Community Ethics
We talk of intentional communities but it is not enough to be intentional. One must have ethics. It is said that permaculture Ethics include:
- Care for the Earth
- Care for People
- Return the Surplus
Ethics are "rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad."
Since permaculture is dealing with Nature the ethics must be natural. From the begining God commanded man to tend to the weightier matters of Nature.
and put him into the garden of Eden
to dress it and to keep it." Genesis 2:15
Communities must have ethics as well and many ancient cultures have summarized those rules. The ancient Egyptians had a list of rules which expressed their ethics or law call Maat. The Ten Commandments of Israel were just an abbreviated form of these rules and are still seen over the supreme court of nations as basic and fundamental yet not always applied equally in all things.
While the Law of the Maat was exemplified in 42 Negative Confessions Maat was the spirit in which justice was applied rather than the detailed legalistic exposition of rules. The same is true of the Mosaic Law.
If the law is Spirit and there is a Law of Nature then nature conforms to the law. Nature is the manifestation of the God of Nature and exemplifies the righteousness of nature and of God, defining God as the Creator of Nature.
So to establish the ethics of a PermaComunity we may say in the Spirit of the law of Nature say:
- Seek Righteousness
- Cultivate a love for the People
- Share the Surplus
Nature is a system of systems. While the earth is composed of elements like atoms particles and molecules their arrangements in ecosystems forms units within Nature. Every creature is a unite composed of systems but even units may gather and form systems we call communities.
While we may remove elements from a system for observation when the removal takes place an element of that unit that was once a part of the whole is altered by that separation because the removal severs an essential part of the units identity found in its "relationship" with other elements.
The adage of one man's trash is another man's treasure applies to nature. There is no waste in Nature. One system in nature often forms relationships by sharing its what some call its waste. Waste is merely a byproduct. While byproducts can some times not be used by the producer directly it may be of extreme use and importance to another unit or units in nature.
Without proper sharing their is no balance in nature and nature treats imbalance like it treats a vacuum.
Principles and Function of Permaculture can give us a spiritual overview of a PermaCommunity for all communities are a apart of nature.
==Footnotes==
- ↑ Romans 7:14 ¶ For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.Romans 7:6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. Romans 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Galatians 3:2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Galatians 3:5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Galatians 5:18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.