Creation Spirituality and the Dreamtime

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0855743646
• ISBN13: 9780855743642
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Morehouse Pub Co
• Length: 94 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Uplifing but not Postmodern

On the article by Fox: This book is very thought provoking for me. There is an emphasis on one aspect of Saint Augustine's discussion about time that is interestingly used by Fox to voice agreement with contemporary physics and find it fits with dreamtime a la Aboriginal Australian. Since I prefer the view by Roger Penrose (see his version of Strong C in "The Large, the Small and the Human Mind") I find this interpretation interesting but different than my preferred. Still we end up with "Dreamtime itself is right here now." (p. 14) Fox also discovers that native Americans believe "God does not make evil spirits; we humans do, and our human institutions do." Considering this is the point of original sin according to Saint Augustine I am surprised that Fox finds this view surprising. Perhaps it would be surprising to find a people with no apparent cultural affiliation with Saint Augustine (is that possibly the case?) could have a similar view with one of the fundamental perspectives associated with Christian theology - but that does not seem to be the point Fox makes here. The point made next that the "only avenue by which an evil spirit can enter the human heart is fear" (p. 15) is contrary to Augustine's "pride". Regardless, it seems inappropriate to set a conceptual limit on what could be such an "avenue". The critique on p. 15 that Descartes thought only humans had souls - that other animals treated philosophically by Descartes led to the behaviorist view - misses an important suggestion that Descartes intended his more intelligent readers to apply this to humans as well without clearly coming into conflict with the Church's view on the soul - a program that if meant was clearly fulfilled by the likes of B. F. Skinner! On the article by Macy: reading this after having read Jared Diamond's new book "Collapse" is a very poignant experience. This article refers to events in 1989. The thesis is "Waking Up" and in retrospect this seems like something we have yet to do with the sort of seriousness that might make a real difference. On the article by Brady: "Called by the Land to Enter the Land" this bemoans the continuing rape of Australia by the recent emigrants in the face of the 40,000 year natives who coexisted with her for all that time. The call is a call "to conversion, to a change in our way of living". On the article by Treston: "Living in a Unitary Age" seems a restatement of Globalization. This seems interestingly related to Thomas Friedman's new book "The World is Flat". On the article by Cain: "Sacred Origins" draws a focus on Symbol and story. On the article by Kneebone: "An Aboriginal Response"! Bringing "the entire cosmos into our lives, making it a part of us, and us, a part of it."