On Being an Earth Being: Searching for the Spiritual in a Cosmic Sanctuary Called Planet Earth

By Norman C. Habel

What happens when you discover you are an Earth being and not just a human being? This volume traces my journey from being a child of Mother Church to being a child of Mother Earth, from being a human being cursed with original sin to being an Earth being blessed with innate spirituality. My journey includes probing the maze of mysteries called ecology, attending the Wisdom School of the ancient world, taking a cosmic journey with the traumatized Job, joining Aboriginal peoples of Australia in reading the spiritual landscape, and celebrating life in a cosmic sanctuary called Earth. These reflections are suitable not only for personal meditation, but for readings in worship contexts and for spirituality retreats or workshops.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Feb 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781725259270

Norman C. Habel

Norman C. Habel is Professorial Fellow at Flinders University and at Adelaide College of Divinity in Australia.

Book preview

9781725259256.kindle.jpg

On Being an Earth Being

Searching for the Spiritual in a Cosmic Sanctuary Called Planet Earth

Norman C. Habel

On Being an Earth Being

Searching for the Spiritual in a Cosmic Sanctuary Called Planet Earth

Copyright © 2020 Norman C. Habel. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5925-6

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5926-3

ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-5927-0

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 12/26/19

Preface

After years of

dancing with dangerous doctrines,

evading unfriendly ecclesiastical missiles,

and

mining the ancient Hebrew text

of the Old Testament

for forgotten fossils of faith,

I have chosen to search

for the spiritual here and now

in that amazing cosmic sanctuary

called Planet Earth.

This text of this volume is

a re-write of my identity,

a retrieval of my inner consciousness

from being overtly religious

to being silently spiritual,

a resurrection of my spirituality,

a discovery of my innate wisdom

as I search for the Spiritual in a sanctuary

called Planet Earth.

This re-write

is also an invitation for any Earth Being

to search for Earth Spirituality with me

and the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia

and to reflect on my findings

as spiritual moments

of mystery

and wonder.

Table of Contents

On Being an Earth Being

Preface

Chapter 1: My Adoption

Chapter 2: My Heritage

Chapter 3: My Earth Identity

Chapter 4: Sacrament of Ochre

Chapter 5: My Cosmic Sanctuary

Chapter 6: My Wisdom Probing

Chapter 7: My Journey with Job

Chapter 8: My Country

Chapter 9: My Innate Spirituality

Chapter 10: My Double Faith

Conclusion: My ‘Life’ Line

Appendix A: Rite of Homecoming

Appendix B: Workshop: Exploring Earth Spirituality

Appendix C: Celebrating our Cosmic Sanctuary

Bibliography

I

My Adoption

Adopted

Some years ago,

half listening to a baptism rite in my church,

I heard the word ‘adopted’

for the first time.

Adopted! What did that mean?

In half a century, I performed hundreds of baptisms. . .

My first: an emergency baptism

in an old tin shed on Kangaroo Island

where the font was a rusty bucket;

a bucket baptism!

Everyone believed that

that bucket baptism

saved that baby heading to hell.

In my self-satisfied seventies,

I was confronted by the language of adoption

for the first time.

Why was I being adopted?

And who were my real parents?

Cleansed

I was baptised at Hochkirk¹

in the name of the

Father, Son, Holy Ghost;

the pastor, and congregation,

spoke German.

The pastor added the injunction:

‘Fahre aus du unreiniger Geist!’:

‘Get out you unclean spirit!’

I was adopted,

welcomed into the family of God,

cleansed of any unclean spirit

lurking inside me—

and some of the original sin

that polluted my soul.

I was baptised:

a cleansed,

adopted,

and

happy little baby—

at least according to

Mother Church.

Bad Baby

On reflection,

I realised just what a bad baby

I was believed to be:

a bad baby,

who needed rescuing, cleansing

and adopting.

My bad beginning was traced back

to my biological father, Adam,

whose primal sin

—transferred by spiritual genes

through all generations of human

beings—

polluted my inner being,

my simple soul.

Because I was so bad,

an unclean spirit found a home in my soul

and apparently delighted in my

lack of purity.

An innocent child?

No, a very bad baby

living in Australia.

Innate Sin

According to Mother Church

I was a bad baby:

polluted with innate sin

for the rest of my life.

Every Sunday I was taught to say:

‘I, a poor miserable sinner,

confess unto thee my sins and iniquities

for which I deserve punishment

in time and eternity’.

The unclean spirit

was expunged at my baptism;

my innate sin remained;

evidence of its presence

had to be forgiven

every Sunday.

There was nothing about deep love,

innate Wisdom,

or primal goodness!

Nothing about a rich innate Spirit

rising from within,

ready to celebrate life.

Instead,

I was forced to live

with the dangerous doctrine

of Original Sin.

Adoptive Mother

I discovered

the sacrament of baptism

was really

a rite of adoption

into the family of God

called ‘the Church’.

God was now my true father

and the church my new mother,

committed to caring for me

—and my spiritual life—

in the true faith.

Yet, for most of my life,

I had never really considered

my identity prior to being baptised:

an innocent of another mother.

I knew Sylvia was

my biological human mother—

my birth mother;

who is the spiritual