Two weekends ago, Trudi Olivetti and I led our Senior High Affirmation Class on a trip to Boston. Other than having to try and sleep in a Youth Hostel for two nights, I had a wonderful time as we toured the UUA headquarters and visited several historic UU churches. The five teenagers we took along were outstanding, and I was impressed at their interest in our Unitarian Universalist history.
But I believe the highpoint for them was our pilgrimage to Walden Pond. They all knew of Henry David Thoreau’s stay at Walden and they had read his book. For them Walden Pond was perhaps the church of choice.
This morning we are here to ask the question, “What do each of us believe about God?” This is the fifth in a six-part series on God-Talk. And it is an opportunity for you to clarify what you believe and why you believe it.
So far in this sermon series, we have explored atheism, agnosticism, mysticism, and theism. This morning we will explore the belief of naturalism, and next month I will sum up the series and tell you what I believe.
What I said about our teenagers gravitating more to Walden Pond than churches could probably be said of many Unitarian Universalists. I have never seen so many nature lovers and tree huggers than in a UU congregation. Most of us would say that nature is a vital part of our spirituality as well as our politics.
In the poll I gave in the fall, I divided Naturalism into two parts:
- Pantheism which I defined as the belief that nature is the source of revelation and God and nature are affirmed as one; and
- Paganism which is the affirmation of the Goddess as a metaphor for our earth-centered spirituality.
This morning I would like to add two more categories which I’ll tell you about later. But let’s begin with Pantheism.
Pantheism
Paul Harrison, a leader in the World Pantheist Movement, asks these questions:
- When you look at the night sky or at the images of the Hubble Space Telescope, are you filled with feelings of awe and wonder at the overwhelming beauty and power of the universe?
- When you are in the midst of nature, in a forest, by the sea, on a mountain peak - do you ever feel a sense of the sacred, like the feeling of being in a vast cathedral?
- Do you believe that humans should be a part of Nature, rather than set above it?
“If you can answer yes to all of these questions,” Harrison continues, “then you have pantheistic leanings.” <http://www.harrison.dircon.co.uk/wpm/>
I imagine that almost everyone here has pantheistic leanings, whether we call ourselves a pantheist or not. Pantheism is the belief that everything is God and God is everything. Its central tenet is that the universe is the ultimate reality and the ultimate object of reverence, and that nature is a sacred part of the totality of which every one of us, in life or in death, is an inseparable part.
Scientific or natural pantheism is a modern form of pantheism that deeply reveres the universe and nature and joyfully accepts and embraces life, the body and earth, but does not believe in any supernatural deities, entities or powers.
Two of our greatest Unitarians are seen as pantheists by many, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Because of their love of nature, many now look to both of them as founders of the environmental movement.
In the spirit of Emerson and Thoreau, many Unitarian Universalists believe today that at the heart of our faith is the conviction that the universe is the ultimate focus of reverence. Our’s is a naturalistic approach which accepts and reveres the universe and nature just as they are, and promotes an ethic of respect for all life and for lifestyles that sustain rather than destroy the environment.
PANENTHEISM
Some people confuse pantheism with panentheism, the second category of Naturalism. But there is an important distinction. Whereas pantheism says that everything is God and God is everything, panentheism says that everything is in God and God is in everything.
In human terms, Panentheism affirms that every human being exists within the existence of God, and so whatever happens to us happens to God. And God exists within each one of us, so whatever happens to God also happens to us. Our calling is to wake up to the existence of God within us and to live out that divinity.
If that’s confusing for you, just imagine fish swimming in the water. The water is God, so we as the fish exists in God, and, just as fish are made up mostly of water, God also exist inside of us.
Matthew Fox, a prominent proponent of panentheism, uses the image of the universe as the divine womb containing us all. We are within the womb of God and yet we are of the seed of God.
An illustration of panentheism is this ancient Welsh poem:
I am the wind that breathes the sea,
I am the wave on the ocean,
I am the murmur of leaves rustling,
I am the rays of the sun,
I am the beam of the moon and stars,
I am the power of trees growing,
I am the bud breaking into blossom,
I am the movement of the salmon swimming,
I am the courage of the wild boar fighting,
I am the speed of the stag running,
I am the strength of the ox pulling the plough,
I am the size of the mighty oak,
And I am the thoughts of all people,
Who praise my beauty and grace.
Paganism
The third category of Naturalism is paganism. The Christian Church has long used the term pagan as a synonym for heretic, unbeliever, and atheist. But paganism is a genuine religious faith that goes back to the beginning of humanity.
And paganism is an authentic God-belief that is now making a dramatic comeback in our society and within Unitarian Universalism itself. In fact, the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans -- or CUUPs -- is a sponsored group of the UUA. Our own church has an active CUUPs group called Moonfire which meets monthly and sponsors seasonal celebrations open to all.
Paganism affirms the Goddess as a metaphor for earth-centered spirituality. To imagine God as female is a shock for many people -- especially for many men. People have been so conditioned to visualize divinity as masculine that it’s difficult to even conceptualize God any other way.
Yet, the Goddess was the central focus of worship in the early Neolithic culture. She was the Birth-giver, the Creator of all life and of all gods. The archaeological evidence reveals that before the Age of the Patriarchs of the Old Testament, the Great Mother ruled supreme.
Perhaps the most renowned neo-pagan today, Starhawk, describes the Goddess in this way:
“The Goddess represents the sacredness of life made manifest... The mystery, the paradox, is that the Goddess is not “she” or “he” -- or she is both -- but we call her “she” because to name is not to limit or describe but to invoke. We call her in and a power comes who is different from what comes when we say “he” or “it”. Something happens, something arises that challenges the ways in which our minds have been shaped in images of male control. The hum of bees drowns the sound of helicopters.”
ECO-EGALITARIAN SPIRITUALITY
Similar to paganism is Eco-egalitarian Spirituality, also called Creation Spirituality, Nature Spirituality, and Earth-Centered Spirituality. This new movement is a life-affirming spiritual path also based on Nature.
Those on this path reflect an emphatic love for and desire to understand Deity. They conceive Deity to be an unfathomable mystery: ultimately genderless, formless, and limitless. And they believe there is nothing that is not Deity. Thus, all Nature is considered sacred – including all people and animals.
SACREDNESS
These four beliefs of Naturalism are different in some ways, but they have one thing in common with each other. They all proclaim the sacredness of the earth. In the words of Paul Harrison:
“We are made of the same matter and energy as the universe. We are not in exile here: we are at home....
“The universe creates us, preserves us, destroys us. It is deep and old beyond our ability to reach with our senses. It is beautiful beyond our ability to describe in words. It is complex beyond our ability to fully grasp in science. We must relate to the universe with humility, awe, reverence, celebration and the search for deeper understanding...”
Naturalism has much in common with our own Unitarian Universalist beliefs. Our seventh principle states that “We affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
A prominent UU minister, Robert Weston, wrote, “There is a living web that runs through us to all the universe, linking us each with each and through all life on to the distant stars.” Those words are soulfully similar to those attributed by some to Chief Luther Standing Bear: “Kinship with all creatures of earth, sky, and water is a real and active principle.”
Today’s Naturalists believe that if we are to avoid a planetary calamity we must overcome the greed and attitude of domination that have made humanity into a cancer upon our Earth. We need at this point in history a radical transformation of spirit, a revolutionary change in the way we view the world and ourselves. We have to cross over from the myopia of egotism and selfishness to the spirituality of consciousness and connectedness, and we have to do it now.
In order to change our relationship with the Earth we must first change our world view. At present most westerners see nature as something that is outside of ourselves, that is somehow alien and that should be subdued. We need to be conscious that instead of the Earth being separate and apart from our being, it is our Mother -- not just figuratively, but literally, the Earth gives us life just as a Mother gives us life.
"I shall sing of Gaia, universal mother, firmly founded, the oldest of divinities," wrote the ancient poet, Homer. Mother Gaia is the oldest of divinities. She has been worshiped since the genesis of humanity. In fact, agriculture was a religious event in ancient times. The Earth spoke to the human race by giving them food, and human beings spoke back through a rich array of rituals, symbols, and myths.
The Gaia mythology was resurrected by the environmental scientists, James Lovelock and Sidney Epton, who also saw the Earth as a living organism, but they took their theory a bit further. They developed the Gaia hypothesis which is an approach to global ecology that envisages the entire Earth as a unified entity, actively shaping the material conditions of the planet for the purpose of maximizing the survival and variety of living things.
Lovelock and Epton tell us that the Earth has a kind of consciousness of its own that actually desires to produce and enhance life, as does any organism. When scientists begin to believe that there is a purpose behind Earth's evolutionary process then it's easy to understand how our ancient ancestors could personify and worship the Earth as a deity.
This, I believe, is the message we need to proclaim on the 31th anniversary of Earth Day: that humanity does not need to be saved from our world; our world needs to be saved from us. We have been given a great gift: the sacred blessing of this Earth and this life. Our purpose is to appreciate these gifts by living our lives as fully as possible, and by treating the Earth with the respect and love it deserves.
The theologian, or geologian as he calls himself, Thomas Berry, tells us that we need a new story to replace the Jewish-Christian story of creation that has supported the ravaging of our planet. Berry suggests that we put the Bible on the shelf for the next twenty years. And then we need to listen to the Earth so we may hear the story of its long life and its future dreams. We need a new story that awakens us to the sacredness of all life on our planet.
Have you ever realized that if we lived on the moon our imagination and intelligence would be as void as the moon's atmosphere and landscape? But because we are creations of Gaia, a planet lush, diverse, and colorful, saturated with myriad sights and sounds, we have a consciousness that is rich with creativity and fertile with vision and insight.
We need communion with our world as much as we need food. Humanity itself is a theoretical concept, not a reality. Cut a child off from the stimulation of the earth and that child's intelligence, emotional stability, and creativity will diminish and eventually vanish, leaving the child only a shell of a human being.
We exist only in relationship with the earth and the sky, the trees and the insects, with Gaia. We need a beautiful world to have a full consciousness and to be healed and whole. If our environment collapses so do we.
And it is evident that our environment is collapsing. Sadly, our government is doing little to help preserve our planet’s resources and future. In fact, in the first one hundred days of this new administration, I believe it has virtually declared war on our environment. This administration has:
- declined to toughen standards for arsenic in drinking water;
- reneged on a campaign pledge to require power plants to control emissions of carbon dioxide;
- withdrawn from talks on the Kyoto global-warming treaty;
- imposed a ban on private lawsuits to add new entries to the endangered-species list;
- suspended a rule controlling toxic runoff from mining sites;
- considering the construction of new roads through 58 million acres of forest land;
- floated a plan to drill oil wells in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge;
- proposed cutting the EPA budget by 6.4 percent and taken steps that could abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Many of us fear that the worst is yet to come. Whether we call ourselves Naturalists or not, it is time to open our eyes to the sanctity of nature and to commit ourselves to the preservation of our Earth.
- It is time that we stop wasting our natural resources and begin using what we have been blessed with as reverently and gratefully as possible.
- It is time that we stop accumulating material goods as if we believed that those with the most possessions when they die win the game of life.
- It is time that we stop allowing our leaders to change the world at their pace and pleasure and begin to write letters, lobby, politic, and push for faster and more effective ways to save our planet.
- It is time that we stop cutting ourselves off from the Earth by secluding ourselves inside our comfortable and safe homes and offices, and instead immerse ourselves in nature whenever possible, listening to its song, its message, its dream.
- And it is time to change the destiny of the Earth, to sustain Gaia with our words and deeds, our visions and dreams, so that the song will never die, so that the song of Gaia will be heard by our children and their children for as many generations as we can imagine.
May we never forget that the Earth is our mother; we must take care of her.
May it be so. Amen.
Benediction from the Navajo Indians
Beauty is before me, and
Beauty behind me,
Above me and below me
hovers the beautiful.
I am surrounded by it,
I am immersed in it.
In my youth, I am aware of it, and, in my old age,
I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail.
In beauty it is begun.
In beauty it is ended.
Meditation & Prayer:
I now invite you to enter into the spirit of prayer and meditation. As Unitarian Universalists, we AFFIRM our connection to the earth in our Seventh Principle - Respect for the interdependent web of all creation of which we are a part....
During the Meditation, let us allow ourselves to connect with some aspect of this life-sustaining ecosystem.
Let us each focus on ONE earth-honoring action that we want to celebrate today.
Think of an effort that is already happening that protects or conserves - something that you may be helping happen within our church community or in your profession.
Or you may want to celebrate a significant personal or spiritual connection to nature.
Please write your celebration briefly on one side of the green index card you received.
On the reverse side, I ask you to focus on our church community and the future.
What further conservation efforts would you like to see here, that you might even help bring into being here at UUCA? If you need help to see some suggested action areas, see the insert in your order of service.
Finally, if you would be open to contact by a member of our Environmental Task Force, please include your name and phone or e-mail.
During the Offering, please pass your green cards to the center aisle where they will be collected or give it to an Environmental Task Force volunteer in the Fellowship Hall after the service.
Now let us pray in the words of the Ojibway Indians:
Grandfather,
Look at our brokenness.
We know that in all creation only the human family has strayed from the Sacred Way.
We know that we are the ones who are divided,
And we are the ones who must come back together to walk in the Sacred Way.
Grandfather, Sacred One,
Teach us love, compassion, and honor
That we may heal the earth and heal each other.
Let us open our minds and hearts to the place of quiet, to the silent prayer for the healing of pain, and the soft, gentle coming of love . . .
"Everyday we are surrounded by sounds, rhythms, noises; the music of life. But since the beginning of Time, there has always been one rhythm . . . the simplest rhythm . . . the heart beat. [I will begin tapping my chest in a heart beat.] And on a day like today, Earth Day . . . if you listen closely, you can hear it. It's the heart beat . . . the heart beat of Mother Earth."
Heartbeat drumming begins...
Chant – “The Earth Is Our Mother”
The Earth is our Mother, we must take care of her,
The Earth is our Mother, we must take care of her!
Hey yanna ho yanna hey yon yon Hey yanna ho yanna hey yon yon.
The Sky is our Father, we must take care of Him,
The Sky is our Father, we must take care of Him!
Hey yanna ho yanna hey yon yon Hey yanna ho yanna hey yon yon
-Amen and shalom!
