April 23, 2006

The morning reading:

Henry David Thoreau: from, Early Spring in Massachusetts, March 31, 1852:

“Perchance, as we grow old, we cease to spring with the spring, we are indifferent to the succession of years, and they go by without epoch as months. Woe be to us when we cease to form new resolutions on the opening of a new year.

It would be worthwhile to tell why a swamp pleases us, why a certain kind of weather pleases us, etc., analyze our impressions. Why does the moaning of the storm give me pleasure? Methinks because it puts to rout the trivialness of our fair-weather life, and gives it, at least, a tragic interest. The sound has the effect of a pleasing challenge to call forth our energy to resist the invaders of our life’s territory. It is musical and thrilling as the sound of an enemy’s bugle. Our spirits revive like lichens in a storm. There is something worth living for when we are resisted, threatened. As at the last day we might be thrilled with the prospect of the grandeur of our destiny, so in these first days our destiny appears grander. What would the days, what would our life, be worth if some nights were not dark as pitch, of darkness tangible, that you can cut with a knife! How else could the light in the mind shine! How should we be conscious of the light of reason? If it were not for physical cold how should we have discovered the warmth of the affections. I sometimes feel that I need to sit in a far-away cave through a three-weeks’ storm, cold and wet, to give a tone to my system. The spring has its windy March to usher it in, with many soaking rains reaching into April.

Methinks I would share every creature’s suffering for the sake of its experience and joy. The song-sparrow and the transient fox-colored sparrow, have they brought me no message this year? Is not the coming of the fox-colored sparrow something more earnest and significant than I have dreamed of? Have I heard what this tiny passenger has to say while it flits thus from tree to tree? Can I forgive myself if I let it go to Rupert’s Land before I have appreciated it? God did not make this world in jest, no, nor in indifference. These migratory sparrows all bear messages that concern my life. I do not pluck the fruits in their season. I love the birds and beasts because they are mythologically in earnest. I see that the sparrow cheeps, and flits, and sings adequately to the great design of the universe; that man does not communicate with it, understand its language, because he is not at one with nature. I reproach myself because I have regarded with indifference the passage of the birds; I have thought them no better than I.

What philosopher can estimate the different values of a waking thought and a dream? I hear late tonight the unspeakable rain mingled with rattling snow against the windows, preparing the ground for spring.” [pp. 285-6]

The Morning Sermon:

April is the month that reminds us to tidy up the ground, tend to flowers, even notice the stars-- Earth Day was yesterday, but in Winchendon several groups will be picking up litter next Saturday; I hope to join them. And we’ve all noticed the beautiful garden Veronica has begun to create outside the doorway to our church, with input and contributions from members and friends. Myself, researching this sermon this week was interspersed with cleaning up around the church and my yard, and some spring cleaning in my house. That which inspires our mind can influence our days in productive ways…

As a Unitarian Universalist minister faced with the task of researching an Earth Day sermon, I am privileged to have an abundance of inspirational writing to draw on-- Our denomination has had several stellar “nature writers;” among them, Henry David Thoreau, Albert Schweitzer, Rachel Carson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The most widely-read and acclaimed of them of our day is poet and essayist Mary Oliver. She lives on Cape Cod, has won every literary prize there is, and appeals to people of all ages and life-circumstances. You know her poem, “Wild Geese,” which is our responsive reading number 490: “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” Mary Oliver will be the Ware Lecturer [a most high honor!] at the UU General Assembly this summer in St. Louis, Missouri; a gathering of at least 4,000 UUs from all over the continent. We engage the Ware Lecturer to stretch us beyond what may have become commonplace to us, to thereby deepen our understanding of our faith. In her New and Selected Poems Volume Two, Ms. Oliver writes [p. 138]:

“Today Bill tells us --for a mockingbird has begun to sing-- how a friend came during the summer and filled a bowl with fruit from the cherry tree. Then, leaving the bowl on the stoop, he went inside to sit with Bill at the kitchen table. Together Bill and his friend watched the mockingbird come to the bowl, take the cherries one by one, fly back across the yard and drop them under the branches of the tree. When the bowl was empty the bird settled again in the leaves and began to sing vigorously.”

Paying attention to the natural world and how we interact with it can expand our spirit and compel us to lead a more ethical life. Throughout human history, people have realized that we have a responsibility to act ethically in our relationship to the natural world-- Why? --because people have seen with their own eyes that all existence is interconnected-- the actions or neglect of one person do affect many other life forms. People have realized that humans have a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth’s natural resources-- like that legal test of guilt: the person knew, or should have known, that what they did was wrong. Human beings have the capability to know how our actions could destroy natural resources, poison living things, leave areas unable to sustain life. Since we have the capability to know, then we also have a responsibility to assess whether how we treat the earth will do more harm than good-- harm that could continue for generations. Why do human beings have that responsibility? --because we have, in theory, at least, more analytical ability than, say, a deer does-- though even the mockingbird in Mary Oliver’s essay seems to feel some pastoral responsibility to the earth’s resources. Human beings should treat natural resources with as much care as that mockingbird does, and more.

Henry David Thoreau’s journals make note of the earnestness of the natural world, including sparrows, apples, seeds, and rain-- that there is a beautiful design of the natural world-- that we can learn from it and be inspired by it. Whether you believe that that beautiful design was created by a divine being or by an enormous initial act of natural forces is something we do not all have to agree on. Unitarian Universalists believe, as Galileo did, that there does not have to be a conflict between science and religion. Galileo tried to continue to hold the Catholic Church in reverence in consort with the reverence he felt when he beheld the marvels of the natural world-- He tried to hold religion and science reverently in consort together his whole life. But the Catholic Church did not approve of what Galileo was writing, so they persecuted and censored him. Galileo wrote: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use… He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations.” and “Why should I believe blindly and stupidly what I wish to believe, and subject the freedom of my intellect to someone else who is just as liable to error as I am?” and “If they [the ancient philosophers] had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge.” Thoreau, in his journal, was saying that the grand design of nature has much to teach us-- much it is trying to teach us-- about how to live better-- how to live more in earnest. Nature is earnest, Thoreau saw, and so we can respond by living a more earnest life-- To be in earnest is to act with serious purpose and intent. Nature is not indifferent to human beings, and so we must not be indifferent to it. We can resolve to make more considered choices-- We can resolve to live a life of more consideration in all our interactions-- We can resolve to do this every spring-- We can resolve to try to do this every moment. In return for living in such an attentive way, Thoreau felt a heightened sense of balance, harmony, peace. As Unitarian Universalist minister Judith Meyer wrote: “Dear God, we give thanks for those moments when we can feel that we live in a world that is not indifferent to our need. We all have so many needs --a thousand prayers, a thousand needs-- that really only need one answer: let the world not be indifferent. And may we live and be with each other in the way that shows this truth whatever the day brings: that neither are we indifferent to each other.”

Spring is a time of rebirth and new life all around us-- What that can mean to us is recognizing that we have more power and influence than we realized. How are we going to use that power and influence this year? How will our actions this year influence seven generations from now? We can take a stand for environmental justice as religious individuals and as a religious movement. Paying attention to the natural world and our relationship to it has led people to take a stand for ecological responsibility beyond their minute patch of the earth-- The preciousness of the natural world and our relationship to it has led religious liberals to influence their government and other power systems. Thoreau was eventually admired for his devotion to the causes of abolition, Native Americans, and wilderness preservation, and considered to have been a visionary. His writing influenced Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., William O. Douglas, and Leo Tolstoy.

Another Unitarian nature enthusiast who took a stand for ecological justice was Rachel Carson-- You’ve probably heard of her book, Silent Spring, that “awakened society to a responsibility to other forms of life. In it, [the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service writes] Carson documents in minute biological detail the true menace to the ecosystem caused by harmful pesticides.” As a child, Rachel Carson had a love for the ocean, for animals, and for being out-of-doors. She also had a gift as a writer before she was even eleven years old. After achieving degrees in biology, she was a successful journalist, writing articles on conservation and nature. She was soon hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to research, write, and oversee their publications. Carson urged that we always consider the welfare of “the fish as well as that of the fisherman.” Two of her books, The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea became international best-sellers. As a writer she had a “unique ability to present deeply intricate scientific material in clear poetic language that could captivate her readers and pique their interest in the natural world.” As a person, she was very nurturing, with a strong sense of responsibility to her kin. When her father died, she took in her orphaned nieces to live with her; when her mother was aging, she cared for her; she also adopted her five-year-old nephew, Roger. Carson’s passion to write Silent Spring began when a friend wrote to tell her that seven birds were found dead in her yard after aerial spraying. She had already been concerned for years about the effects of DDT on marine life. “But [the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service writes] she was also aware of the controversy within the agricultural community, which needed such pesticides to increase crop production. She had long hoped someone else would publish an expose on DDT, but realized finally that only she had the background as well as the economic freedom to do it. As expected, her book provoked a firestorm of controversy as well as personal attacks on her professional integrity. The pesticide industry mounted a massive campaign to discredit Carson even though she did not urge the complete banning of pesticides but rather that research be conducted to ensure pesticides were used safely and alternatives to dangerous chemicals such as DDT be found. The federal government, however, ordered a complete review of its pesticide policy and Carson was asked to testify before a Congressional committee along with other witnesses. As a direct result of the study, DDT was banned. With the publication of Silent Spring, Carson is credited with launching the contemporary environmental movement and awakening concern by thinking Americans about the environment. After her death, the Fish and Wildlife Service named one of its refuges near Carson’s summer home on the coast of Maine as the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in 1969 to honor the memory of this extraordinary woman.”

No sermon about our spiritual relationship to the natural world would be complete without a mention of Albert Schweitzer, a Unitarian Universalist, a genius, a world-class organist, a physician, a theologian, and one of the greatest humanitarians who ever lived. When Schweitzer was 21, he decided that the first 30 years of his life would be devoted to art and learning, and that the rest of his life after that would be devoted to serving humanity. “Schweitzer’s worldview was based on his idea of reverence for life, which he believed to be his greatest single contribution to humankind. His view was that Western civilization was in decay because of gradually abandoning its ethical foundations, those of affirmation of life. It was his firm conviction that the respect for life is the highest principle… Some people in his day compared his philosophy with that of Francis of Assisi, a comparison he did not object to. In his book, Philosophy of Civilization, he wrote: ‘True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness: I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live.’ Life and love in his view are based on and follow out of the same principle: respect for every manifestation of Life, and a personal, spiritual relationship towards the universe. Ethics, according to Schweitzer, consists in the compulsion to show to the will-to-live of each and every being the same reverence as one does to one’s own… the will-to-live renews itself again and again, as an outcome of an evolutionary necessity and a phenomenon with a spiritual dimension… Respect for life, resulting from contemplation on one’s own conscious will to live, leads the individual to live in the service of other people and of every living creature. Schweitzer was highly respected for putting his theory into practice in his own life.” [see Wikipedia.org] In 1913, Schweitzer earned a medical degree and went to west Africa with his wife, a nurse, and established a missionary hospital in Gabon. Except for a few brief periods, he spent his remaining 50 years in Africa fighting leprosy and sleeping sickness. His humanitarian work earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. Between 1952 and his death, he worked against nuclear tests and nuclear weapons with Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell. Schweitzer is said to have lifted the glass protecting a lantern flame from the wind in order to let a fly escape and live.

Our children learn about Albert Schweitzer and Rachel Carson and Henry David Thoreau in their Sunday School classes. And they have had an excellent emphasis on environmental issues over the course of this church year. Their bulletin boards downstairs [which we can look at at any time-- and we should!] are filled with displays about the interconnected web of life of which we are a part. They are learning which animals are endangered-- like sea turtles, pandas, day geckos, elephants, and many kinds of bats. And there’s a display that the littlest children made that has the words flowers, dirt, people, vegetables, water, sky/air, bees, plants, and worms, all interconnected by strands of yarn. There’s the ABCs for the Earth display, which says: N – Never throw toxic materials in the trash; J – Join an environmental group or club; C – Create a compost pile in your yard; R – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The children aren’t just learning that we should recycle-- They are learning why we should recycle. One of their displays has a Decomposition Timeline. It shows how long it takes for materials to break down and return to the soil when left exposed to air and sunlight. A woolen sock takes one year. A plastic bag takes 10-20 years. An aluminum can takes 200-500 years. A disposable diaper takes 500 years. A glass bottle takes one million years. A polystyrene foam cup never breaks down. I did not know those facts when I was their age. Knowing them changes my attitude about the chore of recycling. Our children are learning that they can change minds and habits by communicating facts about environmental responsibility and by setting a positive example. And they are learning a religious philosophy that all life has value and should be honored-- that, since all life is connected, to be fair to all forms of life is to be fair to ourselves. If they do not have this poem by Mary Oliver, I will give it to them. It’s called, “Some Questions You Might Ask:”

Is the soul solid, like iron?

Or is it tender and breakable, like

the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?

Who has it, and who doesn’t?

I keep looking around me.

The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.

The swan opens her white wings slowly.

In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.

One question leads to another.

Does [the soul] have a shape? Like an iceberg?

Like the eye of a hummingbird?

Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?

Why should I have it, and not the anteater who loves her children?

Why should I have it, and not the camel?

Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?

What about the blue iris?

What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?

What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?

What about the grass?

I’ll close this morning with these words adapted from Emerson’s journal:

“I have confidence in the laws of morals as of botany. I have planted maize in my field every June for seventeen years and I never knew it come up strychnine. My parsley, beet, turnip, carrot, buck-thorn, chestnut, acorn, are as sure. I believe that injustice produces injustice, and justice justice.”

Let it be and, Amen.

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