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Victoria Shepherd Rao
Marsha Sharp, Worship Associate
17 April 2005
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
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PRAYER
Excerpted from Manitongquat’s Prayer,
in Honoring Earth: A Seventh Principle Project Worship Resource
O Humankind, are we not all brothers and sisters,
are we not the grandchildren of the Great Mystery?
Do we not all want to love and be loved,
to work and to play,
to sing and dance together?
But we live with fear.
Fear that is hate, fear that is mistrust, envy, greed, vanity.
Fear that is ambition, competition, aggression.
Fear that is loneliness, anger, bitterness, cruelty
And yet, fear is only twisted love,
love turned back on itself,
love that was denied, love that was rejected.
And love.
Love is life – creation, seed and leaf
and blossom and fruit and seed.
Love is growth and search and reach and touch and dance.
Love is life believing in itself.
And life life is the Sacred Mystery singing to itself,
dancing to its drum, telling stories, improvising, playing.
And we are all that Spirit,
Our stories tell but one cosmic story that we are love indeed.
That perfect love in me seeks the love in you.
And if our eyes could ever meet without fear
we would recognize each other and rejoice,
for love is life believing in itself.
So may it be.
Manitongquat is a medicine man of the Wampanoag Nation. He delivered this prayer at the First Rainbow Gathering in 1971.
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH: “Wealth”
Marsha Sharp
What is the first thing that pops into your head when I say the word WEALTH? I’ll bet it had something to do with money. In our U.S. culture, when one speaks of wealth, most of us are trained to think in terms of monetary values.
The “wealth” I’m speaking about today includes not only money, but also health (both physical and mental), natural resources, friends, family-our relatively high quality of life.
As a nation, we crab about the cost of gasoline, but look at how many cars are on the road and how many cars are parked in one driveway. We grouse about the cost of health care and the lack of health care. We support one colossal weight-loss industry and yet we are probably the fattest nation in the world. Even many of our poor, when compared to the world’s poor, are wealthy.
I recently finished a fascinating book by Jared Diamond called “Collapse.” In it he relates how ancient and modern societies succeeded or collapsed. What happens when a society strips its natural resources such as forests and minerals? What happens when populations explode beyond what the society is able to support? What happens when non-native species are introduced into an eco-system that has developed over millennia? How do people survive who are so wedded to their native cultures and customs that they are unable to adopt survival skills in order to survive in a foreign land? In all of these situations, cultures and populations live on the brink and then finally fail. What all of these situations have in common are the issues of survival and quality of life.
Every day we interact with people who grew up in other cultures and are striving to have better lives than the ones they left behind. The world is truly global. All those Third World nations now have televisions and the internet and are discovering what they’ve been missing out on all these years. The world’s resources can only go so far. In order for everyone-and I mean EVERYONE-to have the standards we have, we will have to lower our First World standards in order to even begin leveling the playing field. Are we willing to do that? What are we willing to give up in order to have equity in the world? To find equity just in our own country?
I will be the first to admit I love my creature comforts. I like having a car, a warm, secure home to live in, indoor toilets, running hot and cold water IN my house, plenty of food, nice clothes, a job. What am I willing to give up? I never lived as my grandparents did as children-growing everything they ate, living hand to mouth, no retirement, outdoor plumbing, well water, making everything they wore. They, and my parents, strived to make things better for their progeny and they succeeded. Our generation strives to do the same.
But in light of all the desires and needs of the rest of the world, what will happen? Will the next two generations after ours strive to lower the standards for their offspring in order for the entire world to survive? Have we already begun to train our children not to expect more? Or have they, like us, become well-trained to indeed expect more?
And what is that “more?” Is it just monetary? I hope it includes taking care of oneself to reduce preventable health problemsincludes healthy relationships with family and friendsincludes using our resources prudentlyincludes limiting our populations. I believe it makes a difference what that “more” is.
Now, what is the first thing that pops into your head when I say the word WEALTH?
SERMON
Happy Earth Day and congratulations on your Green Sanctuary certification. Cathy has told you about the Green Sanctuary Program of the Seventh Principle Project, an affiliated organization of the UUA dedicated to helping UUs walk the talk of the association’s seventh principle, the one that calls on us to “respect the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
There is something about the phrasing of this principle that seems belabored. I like the way it is expressed for the kids better: “We care for Earth’s lifeboat.” Now that arouses some vivid imagery. Like we are all in a giant Noah’s Ark, drifting around the vast universe together. It presses the point that we are all completely dependent on our little blue green vessel. That is the truth of our existential nature that we dwell on the surface of this amazing biosphere. It is strong and steady with an amazing capacity to recycle natural materials and renew itself. The variety of life forms and the adaptability of them to their environments it is not just Darwin’s evolutionary idea, it is a profound source of human joy and awe.
One of my favorite bible lines is from the gospel of Mark. Jesus is teaching about the realm of God, or the source of all creation. He said, “The [realm] of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The Earth produces of itself.” (Mk.4:26-28 NRSV). I love the admission of the limit to human understanding. We do not know how life comes into being (though fantastic progress has been made in understanding the mechanics of life with DNA and genome research) and we sure do not know why. When we ask these basic questions, we have to confront the limits of our human condition and the mystery which is at the center of earthly existence. Whether you believe in Creation or evolution, it is impossible to avoid mystery. In the face of the unknowable we more easily turn to a deep sense of gratitude for life, thankful for the gift of it, conscious of the grace by which we live and are sustained in this world.
Yet we hear it in the news daily, it is all bad news when it comes to the environment. Pollution is killing the life in the oceans. Scientists don’t expect the coral reefs to last past 2050. The pollution from gas emissions is warming the atmosphere and the planet, melting the glaciers, melting the polar ice caps, causing violent weather changes, including hurricanes and flooding. Wilderness is sacrificed to development. Species are losing their habitats, becoming extinct and upsetting whole ecosystems. The human population is pressing the supportive capacity of Earth. The nuclear waste from reactors is vulnerable to terrorist attacks and could poison whole regions rendering them uninhabitable for tens of thousands of years. Global free enterprise and corporate interests are given access to national markets and the rights to profitable business enterprise trump the human rights of workers to a basic living wage, growing the gap between the richest and the poorest in every nation and part of the world. Scientists can measure how and make projections on the rates at which humanity is destroying this biosphere. They have been calling out warnings for decades. Environmentalists have joined in the chorus to remind us that there is nowhere else to go. We know it even if we often deny it or ignore it.
There is no way to bail out and if we want to live, we are stuck here, together, on Earth. The nineteenth century’s most influential theologian, Friedrich Schleiermacher, had a definition of religion which aptly develops the lifeboat imagery, he said religion was about having “the consciousness of being absolutely dependent.” It is the kind of uncomfortable consciousness which would come quite easily if you were indeed cast adrift in a lifeboat on the ocean, your ship sunk, the horizon wide, no land in sight. That’d be kind of a sickening feeling, wouldn’t it? You can see yourself: trying not to panic, trying to think clearly, taking stock of your situation, the available resources, utilizing them rationally, making plans and taking steps to increase your chances of survival, and doing it all because of an indwelling hope that you will be rescued, you will be saved.
It is much more difficult to imagine the Earth as a lifeboat but this morning I want to try to do that so that we can get to a more religious perspective of our home planet, a religious perspective which includes not only a sickening, panicky feeling of total dependence on what might well be a sinking ship, but one that also includes clear thinking, and taking stock, utilizing resources rationally and making plans to take steps which will increase our chances of survival, and all because of an indwelling hope in a future for our children on Earth. We must claim this hope and we must express it in the way we live whether we are optimistic about environmental issues or not.
So happy Earth Day?! It’s sort of like turning the birthdays of middle age. Happy 43rd Birthday! Happy 57th! Happy 66th!! Well, yes it is a birthday, but happy? Earth Day is another one of those more recent holidays you may not know too much about. It always falls on April 22nd. It was founded by a US senator, Gaylord Nelson, in 1970 after almost a decade of effort. He was also a governor of Wisconsin and he wanted to somehow bring the issues of pollution and environmental degradation into the field of national politics. He envisioned a special annual day dedicated to education and agitation for environmental causes in the style of the teach-ins which occurred on college campuses to protest the Vietnam War. The first Earth Day involved some 20 million Americans across the nation. He had definitely hit onto something that mattered to people. Twenty years later some 200 million people were observing Earth Day in 141 countries and it is the most celebrated environmental event world-wide. And as our world becomes more endangered more people join in. In 2004, 500 million in 180 countries.
The awareness raising effect of Earth Day led to important legislation being passed in the US including the Environmental Protection Act, The Clean Air Act, The Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act. It helped established the idea that we need as a nation to protect the resources upon which we depend. Now the problems of environmental damage clearly transcend national borders and the whole world needs to act together to deal effectively with our lifeboat.
The First UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on climate change and species extinction called together heads of state to forge this global approach. The Kyoto Protocol to limit CO2 emissions is an example of such international cooperation for the sake of the planet’s health. Rejecting the Kyoto Protocol was one of the first signs of President Bush’s unwillingness to put the well being of the biosphere ahead of the interests of the Unites Sates. He said limiting emissions would limit the economic growth of the nation and that was that.
But is economic growth so vitally important? Let’s pick up on a few of Marsha’s points.
First, what is the true nature of wealth? A lot of people are asking themselves this question, in fact it is a whole societal subculture asking. In Europe, in North America, in the UK, people all over the industrialized West in fact, are taking this question to heart, What truly enriches my life? The answer is simplicity, or the Simplicity Movement. This movement is made up of people like you and me who have disposable income which we are free to spend. Simplifying is a matter of consciously questioning our assumptions about how to spend that income. Do we want more and more stuff? Do we derive satisfaction from our consumption? What is enough? What is the personal cost of working a sixty hour week? Do we need to work so long and hard for the endless gadgets, toys, fashions, and trends? The objective of simplifying is not to just stop consuming but to consume only that which brings you enjoyment and satisfaction. For many people it is taking a step off the bandwagon where the basic assumption that more is better – more income, more property, more stuff. The people who choose to simplify have decided that more time to enjoy with family and friends leads to much greater satisfaction than more income.
Enough is not a concept we relate to all that well but in a world of limited resources, it is an idea whose time has come. North American culture is much more attuned to the notion that enough is not really enough. We don’t want just enough, we want more than enough. Didn’t Jackie Kennedy say you could never be rich enough or thin enough?
I started to notice how the understanding of enough worked in India. We had some Muslims neighbors and when they were over and I was offering them refreshments, I noticed that when I would offer them more, they would not say, “No thank you,” they would say, “Enough.” I thought about this and discovered the subtle difference of perspective behind the manners. There is something beyond a sense of individual entitlement in the determination of enough, there is a consideration of the possibility of sharing with others. If this is enough for me, then I am satisfied. If there is more to be had, let it be for the satisfaction of others.
I think we need to learn what may be some new and strange skills. We need to become aware of the levels and degrees of our own satisfaction, to identify what in our lives truly has the capacity to satisfy us, and how to measure our satisfaction, to get an idea of what is enough. Think of eating dinner. How many of us keep our awareness on when exactly we feel our appetite is satisfied and how many of us allow that sufficiency to end our meal? Now you may be thinking, “If I have paid for this buffet, I am going to eat all I can!” But we all know how that can work out. We eat too much, get uncomfortably stuffed, have to take a nap. Years of this kind of overeating lead to weight problems and it is not good for our health. Now, if we eat too much at a buffet it does not deprive anyone else from eating we think. But as a principle applied to all aspects of our lifestyle, consider: recognizing sufficiency can guide us to some sense of our fair share.
Marsha talked about how her grandparents provided for themselves by growing their own food and sewing their own clothes. Not only did they meet their basic needs but in the process of doing so they became wealthy in their sense of their own capacity to produce and rely on themselves. They exercised their ingenuity and developed their skills. They depended on the land and each other. That seems to describe a lifestyle much richer in the potential for finding satisfaction and relationship than the familiar pattern of commuting, working at a job for eight or ten hours a day, going shopping and keeping up with the bills. Granted, our lifestyle is less physically demanding and more comfortable but is ease a true standard by which to judge the quality of life? I think our lives are enriched with realness in relationships and in personal challenges.
William Ellery Channing wrote these words which speak well to these issues of what adds to our quality of life:
To live content with small means,
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion,
to be worthy, not respectable, wealthy, not rich,
to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly,
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart,
to bear all cheerfully,
do all bravely,
await occasions,
hurry never-
in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.
This brings us back to the common. Our world, Earth. A beautiful, finite biosphere. Marsha wondered what we would be willing to give up in order to have equity in the world, so that everyone could hope to have their basic needs met. She asked what we in the First World [sic] would be willing to give up? The US uses 25% of the world’s fuel and is the least willing, as a nation, to give up economic growth for the sake of Earth’s continued health. “Donald Rumsfeld said that his mission in the War Against Terror was to persuade the world that Americans must be allowed to continue their way of life.” (Arundhati Roy, “Come September” in The Impossible Will Take a Little While, pg. 239) But will the world be persuaded to live with greater hardship and scarcity for this land of plenty? I guess that’s one of the reason why this nation is spending more than twenty percent of its wealth on its military might. But might does not make right. And we know that it is immoral to continue in the lifestyle of overconsumption and waste. There is a world beyond America.
Let us be very proud of the Green Sanctuary certification of this church. May this be the beginning of a continuing trend among us to seek out ways of life that are both enriching and sustainable. It is true that the environmentalism of our day is apocalyptic and there is not too much in the news to feed our optimism that things will get much better very soon however, please remember that there is a difference between optimism and hope. “Hope is an active, determined conviction that is rooted in the spirit, chosen by the heart, and guided by the mind.” Journalist Mark Hertsgaard reminds us that: “Hope has triumphed numerous times in recent human history – think of the falls of apartheid and the Soviet Empire – and it is indispensable to humanity’s chances of creating an environmentally sustainable future.” (“The Green Dream” in The Impossible Will Take a Little While, edited by Paul Rogat Loeb, pg. 254)
So, claim hope. Try to develop your sense of what really gives you satisfaction in your lifestyle and try to discern how much is enough for you. Go on with your recycling and adopt a new green practice at regular intervals. If you do not recycle and want to begin to reduce the imprint of your lifestyle on the environment, check out the Earth’s Ten Commandments printed on the insert of your order of services to get some ideas. Support the work for a sustainable future and teach your children to worship our mother, Earth. She is beautiful, precious, fragile, mysterious in her ways, in her origin and in her destiny.
Amen.
