Reading
This reading is from Beyond Environment: falling back in
love with Mother Earth, Jo Confino interviews Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh
"You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside
of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.
"In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have
real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer. In that
kind of relationship you have enough love, strength and awakening in order to
change your life.
"Changing is not just changing the things outside of
us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including
[those] of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That
kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.
"Fear, separation, hate and anger come from the wrong
view that you and the earth are two separate entities, the Earth is only the
environment. You are in the center and you want to do something for the Earth
in order for you to survive. That is a dualistic way of seeing.
"So to breathe in and be aware of your body and look
deeply into it and realize you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the
consciousness of the earth. Not to cut the tree, not to pollute the water, that
is not enough."
Sermon
Earth Day
is coming up—April 22nd. What will you
be doing to honor our Mother Earth on this day?
What do you do routinely to honor the Earth? This year the theme is Climate Action. It says on the Earth Day . org website: “The
enormous challenge — but also the vast opportunities — of action on climate
change have distinguished the issue as the most pressing topic for the 50th
anniversary [of Earth Day]. Climate
change represents the biggest challenge to the future of humanity and the
life-support systems that make our world habitable.” Pretty powerful language being used, isn’t
it. What will it take for us humans to
consistently and with communal intention effectively mitigate climate change?
I didn’t
attend or pay attention to the first Earth Day.
I would have been 11 and attending 6th grade, I think. What I do remember is that after that first
Earth Day, people started taking care of the planet, I mean regular people, in
social situations. I remember recycling
programs starting up that people at my school actually used. However, in Texas, where I lived much of my
life, there was no curb-side programs for recycling at the time. I was finally able to participate in curb-side
recycling about 11 years ago in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Certainly, more cities are offering curb-side
recycling, but so much of our trash is still dumped in the oceans and I’m
probably not the only person who has a sneaking suspicion about what really
happens to my recycling once the truck picks it up.
In the 70’s I noticed the ebbs and
flows of various groups marketing our need to care for our planet with cartoons
like Captain Planet and commercials with crying Indigenous people. I do remember talking about the
EPA—Environmental Protection Agency-- when I was a young adult, because there
were so many toxic sites and polluted waterways. An entire neighborhood was torn down near my
childhood home because the soil under all the houses was so polluted that
people were getting sick. Heck the first church I served was in Beaumont,
Texas, Spindletop Unitarian Church, was down the street from the toxic site
that was created by the first oil well in Texas in 1901—Spindletop. Little had
been done to mitigate the toxicity of that site nearly 120 year later.
In Cedar Rapids, I attended an Earth Day celebration, with
booths about composting, what to do with batteries and Styrofoam, cleaning
water ways, and lots of giant blow-up plastic earths. The celebration motivated me to get involved
or do something to care for this planet that supports our lives. And yet I have wondered time and time again
over these 50 years, why are we not doing more to care for our planet?
The thing
Earth Day did was to focus people’s attention on planet Earth and what we
humans are doing to it. Rational logical
scientific arguments were made to change our habits and our consumption. However, as you know, over time, economic
greed, oil and gas companies for example, twisted the narrative, convincing
people that humans are not damaging the planet through burning fossil fuels,
that there is no climate crisis. And
some governmental officials as of late have tried to reduce the powers of the
EPA to manage the damage we are doing to the planet. And, as we all know, as scientists have tried
to tell us, the planet is heating up and this heating up will cause life to
change, and not for the better, on planet Earth. In addition, the plastics we created are not
decomposing, but becoming microscopic particles and getting into our food supply. And well, there is overfishing, deforestation,
and hunting animals to extinction.
Most of us
have heard about these things for much of our lives. Some of us have made efforts to make a
difference, by recycling before it was curbside, by being mindful about how we
recycle materials like batteries and dispose of Styrofoam. By lobbying state and federal official for
green jobs, putting solar panels on our roofs and the roofs of our churches,
joining CSA’s (Community Sponsored Agriculture) so that we support local
farmers and get our produce from them.
But I wonder, do many of us still think of our planet as separate from
us, a thing to be used, an economic entity for our benefit. Are we ready to think of ourselves as part of
planet Earth? Not just on it, but of it?
And as I
wonder about all this, I started reading some Faith-based statements on climate
change that were written about 9 or ten years ago. An article on the numerous Bahai writings on
Climate Chang focused on the need for humans to get over the antagonism between
science and religion. They encouraged
people to “question the dominant materialistic society and consumer culture,
[while] emphasizing the necessary balance of the material and spiritual
dimensions of human life…[and] explor[ing] the spiritual principles upon which
any solution to the climate change problem. [must rest].” They go on to advocate that society must
face, reflect on, and take community action on climate change. The Bahai belief is that science is not
motivating people to change, and that religion must step in to help motivate
people to do better in caring for the planet. They also ask how science and
religion can work together to motivate action toward sustainability, earth
justice, and human equity.
20 Buddhist
teachers contributed to the book A Buddhist Response to Climate Change. The focus of the book is on motivating humans
to move toward “an economy that provides a satisfactory standard of living for
everyone while allowing us to develop our full potential [mentally,
emotionally, spiritually] in harmony with the biosphere that sustains and
nurtures all beings, including future generations .. [and advocating] the need
to put the long-term goal of humankind above the short-term benefit of
fossil-fuel corporations.” They, too,
support “campaigns of citizen action.”
And
Unitarian Universalists have put forward platforms for climate action. Here is one UUA statement: “Life on earth will be gravely affected
unless we embrace new practices, ethics, and values to guide our lives on a
warming planet.” Our stated commitment
in support of earth ministries is embraced in our Seventh Principle, to affirm
and promote the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a
part. Many Unitarain Universalists
envision “a world where all people are assured a secure and meaningful life
that is ecologically responsible and sustainable, in which every form of life
has intrinsic value.”
What were
your thoughts as I presented some of these ideas from religious
traditions? There are traditions that I
didn’t mention, not because they don’t hold similar concerns, but because they
all share similar positions—Hindus, Christians of all sects, Doaists, Jews all
have written statements on the importance of dealing with climate change. And all are advocating action. (Faith-Based
Statements on Climate-Change, a collection by Citizens’ Climate Lobby
Volunteers).
Who does
this year’s Earth Day theme of Climate Action call you to do? Call us to do as a faith community?
As some of
you know part of my spiritual journey has been through panentheism, affirming
and exploring the divine in all things.
This has led me to hold in the front of my mind, my connection with all
creation. And to treat all creation as
if it were an aspect of the divine—with respect, reverence, compassion,
concern. This has motivated me in my
efforts to save our mother earth.
Lobbying for green jobs and to stop oil pipelines and the practice of
topping mountains for minerals, as well as recycling and being more conscious
of the amount of and type of energy I use to support my habits—like driving,
using air conditioning, computers, lights, and of course getting the foods I
like to have. I try to be conscious of
how I use the resources of this planet, but I wonder am I really thinking of
myself as part of Mother Earth when I make decisions. There’s no question that I think of myself as
on this planet, but I’m not so sure I’ve though of myself as part of the
planet, as an extension of the planet.
When I
breathe in, am I aware of my body enough to look deeply into it and realize I
am the Earth and my consciousness is also the consciousness of the earth. Am I
ready to see that mother earth is more than a resource? Can I?
I have not been raised to think this way. Like so many others, I was raised in a faith
that preached a message of dominionism, that humans were given dominion over
the earth. Even if I overcome that
cradle teaching, I am constantly inundated with consumerism, materialism,
getting more, better, the next version of whatever.
Recently I
have been reading “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge
and the Teaching of Plants” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Her work really speaks to me about a
relationship with Mother Earth that I aspire to. How she sees the world is both real, here and
now, and mysterious and wonderful. This
is something I have been looking for.
She writes:
“In a way,
I was raised by strawberries, fields of them.
Not to exclude the maples, hemlocks, white pines, goldenrods, asters,
violets, and mosses of upstate New York, but it was the wild strawberries,
beneath dewy leaves on an almost-summer morning, who gave me my sense of the
world, my place in it…You could smell the ripe strawberries before you saw
them, the fragrance mingling with the smell of sun on the damp ground….Even
now, after more than fifty Strawberry Moons, finding a patch of wild
strawberries still touches me with a sensation of surprise, a feeling of
unworthiness and gratitude for generosity and kindness that comes from an unexpected
gift all wrapped up in red and green. “Really?
For me? Oh, you shouldn’t have.”
After fifty years they still raise the question of how to respond to
their generosity…Strawberries first shaped my view of a world of gifts simply
scattered at your feet. A gift comes to you through no action of your own,
free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or
call it to you, or even deserve it. And
yet it appears. Your only role is to be
open-eyed and present. Gifts exist in a
realm of humility and mystery—as with random acts of kindness we do not know
their source.”
I want to
see the world the way she does. Feeling
the connection with creation, learning from my experiences with nature’s tasty
fruit and having my first thought be “this is a gift given to me by the planet
that birthed me, sustains me, that I am part of. Life is a gift and I am grateful for it” Could this be my daily prayer? Or my nightly meditation before bed as I
reflect on all the experiences earth has given me that day? This thought, prayer or meditation embraces
gratitude, not necessarily to a divine being, but to the amazing process that
created all life on this planet. A
process I ponder and can’t completely comprehend. I want to be more open-eyed and present with
my mother earth. To approach this planet
with humility and mystery. But that is
not all. I, all of us, need to find the
spark, the burning ember that will maintain our motivation to protect and help
our planet earth.
At the end
of her book, Robin suggests a burning ember to enflame and maintain our
motivation. She calls it a moral
covenant of reciprocity with the earth.
She writes: “The moral covenant of reciprocity calls us to honor our
responsibility for all we have been given, for all that we have taken. It’s our turn now, long overdue. Let us hold a giveaway for Mother Earth,
spread our blankets out for her and pile them high with gifts of our
making. Imagine the books, the poems,
the clever machines, the compassionate acts, the transcendent ideas, the
perfect tools…Gifts of mind, hands, heart, voice, and vision all offered up on
the behalf of the earth. Whatever our
gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world. In return for the privilege of breath.”
Can you
imagine, my friends, a ritual that you might perform in your own homes, a
giveaway, for Mother Earth? Imagine
putting down a blanket in your living room or better yet, outside on the grass,
placing your gifts to planet earth, then dancing in joy for the many miracles
that resulted in life on this planet, and ending with a prayer of gratitude for
the privilege of breath. This makes so
much sense in my soul and my heart.
Perhaps if we each found our own way to honor Mother Earth’s many gifts
to us, perhaps Earth Day would look a little different, mean a little more,
motivate us to more action.
