"WE ARE THE WORLD!"

 

A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear

Earth Day Sunday, April 22, 2005

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

 

            In preparing for this sermon I ran across one of those statements that make you stop reading for a while and look at life just a little bit differently.  It was a simple comment from biologist Thomas Eisner.  It said: 

 

"It is time to recognize that we don't share this world with insects.  They own it." 

 

            I'm sure we can each tell stories to illustrate this point -- picnics where you can't get rid of the ants, city apartments where cockroaches are expelled from one dwelling only to reappear stronger in the next, or termites or fleas or flies.  It does make you wonder who is at the top of the evolutionary ladder!  Is it our world, or theirs?  

            It is an observation that sort of plays with our world-view.  Insects were here long before humans, and they will survive on this planet in the event of our own extinction.  It is questionable whether we could survive their extinction.  In other words, from the perspective of eons of history of this planet, we humans are not much more than the overnight guests of the insect world.  You know -- the kind of guests that don't clean up their own messes. 

            The point is an exaggeration, of course.  But exaggeration notwithstanding, there is a valid point here.  It is not that insects or fish or bacteria own the earth, it is that we are all interdependent with nature, and we are no more the owners of the planet than any other resident.  If there is any revolution in human thinking that is bound to change radically how we face our future, it is the emerging understanding of our place within nature rather than separate from it.  This is the view that helps us see our destiny.  As they say, we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. 

 

            The American Declaration of Independence is one of the sacred documents of our country.  Its purpose was to announce our commitment as a separate country from England, which created us as a colony.  Independence is our treasure that we have cherished now for over 200 years. 

            With our independence firmly established, it seems to me it is time to reconsider our relationship with the rest of the world, affirming this time not just our independence, but our interdependence.  This is not a political statement -- it is a statement of self-identity.  It is not a declaration to be made by a nation, but a declaration to be made by all humans as recognition of our place in the world.  Recognition of our interdependence suggests that if we are to be responsible to our own destiny, we hold a responsibility for the health of the world around us.  Our destiny is intimately tied to the destiny of the rest of nature. 

            Some twenty years ago, a man named Russell Peterson wrote what he called the "Declaration of Interdependence."   Peterson is a former Governor of Delaware who served as an environmental advisor to both Republican and Democratic administrations, and was President of the Audubon Society when he wrote this Statement: 

 

“We the people of planet Earth,

With respect for the dignity of human life,

With concern for future generations,

With growing appreciation of our relationship to our environment,

With recognition of limits to our resources,

And with need for adequate food, air, water, shelter,

            health, protection, justice, and self-fulfillment,

Hereby declare our interdependence;

And resolve to work together in peace

And in harmony with our environment

To enhance the quality of life everywhere.

 

            It seems to me that this consciousness of our interdependence with nature is the direction we are just starting to go -- and the sooner we arrive at it the better. 

 

The idea may have started as a seed in the theories of Darwin.  It was with Darwin, I think, that we human beings began to think of ourselves as belonging to nature.  Before that, our view of ourselves was fairly peculiar.  For so much of our history -- and in many ways still today -- it has been more common for us to think of hu­man beings as unique crea­tures, if not outside of na­ture, then perhaps sovereign over nature, or excep­tional to nature.  Even if we accept our­selves to be a species of animal, we have nor­mally thought ourselves a very elite species. "The paragon of animals," Shake­speare called us, "the quintessence of dust."  Even the Psalm­ist described human be­ings as just "a little lower than the angels."

If for most of human history, we have thought of ourselves as some exceptional species within nature, or even alien to nature, events are conspiring these days to force us to re-think our human identity.  If there is any over-all revo­lution in human thinking going on in our time, it is that we are learning to understand what it means to be respectful of our place in nature, of being an interdependent part of nature's web of existence, rather than of having dominance over nature. 

            This path of human history is echoed in a poem from Walt Whitman over 150 years ago.  "We are Nature," he wrote.  "Long we have been absent, but now we return."  As Whitman tended to do, he made lists.  He listed our identity with nature itself.  Here is part of his list:  

 

We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,

We become plants, trunks, fol­iage, roots, bark,

We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks . . .

We are what the atmosphere is, transparent,

receptive, per­vious, impervious,

We are snow, rain, cold, dark­ness, we are each

product and influence of the globe,

We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again,

            we too,

We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.

 

            I don't care much for the sport of hunting.  But I'll never forget a conversation I once had with a friend who was a hunter.  He told me it was his wish to die in the forest some day, never to be found.  He hoped that his body could literally become nourishment for nature, since nature had long nourished him.  If his body didn't nourish the animals he once hunted, it would at least nourish the ground itself, which supplied nourishment for them.  I confess at first the idea sounded quite appalling, but also I had to admit it was the ultimate evidence of embracing interdependence with, and bonding with, nature.  "We are Nature.  Long we have been absent, but now we return." 

 

            This idea of being a part of nature did not come easily to our otherwise intelligent species.  As I say, human beings have for much of their history, often behaved as if existing beyond the confines of nature's ways.  We have used up resources as if there is no limit to their sup­ply; we procreated our species as if the planet can support an un­lim­ited number of us; we have created weapons so destructive that there is no way for any of us to survive should they ever be used.

Even our religions have sup­ported our illusion of being dis­tinct from nature.  We have created religions in which we believe ourselves to be God's favored species, and in which we claim, unlike any other part of creation, to know God's thoughts.  We have created soci­eties in which certain races are priv­ileged in status, for they are somehow "more human" than other races.

It is in our generation that we are learning the calamitous consequences of thinking that our species is exempt from nature's system.  It may have started with Darwin that we began to see what it means to be an inherent part of nature, but every step we take beyond Darwin has taught us more of this truth.

It is no great insight to observe that as society has "pro­gressed" we have experienced less intimacy with nature.  As wonder­ful as modern conveniences are (and this sermon is certain­ly not intended to argue against the technological gifts that we enjoy today) it cannot be denied that buying a frozen dinner at Marsh or finally getting on-line with the internet­ does not rein­force for us our inter­dependency with nature. 

In our day, one of the great writers about the gifts of nature is Wendell Berry.  In these few lines, he reminds us of our rela­tionship to nature:

 

Sowing the seed,

my hand is one with the earth.

Wanting the seed to grow,

my mind is one with the light.

Hoeing the crop,

my hands are one with the rain.

Having cared for the plants,

my mind is one with the air.

Hungry and trusting,

my mind is one with the earth.

Eating the fruit,

my body is one with the earth. 

 

"We are Nature," said Whit­man, "long we have been absent, but now we return."  This return will happen, it seems, if people fully honor their place in the scheme of nature.  It will happen when we fully recognize that we are nature, too.  We are the world. 

 

There are implications I see in fully realizing ourselves as a part of nature rather than as an excep­tion to nature. 

The first implication of nature that comes to my mind is an awareness of the intricate cooperation we witness in it.  One of the most popular words used by both poetry and science in de­scribing nature's ways is the word "harmo­ny."

For the last few centuries, humanity has struggled to free itself from the bonds of oppres­sion, first in the form of church authority, then in the form of monarchy, and more recently in the form of authoritarian ideolo­gies.  This effort toward libera­tion has been necessary and healthy, and it has been done to a great extent in the name of individuality.  We have, more than our ancestors could ever have dreamed, freed the indi­vidual from the constraints and coercions of society. 

Having succeeded so drama­tically as we have in freeing the individual, it is time for us now, I think, to re-examine the role cooperation plays among individ­uals in nature.  In nature, there is little room for what we term as "rugged individualism."  Any individual in nature that shuns cooperation with other individuals faces a rather dire destiny.  Whether it is an atom linked to other atoms, a bird joining in seasonal migration, a tree growing strong in a forest, or a star following its exten­sive path through intricate constel­lations, no part of nature oper­ates independently or in isola­tion, or without participation in and harmony with the elements around it.

Far be it from me to deni­grate the worth of individuality.  Much of my commitment to liberal religion, which is grounded in the free­dom of the individual, is to advance the dignity of unfet­tered individual action and belief.  And yet I know that if we are to understand human­ity as integral to nature, we would be mistaken not to acknowledge that nature warns of the absolutely essential task of cooperation. 

What this means in human terms, I think, is that we need society every bit as much as we need individuality; we need to expend effort in building commu­nity, and accept responsibility for nurturing society.  A society built upon "every man (or every one) for himself" is an un-nat­ural society.

 

And yet I am also not unaware that nature contains its own har­shness, its own unforgiving indifference to pain and hard­ship.  If we are to take seriously the fact that we humans are nature, we cannot naively ignore that nature seems often cruel and callous. 

Nature seems often harsh and cruel, it is true.  It is there in disaster and disease; it is there in ravishing weather and contentious violence.  Watch a cat and field mice; notice the work of a cyclone or a germ.  What does this discordant quality of nature mean for us human be­ings, we who are also nature?  It means, at minimum, that we find ways understand who we are and what nature is, and how we cope with the fact that we are not always, and nature is not always, what we would like it to be.

Tielhard de Chardin was one of those rare people who com­bined a genius for science (in his case evolutionary science) with a soul of a theologian and a pen of a poet.  He was a trained scientist as well as a Jesuit priest.  As a keen scientific observer of nature, here is how he approached the fact of na­ture's seeming callous­ness:

 

Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock: you who yield only to force, you who cause us to work if we would eat.

 

Blessed be you, perilous mat­ter, violent sea, untamable passion:  you who, unless we fetter you, will devour us.

 

Blessed be you, mighty mat­ter, irresistible march of evolu­tion, reality ever new-born, you who, by constantly shatter­ing our mental cate­gories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of truth.

 

Blessed be you, universal matter, immeas­urable time, bound­less ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and gener­ations: you who by overflow­ing and dissolving our narrow standards and measurements reveal to us the dimensions of God.

 

Blessed be you, impenetrable matter: you who, interposed between our minds and the world of essences, cause us to languish with the desire to pierce through the seam­less veil of phenomena.

 

Blessed be you, mortal mat­ter: you who one day will undergo the process of disso­lution within us and will thereby take us forcibly into the very heart of that which exists.

 

You who batter us, and then dress our wounds, you who resist and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shac­kle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, ...it is you, matter, that I bless.

 

To understand ourselves as nature rather than as impervious to nature is not a Pollyana exer­cise.  In fact, when we conceive of nature as either blessing or curse, as benevolent or malevo­lent, it becomes apparent that it is nei­ther.  It is we who impose these very human categories of thought onto nature.  It is we who cannot help but experience nature through such categories.

 

There is another implication that comes to my mind in under­standing human beings as part of nature.  It has to do with reli­gion.

If religion is, as it is often considered to be, a way of understanding that which is greater than we are, then nature speaks to us of religion in vas­ter significance than any human religion has ever imagined.  If through religion we seek some­th­ing of eternal significance, there is noth­ing that compares with the eternal significance of what nature reveals.

Lew Welch speaks of the inherent wonders we find around us when he gives these instruc­tions: 

 

Step out onto the Planet.  Draw a circle a hundred feet round.  Inside the circle are 300 things nobody under­stands, and, maybe, nobody's ever really seen.

 

If religion deals with ex­ploring mysteries, if it deals with searching for truth, if it deals with finding cosmic signif­icance beyond ordi­nary exper­ience, it is found here more than any place else. Religion speaks to us of that which is eternal in life, and nature can point the way for us.  John Ruskin speaks of that religious dimension to nature in this poem:

 

            There is religion in everything around us,

            A calm and holy religion

            In the unbreathing things of Nature. 

            It is a meek and blessed influence,

            Stealing in as it were unaware upon the heart,

            It comes quickly, and without excitement,

            It has no terror, no gloom,

            It does not rouse up the passions,

            It is untrammelled by creeds...

            It is written in the arched sky,

            It looks out from every star,

            It is on the sailing cloud and in the invisible wind,

            It is among the hills and valleys of the earth

            Where the shrubless mountain-top

                        pierces the thin atmosphere

                        of eternal winter,

            Or where the mighty forest fluctuates before the strong wind,

            With its dark waves of green foliage,

            It is spread out like a legible language upont the broad face

                        of an unsleeping ocean,

            It is the poetry of Nature,

            It is that which uplifts the spirit within us...

            And which opens to our imagination a wonder of spiritual

                        beauty and holiness.

 

I've often felt it curious that religion has been so often linked to the "super-natural" when the natural itself is more deeply inspiring and full of won­der than any human could fully imagine.  As long as the natural holds both awe and meaning, there is little need to go be­yond it for meaning. 

The "something greater" than us that religion so often speaks of is here.  Sci­ence tells us about nature now that it is not a machine, as we used to think, in which we can know each part, each mechanism, to understand the whole. No, it is rather like a big organism, and as such it is continually chang­ing and evol­ving emerging and unfold­ing, so it is never ful­ly known, always somewhat beyond our grasp.

 

            Environmental scientist David Fisher points out that in the end, nature is stronger than we are.  Yes, he says, we are nature, and susceptible as anything to extinction.  But, he adds,

 

"We are different from the other refuse of evolution.  We are not merely one more species among billions of others; we have developed a complex consciousness capable of understanding the universe, and with even the beginnings of this understanding come the ability to manipulate.  Unfortunately, another concomitant of understanding seems to be hubris, which leads us to think that we can not only manipulate but actually conquer the universe.  And this -- at least for the moment and perhaps all time -- is beyond us . ... 

            "Ay, there's the rub.  For if we change nature sufficiently, we may find that we are no longer welcome on this planet.  And so we had better tread softly, until we understand better how nature works, and how we fit into the nature of things." 

 

READING  from "Kiss and Tell" by Judith Stone in

"The Nature of Nature" a book of essays edited by William H. Shore

 

            Until an infant sea lion kissed my foot, I had no real plan for saving the planet.  But that ticklish reinitiation into the animal kingdom gave me notions.  They didn't sort themselves out, though, until sometime after the encounter on a serene beach in the far Galapagos Islands. 

            Here, astonishingly, wild creatures -- some of the rarest and most richly varied -- don't flee humans, despite a long history of betrayal to the brink of extinction.  In the mere three decades since this place has been covered by the laws protecting paradises, all seems to have been forgiven. 

            What a treat it was not to strike terror into the hearts of other living things!  I could spend hours regarding rubbery black marine iguanas sunning in sloppy chummy piles like discarded dime-store dinosaurs; instead of bolting, they simply grinned and dozed.  A six-hundred pound tortoise, who may well have lived a century and a half, regally extended his leathery neck for me to stroke.  And, most thrilling of all, that curious month-old seal lion told me with a whisper of whiskers that I wasn't the enemy. 

            I regarded the pup's probing as a smooch and an invitation.  Swimming with its sleek clan, I attempted to mimic their dipping and looping; they looked back as if to say, "You poor, pale, porky fish!  Can't you manage any tricks?"  I had never frolicked with wild things before, unless a New York City subway ride counts.  It was almost more bliss than I could bear. 

            Back in the city, I recalled at odd moments the pup's huge eyes, its goofy, touching cry -- a cross between a lamb's bleat and a car alarm.  At the grocery store, offered a choice between a paper bag and a plastic one, I would try to calculate the ultimate benefit of each to sea lion and company.  Haunted by the vision of a tiny, tender nose sliced by some discarded can, I got tough with my landlord who is haphazard about recycling, despite city ordinances.  I hate such confrontations.  But the pup made me do it. 

            I wasted less.  I made donations to organizations dedicated to saving our seas.  . . . I eschewed a certain gasoline credit card.  I didn't do nearly enough, of course, but I was becoming less lazy and more careful citizen of the Earth.  A princess was being transformed; that kiss had awakened a sleeping duty . ...  The Galapagos has inspired me to formulate the Sea Lion Theory of Global Salvation.