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READING: from Joanna Macy, World as Love, World as Self, 1991
Our planet is in trouble. It is hard to go anywhere without being
confronted by the wounding of our world, the tearing of the very fabric
of life. I return this day from Germany, where I lived in the 1950s
amidst the clear waters, rich green fields, and woodlands of Bavaria.
Now there is an environmental plague there called waldsterben, the
‘dying of the trees,’ and the Black Forest is reckoned to be about 50%
dead from industrial and automobile pollution.
South of the Black Forest rise the headwaters of the Rhine, which flows
on down through Basel, across Europe, and into the North Sea. A 1986
fire at the Sandoz chemical plant in Basel washed 30,000 tons of mercury
and dioxin-forming chemicals into that once great, life-bearing artery
of Europe. Millions of fish floated belly-up and the deaths of seals as
far away as the North Sea have been traced to the accident. Along this
majestic river, requiems were held. On its many bridges, people
gathered, banging on pots, pans, and anything that could make a noise,
and cried, ‘Der Rhein ist tot.’...
In the face of what is happening, how do we avoid feeling overwhelmed
and just giving up,turning to the many diversions and demands of our
consumer societies? ...
It is essential that we develop our inner resources. We have to learn to
look at things as they are, painful and overwhelming as that may be, for
no healing can begin until we are fully present to our world. I do not
say it WILL end, but it CAN end. This very possibility changes
everything for us ...
Among the inner resources that we seek for sustaining our action and our
sanity are what the Germans call weltbild., the way we view our world
and our relationship to it. Let us reflect together on our basic posture
vis a vis our world and how we may come to see it in ways that empower
us to act.
By ‘our world,’ I mean the place we find ourselves, the scene upon which
we play our lives. It is sending us signals of distress that have become
so continual as to appear almost ordinary. We know about the loss of
cropland and the spreading of hunger, the toxins in the air we breather
and the water we drink, and the die-off of fellow species; we know about
our nuclear and so-called conventional weapons that are deployed and
poised on hair-trigger alert and the conflicts that ignite in
practically every corner of the world. These warning signals tell us
that we live in a world that can end, at least as a home for conscious
life.
SERMON - History of Earth Day
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April we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day. By ‘we’ I mean
the entire world, as well as congregations of Unitarian Universalists.
For most congregations, the Sunday of recognition will be next Sunday,
April 18, but I will be out of town, so we celebrate today --- all the
more time to engage in a new project, which I will tell you about in a
few minutes.
Earth Day began on April 22, 1970, initiating the modern environmental
movement. Forty years later, virtually all people of faith recognize
Earth Day as a religious as well as an environmental event, integral as
the environment is to the survival of life on this planet.
Ministers take various approaches to sermons. Today my goal is not to
convince you that the Earth is a matter of faith or a matter of justice
--- these facts are ‘givens’ by now. Instead, today’s sermon is mostly
informational : to reflect on the history of Earth Days and what we as
Unitarian Universalists have done and continue to do to support the
environment.
How did Earth Day start? Do you remember the author Rachel Carson, a
marine biologist, who took it on herself to counter the ‘Chemical’
mindset of the 1950s (‘Better Living Through Chemistry’ was the slogan),
including the use of the insecticide DDT! She published Silent Spring in
1970, a book that immediately rose to the best-seller list and earned
Carson labels such as ‘Communist’ and ‘back to nature advocate.’ The
book led to the banning of DDT two years later.
Paralleling Carson’s work, in the early 1960s Senator Gaylord Taylor
began to press politicians about the environment. President Kennedy made
a conservation tour in 1963, and Taylor himself included conservation in
anti-Viet Nam War rallies. In 1969, Earth Day was announced for the
following April. The big rallies were mostly in urban areas ---
Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York, where Mayor Lindsay closed off
Fifth avenue. Some twenty million people participated. Just for some
reference, 1970 was also the year of ‘Bridge Over Trouble Waters,’ the
invention of fiber optics, Apollo 13, and the birth of Mariah Carey. By
1971, 25% of Americans cited the environment as an important issue. In
1990, Earth Day went global, attracting 200 million people in 140
countries. In 2010 it is predicted that it will attract one billion
people, the ‘largest secular civic event in the world.’
Environmental work since 1970
How far we as a world community have come in a relatively short time!
How much more aware we are of threats to the health of the earth and our
planet’s place in the larger universe, that we have learned about
through discoveries such as the Big Bang theory and explorations from
the Hubble telescope. By the way, see the bulletin board at the back of
the sanctuary, as well as our CUUC website for views of earth provided
by our member Darrell Dodge.
I started a list of environmental agendas that have become common since
1970: what a sea-change in these forty years. This list is partial: you
can add your items, to include: global warming, water conservation,
recycyling, nutrition, food production, energy efficiency, mass transit,
reducing toxic elements, ‘green’ construction, population control, and
much more.
There have also been any number of conferences on the environment: the
Kyoto Protocol in 1995; the Copenhagen conference just last year; United
Nations guidelines, and more. And of course, mainstream media has
brought the environment into popular awareness through the work of Al
Gore and others.
The Environment in Faith Communities
Not only in culture generally, but also in faith communities, we have
come far in environmental advocacy. The environment IS a matter of
faith. For example, three weeks ago the Rev. Sawtell, of Denver’s
Eco-Ministries, preached here in our sanctuary and addressed
environmental abuse as a psychological and a pastoral care issue. What a
far cry from the pre-Rachel-Carson days, when the prevailing religious
paradigm was that abuse of the earth was acceptable, because the earth
was here to serve humans: an instrument to be used by humans for their
own needs and desires. These views were often justified by referring to
passages from scripture.
I vividly recall my own awakening to this notion of stewardship of the
earth as a component of my ministry. It seems incredible that I ever
could have been a time when I did not realize this. All through my life,
I have been drawn to the outdoors. In high school and college my
preferred study spots were outdoors; I engaged in outdoor winter sports;
and I grew up in a family that farmed its own vegetables in the summer.
The earth is in my DNA. My whole life I’ve been environmentally aware,
but it actually wasn’t until a course on ’Ecology, Ethics, and Religion’
at the Presbyterian Seminary in Austin in the late ‘90s that I really
‘got it’ about the connection between the earth and religion. I’ve been
preaching on the environment ever since. I joke with many of you that on
my days off, I go to ‘church’---I mean, into the mountains. There is
nothing as spiritually replenishing for me as being fed by a majestic
mountain, so firm and proud and strong.
There are so many levels of religious connections to the environment.
Unitarians and Universalists each in different ways in their histories
have claimed nature as a principle source of religious inspiration. For
example, the Transcendentalists --- Emerson, Thoreau, and others --
experienced God in nature. The sense of connections --- and thus
dependency and interdependency as our seventh principle says --- is
religious.
Protection of the earth is also a justice issue. In supporting good
health for the earth, we also work to provide equal access to the
benefits of the earth to all people, and to all living things, beyond
the walls of our particular church community. In that justice-based
world, access to palatable food and water would not depend on income.
Information about birth control would not depend on education or skin
color. Animal rights would loom as important as human rights. We would
work for justice for earth herself.
How far faith communities have come
The number of environmental activities that faith communities are
involved in grows every year. It is not uncommon to find a clergy person
associated with an environmental project.The magazine Sojourners, for
example, committed to social justice and religion, regularly reports on
faith-and-environment projects. I was involved in such a project a few
years ago: an interfaith walk across the state of Massachusetts,
supported by the environmentalist Bill McKibben. Also, many
congregations around the country were among the range of organizations
participating in ‘350 Day’ last fall: 350 being the target for
atmospheric carbon reduction. I’ve already mentioned Denver’s
Eco-Ministries, which supports advocacy, volunteering, instruction,
site-visits to congregations, and more.
I don’t even need to leave my apartment to be reminded about how far
this connection between faith and the earth has come. I just need to
look at my library, and see so much literature, so many topics: on
environmental spirituality; on animal rights; on preservation of
species; on water; and more.
How Far Unitarian Universalism Has Come
You can guess that Unitarian Universalists have been in the forefront in
environmental advocacy, on so many levels. Let’s just review a few
projects.
At the congregational level, most congregations have green teams, ours
being no different. Many are greening existing buildings, or building
green from the start. Many have completed the Green Sanctuary Project:
an honor badge of sorts awarded after completion of various
environmental criteria. Many congregations are involved in responsible
consumerism or simplicity groups.
Denominationally, in the 1980s, we added the Seventh Principle to our
principles and purposes, on the interconnection web of all life. That
Principle was partially instigated by women’s spirituality groups. As a
denomination, we also engage in political advocacy and we provide
education to congregations. In 2006 we adopted as one of our Statements
of Conscience, ‘The Threat of Global Warming and Climate Change.’ In
2008 one of the main speakers at General Assembly was Van Jones, a
recent adviser to President Obama, who called us to living in a green
economy.
About ten years ago ‘UU Ministry for Earth’ was founded. Back then, it
was called the Seventh Principle Project. The purpose of the group,
founded on many of Joanna Macy’s ideas, is to inspire practices that
honor and sustain the earth, and its vision is to create a world in
which reverence, gratitude and care for the earth are central values.
There is so much to say about this group, and rather than bombard you
with details. We have included a flyer on the extra green sheet in the
order of service.
I also like the ministry of Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd. I’ve
mentioned them previously. For several years they literally lived on the
road, taking their environmental ministry around the country, to UUs and
other churches. Their project is called The Great Story and there are
many materials from them available on their website.
Ethical Eating
What are we doing right now, here in 2010? The current CSAI ---
Congregational Study Action Issue --- is on Ethical Eating. I’ve talked
about this project before.It is a four-year initiative to promote
ethical eating and food justice, to help create a planet that is both
sustainable and fair. The many issues related to food are indeed
spiritual. Food is directly related to the survival of the planet and to
the health of all life. Eating ethically encourages each of us ---
individually and congregationally --- to make wise choices regarding
food.
Ethical Eating will be central at the 2010 General Assembly coming up in
June in Minneapolis --- I make a pitch for some of you to attend that
meeting. This CSAI is being promoted in partnership with groups such as
the UU Service Committee, UU Ministry for Earth, and Slow Food USA.
We’ve talked about Ethical Eating before. We solicited commitments from
you the congregation about how you will address ethical eating. So I’m
interested to hear: what Ethical Eating habits have you been practicing?
We want to give you another chance right now to make another commitment:
You have two index cards in your order of service. On the white card ,
would you write down an Ethical Eating habit you will commit to
practicing for the next six months? Perhaps this is the same commitment
you’ve been doing, or perhaps it is a new commitment: eating locally;
eating lower on the food chain; periodic fasting; there are so many
options.As we did last summer, we will post these on the bulletin board,
along with similar commitments that the children and youth are making in
their classes this morning.
New ‘40/40/40’ Project
There is one more project, a new initiative from the UUA, that I want to
tell you about. It’s called ‘40/40/40.’ To help celebrate this fortieth
birthday of Earth Day, this initiative is asking us to make a forty-day
commitment to some new action or lifestyle change that celebrates
respect and advocacy for Earth. This does not have to be only in Ethical
Eating, but in any environmental support. And it’s hoped that some of
these forty-day trial runs will turn into more permanent habits.
And, if we can get 40% of those present here this morning to sign on to
this commitment, we will receive recognition from the UUA. We will be
included in a growing website listing congregations who have joined this
project. and we will also receive stickers for our nametags indicating
participation in this program. You can get to online information about
40/40/40 through the Ministry for Earth website You actually have a
headstart. 40/40/40 runs officially from April 18 -May 27. You have an
extra week to work in your forty days.
As some examples: one minister has committed to learning more about
animals and farms, planning to do regular site visits to farms. Another
participant plans to start an heirloom seed cooperative, and someone
else is committing to having his own vegetable garden this summer.
What will you commit to? If you need ideas, I can use helpers in the
ministers vegetable garden here at the church. Would you write your
responses on the green index card . I know that many of us are already
environmentally active already ... I still want to inspire you to
consider some new habit, or perhaps taking your existing habits into
your neighborhood or workplace, somehow expanding your support for Earth
so as to inspire others. Or you might bring one of your habits here to
church: there’s still lots of room for the greening of the building, or
planning ethical eating potlucks.
One project I have wanted to try since I’ve come here, which will be my
40/40/40 commitment, is a carbon analysis of our travel to come here to
church. I suppose there is much room for reducing carbon use:
carpooling, conference call meetings, etc. One part of this plan is to
post a neighborhood map with locations of the residences of all members
and friends, to make it easier to work out carpooling with one another.
April 22, 2010: Earth Day will be forty years old. This will truly be a
day of celebration: environmental celebration, religious celebration,
justice celebration. You’ve heard me say many times over, the core
meaning of religion is about being bound together. I’d say that come
April 22, 2010, being connected with those billion people around the
world in advocacy for Mother Earth will be some kind of religious
celebration.
May we all continue to grow in honoring and protecting this home we all
share together, this home of Mother Earth.
MAY THIS BE SO
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