic Sensitivity, RIGHT as GRAIN
[download GRAIN ECOLOGY/ECONOMY]
Find selected poems in 2000: A Summary Prevision toward Global Revitalization
LIFE'S UPLIFTING TIDE [Sylvester L. Steffen]
1. Rainbow's playground is the painted prairie's,
A spackled patchwork of riotous lace;
Butter blossoms and butterfly fairies
Are glory graces on green carpet face.
Refrain: Listen within to the Voice of your art,
The Keeper of hist'ry, the Lyric Song.
Dance to the beat of your rhythmic heart
Go for the good! Redress every wrong!
2. We are brush-stroked life on Nature's mien
Light-splashed in place by Sun-driven flair;
We are lessons-weave on a fabric clean,
Pallette-mixed grace in self-conscious air. Refrain.
3. Resurgent Earth spins an all-fresh story
Of newsline under the unturned stone,
Of an upside Hand scoring the glory
Of th'underside creatures upkeeping home. Refrain.
4. Warblers vocalize their mate-call in Spring
And wind-waft their flight in hope-filled song
That liltingly uplifts their northbound wing
By impulsive spirit driven along. Refrain.
5. Life's deep concern is the call to survive
The anxious worries of all who are young,
Is the pressing urge for parents to provide
Before the harsh turns of the seasons come. Refrain.
6. Bouncy life trips over the white-capped lake
In the bouyant games played by the bobbing terns
Who search for a piece of bread to partake
But never more than their appetites earn. Refrain.
7. Life's hasty pace is a southbound arrow
Of geese nervously outrunning the cold,
Mystic’ly held by knit of the narrow
Magnet-path script for the young by the old. Refrain.
8. A freshly spread coat is Nature's cover
Of leaves carefully quilted by caring trees,
That shrouds the mystery of trefoil clover
From the crisp chill of th'imminent deep freeze. Refrain.
9. The fulfilled Life crests with the rising tide,
Uplifting all ships on the foaming sea;
But we ask of the Wind more than a ride,
An escape to havens where Spirit is free. Refrain.
10. Softening the dash of the roiling waves
The gift-bearing hand of an Angel paves
The return of Truth to its testing place
And the ascent of Soul to new found grace. Refrain.
Other resource material can be found at Second Enlightenment and at Word Unlimited
The evolution101 website, secondenlightenment and wordunlimited continue to be works in progress. Thank you for your patience and understanding
CONTACT US by email: evolution@evolution101.org
We solicit your comments, suggestions, and we invite questions. From time to time, received e-letters of general interest, and replies, may be published at this website. Thank you.