I've been preparing a screen share of evening prayer for the next formation class, which is on Pentecost. I was encouraged to see that the Psalm, 145, spoke of the Lord I believe in. From the Old Testament:
9The Lord is loving to everyone *
and his compassion is over all his works.
I don't mind that I read the Bible selectively. THose I disagree with, read it selectively, too. It is just a matter of what we select and how we interpret the rest.
Three jargon words speak to the time we live in: Holocene, Anthropocene, and Pyrocene. Scientific American had an article about the Anthropocene. The Geologic epoch we are officially in is the Holocene, from the Greek whole and new, to describe human influence around the whole earth, and that influence is new, no other epoch has had such worldwide sedimentary deposits. The transition coincides with the late stone age of humans. A new word for the epoch was called for in 1833 by Charles Lyell to cover the time “the earth has been tenanted by man.” There is jargon, "tenanted." Holocene was suggested in 1867, and was officially accepted in 1969. Change may be fast, but the officials moved at a geologically slow pace.
But things are speeding up. More and more people are referring to the Anthropocene, because humans influence the world so significantly around the globe, and sometimes we are responsible for the planet losing its viability to support life in all its variety. This new epoch was proposed in 2000 describes human influence on the stratigraphy around the wolrd. SOme suggest the industrial revolution as the start, others suggest it began once humans tested atomic bombs, layering the earth with radioactive particles. Stephen Pyne began using Pyrocene in 2015 to refer to the influence of fire on humans and our development as a species, and the influence of humans and fire on the world. Pyrocene is on the cover of Scientific American this month. Holocene, Anthropocene, and Pyrocene all have been suggested as geologic jargon that describes the influence of humans.
This jargon isn't as cool as the word Tripp offered, but I think it is interesting to notice the shift indicating in more and more emphatic ways our active role in affecting our earth, and not for good but for ill. Things are happening so fast now that new -cenes are emerging at an increasingly fast pace. Perhaps Changofscene would be appropriate to describe the changing nature of our input into the world we live in, or Chaoticene to point to our contribution to the chaos. Politically, I might suggest Obscene. One cannot say that politics doesn't play a role in the stratigraphy of the world. We are covering the world in micro-plastics, and a decreasing variety of species are offered for the fossil record, not to mention radioactive particles, and trash, and lots and lots of shit. deposited around the globe. That suggests a Shitcene. (BTW, that might not qualify for a -cene, because cene means new. I have a coprolite; mine is fossilized dinosaur poop. One wonders if it came out already rock hard. That would suggest really bad constipation contributing to the fossilization process.)
But my search for new jargon is becoming a vulgar scene, and that isn't funny the way I want it to be a comedycene.
I've been preparing a screen share of evening prayer for the next formation class, which is on Pentecost. I was encouraged to see that the Psalm, 145, spoke of the Lord I believe in. From the Old Testament:
9The Lord is loving to everyone *
and his compassion is over all his works.
I don't mind that I read the Bible selectively. THose I disagree with, read it selectively, too. It is just a matter of what we select and how we interpret the rest.
Three jargon words speak to the time we live in: Holocene, Anthropocene, and Pyrocene. Scientific American had an article about the Anthropocene. The Geologic epoch we are officially in is the Holocene, from the Greek whole and new, to describe human influence around the whole earth, and that influence is new, no other epoch has had such worldwide sedimentary deposits. The transition coincides with the late stone age of humans. A new word for the epoch was called for in 1833 by Charles Lyell to cover the time “the earth has been tenanted by man.” There is jargon, "tenanted." Holocene was suggested in 1867, and was officially accepted in 1969. Change may be fast, but the officials moved at a geologically slow pace.
But things are speeding up. More and more people are referring to the Anthropocene, because humans influence the world so significantly around the globe, and sometimes we are responsible for the planet losing its viability to support life in all its variety. This new epoch was proposed in 2000 describes human influence on the stratigraphy around the wolrd. SOme suggest the industrial revolution as the start, others suggest it began once humans tested atomic bombs, layering the earth with radioactive particles. Stephen Pyne began using Pyrocene in 2015 to refer to the influence of fire on humans and our development as a species, and the influence of humans and fire on the world. Pyrocene is on the cover of Scientific American this month. Holocene, Anthropocene, and Pyrocene all have been suggested as geologic jargon that describes the influence of humans.
This jargon isn't as cool as the word Tripp offered, but I think it is interesting to notice the shift indicating in more and more emphatic ways our active role in affecting our earth, and not for good but for ill. Things are happening so fast now that new -cenes are emerging at an increasingly fast pace. Perhaps Changofscene would be appropriate to describe the changing nature of our input into the world we live in, or Chaoticene to point to our contribution to the chaos. Politically, I might suggest Obscene. One cannot say that politics doesn't play a role in the stratigraphy of the world. We are covering the world in micro-plastics, and a decreasing variety of species are offered for the fossil record, not to mention radioactive particles, and trash, and lots and lots of shit. deposited around the globe. That suggests a Shitcene. (BTW, that might not qualify for a -cene, because cene means new. I have a coprolite; mine is fossilized dinosaur poop. One wonders if it came out already rock hard. That would suggest really bad constipation contributing to the fossilization process.)
But my search for new jargon is becoming a vulgar scene, and that isn't funny the way I want it to be a comedycene.
“Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God. The rest will sort itself out if you are open to possibility.”
Amen.