Joy doesn’t compute for most of us! We simply are not at all familiar with the energetic state of being consumed by sustained joy, or what it takes to intentionally summon the thoughts that generate it.

Our globalized world lures us to crave more. The culture of “more” is a culture of not enough, accumulation and conquest, and sought but constantly deferred satiety. Every time we text message or update Instagram, researchers tell us that our brains loop in a dopamine cycle of neurological yearning.

Of course, the question was—after a century and a half of “Social Darwinism” claiming that it was all about competition, from the lowest to the highest—could our world now dominated by the shark-tank rubrics of business, economics, and politics adjust to this astounding news? Could it realize that because of this basic blunder about Darwin’s message, we had, in fact, ended up with dystopia instead of utopia?

The gift hidden in our unprecedented world crisis is an equally unprecedented opportunity. My vision of the world? My hope for the future? This topic sounds a bit big. Allow me to start small—say, with crows. They are my special friends.

...this apparently material world is only the phenomenal representation of a much deeper universal reality. Such an assertion is not easily understood, but it does suggest that, if we accept the notion of a cosmic ecosystem, stewardship is not merely related to the material world of people and planet, but indeed is spiritual stewardship.