Habesne testiculos?
Mood:  mischievious
Now Playing: American Girls by Counting Crows
Topic: Daily Eruptions
Habemus Popem! Testiculos habet et bene pendentes.
Or, perhaps I should say, Ford's in his Flivver, and all's well with the world!?

Even though I am enchanted with the idea of being a pilgrim, especially in Rome where many millenia of worshippers have already celebrated their union with the Divine, and as much as I would have liked to be in Rome for this week's events, in the end I find I am disappointed in the outcome of the papal election. The world cannot afford a "transitional Pope." The sea-change is already underway and the Catholic Church, as have so many other large governing bodies, has missed the boat. The Church had an opportunity to distinguish itself as a true leadership force for the 21st Century--or at least as a force attempting to keep up with the evolving needs of the people--but instead it clung to tradition and orthodoxy and has thereby demonstrated its irrelevance in a world that is changing beneath our feet at a phenomenal rate.

Just as the current U.S. Administration fails to acknowledge the true state of our environment (even though President Bush will likely celebrate Earth Day on Friday breathing dangerously polluted air in America's most endangered National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains) and clings to the idea that our country is an island that somehow exists completely separate from--above, even--the other nations with whom we share this planet, the Catholic Church fails to acknowledge the true social, economic, and health concerns facing much of the world's people.

Ice shelves are melting, glaciers are slamming into the sea at a much faster rate than predicted, some islands already are in danger of submersion, and the most recent report suggests that even if we abruptly stop burning fossil fuels today, we still will see sea levels rise for several centuries to come. And if we don't stop abruptly?

Drinking water wars are escalating, in the western United States and in other countries where provinces are fighting each other not only over who owns the rights to rivers and aquifers, but also to the rain that falls.

The Internet and globalization have flattened the world and we are becoming ever more interdependent with citizens of other countries.

At the same time, the distance between the Haves and the Have-Nots is quickly expanding.

How does a transitional Pope speak to any of those issues? How is the government of the United States dealing with those issues?

Rather than clinging to centuries-old ideas of morality, law, separation, and domination, the world needs to quickly create entirely new paradigms in which to experience life on this planet, because life on this planet is changing.

I sound like a lunatic shouting, "the sky is falling," but actually I intend just the opposite. I believe that we are on the leading edge of a major upheaval unlike any experienced by humans before. I also believe that, while this holds the possibility of devastating consequences, a shift in human consciousness is also underway that will enable us to find ways to rapidly transform human society to deal with the changes afoot and ultimately create a more sustainable, equitable, and cooperative global community.

The question, then--the really exciting question--is, if the governments and traditional leadership bodies already in place are too large, too entrenched, too self-involved, too scared, where will the new leaders come from?

Maybe instead of inspecting a prospective Pope's genitals to make sure he's not a woman in disquise, we should find out if he knows how to swim.