We are living in a Critical Moment.

The political and ecological interpretations of that statement should be obvious, so I won’t belabor them.

The spiritual interpretation of that statement might not be so obvious, but, the critical moment is what we are living in. We have ideas about how we have lived in the past, or how we might live in the future. But these are just ideas. We can never exist in the past or the future, we can only exist in the present moment.

These two interpretations of the Critical Moment are seemingly at odds with each other:

The political and ecological interpretation demands that we live in the past to learn from mistakes. It demands that we live in the future so that we might imagine a way out of our predicament. Sometimes it makes us imagine the terrible futures that might result from our failure to act on the present.

In the worst cases, it is too frightening to live in the political version of the Critical Moment, so we turn our attention to our individual experience, and pretend the world outside ourselves doesn’t exist.

The spiritual interpretation demands that we give all our attention to the Critical Moment. Spiritual traditions throughout human history have sought to enhance the intensity of or intimacy with the Critical Moment. This has been achieved through fiery orations describing the burning brimstone in hell, it has been achieved through prayer, it has been achieved through strict adherence to custom, and it has been achieved through meditation.

In the worst cases, the spiritual version of the Critical Moment becomes a way of distancing yourself from the world that actually exists, in pursuit of a permanent transcendence or escape.

The goal of this project is to help people live in the Critical Moment, to bring about outer justice, and inner peace.