Louisville Process Theology Network

Unity with our Network

 

“I do not want to speak of unity misleadingly or too simply.
Obvious distinctions can be made between body and soul, one body and other
bodies, body and the world, etc.

 

 

 

But, these things that appear to be distinct are
nevertheless caught in a network of mutual dependence and influence that is the
substantiation of their unity. Body, soul (or mind or spirit), community, and
world are all susceptible to each other’s influence, and they are all
conductors of each other’s influence.

 

 

 

The body is damaged by the bewilderment of the spirit, and
it conducts the influence of that bewilderment into the earth, the earth
conducts it into the community and so on. If a farmer fails understand what
health is, his farm becomes unhealthy: it produces unhealthy food, which
damages the health of the community.

 

 

 

This is a network, a spherical network, by which each part
is connected to every other part. The farmer is part of the community, and so
it is as impossible to say exactly where the trouble is or where it will end.
The influences go backward and forward, up and down, round and round,
compounding and branching as they go.

 

 

 

All that is certain is that an error introduced anywhere in
the network ramifies beyond the scope of prediction. Consequences occur all over
the place and each consequence breeds further consequences. But it seems
unlikely that an error can ramify endlessly. It spreads by way of the
connections in the network, but sooner or later it must also begin to break
them.

 

 

 

Healing, on the other hand, complicates the system by
opening and restoring connections about the various parts – in this way
restoring the ultimate simplicity of the union. When all parts of the body are
working together, and under each other’s influence, we say that it is whole. It
is healthy.

 

 

 

The same is true of the world, of which our bodies are part.
The parts are healthy insofar as they are joined harmoniously to the whole.”

 

 

 

From “The Unsettling of America” by Wendell Berry