Our Life’s Task

“Religions typically give prime importance to a reality greater than the individual self, a reality to which awe and respect, and sometimes even love or fear, is due. Guidance is sought and expected from this greater reality, which may or may not be conceived of as God, and which may encompass all of life, and even all that exists. 

This context and this range of relationships do not disappear with the emergence of the ecological perspective. Each person may reconfigure these experiences and relationships in different ways, but the common element that this new perspective brings into focus is the place of humanity in the cosmos and the way that we human beings all emerge from and are anchored to the great and good gift of the earth. Whatever traditions may inform individual practice, a basic framework of understanding can gather all people in the same ‘communion’:

The consequences of failing to live in this sacred manner will diminish our own life value and the well-being of the whole earth community.”

We are all part of the same cosmos.

We live within the commonwealth of life, to which is due the same respect and reverence that we value for ourselves.

Life’s task is to grow in compassion and in a way of living that is helpful to all life, and to the earth systems on which life depends.

—  Peter G. Brown and Geoffrey Garver, 2009
Quaker environmentalists