EARTH CENTERED How to Live on a Dying Planet
An Earth Day Sermon
23 April 2006
James Ishmael Ford

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Objectivity is a semisubjective affair, and although one would aspire to see with the distant and detached eye of a pure observer, when looking at natural systems the observer is not only affecting the system, he or she is inevitably part of it. The biological world and its ecological interactions are the world, our very own world. Thus, ecology (with its root meaning of “household science”) is very close to economics, with its root meaning of “household management.” Human beings, biology and ecology tell us, are located completely within the sphere of nature. Social organization, language, cultural practices, and other features that we take to be distinguishing characteristics of the human species are also within the larger sphere of nature.
Gary Snyder in his essay “A Village Council of All Beings”

I need to begin today’s sermon with some harsh news. Think Baptist preacher proclaiming the end-times. Ecologically things are really bad. We are past the point where one can reasonably deny the encroachments of global warming. The climates of the world are in major flux with changes going on so complex we can’t foretell what is going to happen, other that is, than to say it’s going to be Mr Toad’s Wild Ride. In all likelihood the coastlines of the world are going to be significantly receding over the next decades, storm patterns are going to be much harsher, and there will be significant shifts in weather patterns across the globe leading in various places to droughts and floods as part of endlessly unpredictable shifts from what has been for hundreds, in fact, thousands of years.

My concern today, however, is not in recounting the litany of disaster, but rather to give a word of hope. I want to address some important questions. What words of comfort might we draw upon? Where is the wisdom and compassion to act with grace in these difficult years to come? In short, how do we engage our own hearts so that our actions are more helpful than harmful?

I found one wonderful pointer when I was having coffee with an old friend who these days, is the principal publicity person for Wisdom Publications, my current publisher. We’d just sat down at the Diesel Café in Somerville’s Davis Square. There we were, Rod Meade Sperry with his regular coffee, a splash of milk and one packet of Splenda, me with my large non-fat, extra hot latte. Rod took a sip of his coffee, looked at me with a wicked slightly off-kilter smile and said, “James, you’re a political fanatic. I think we’re doing a book you’re going to find really, really, interesting.”

He then pulled a paperback out of a canvas bag which was resting on the bench next to him, presenting with a slight ritual bow what turned out to be an “advance reading copy,” that is an uncorrected although nearly completed printed version of a book. Rod’s extended arm, I noticed for the umpteenth time, as is the case for so many of his generation, was covered in tattoos. He’s probably my best source for the cutting edge, particularly if it be cultural, spiritual or like this, the meeting of the unlikely.

And, once again, my goodness, he was right! Melvin McLeod’s Mindful Politics: A Buddhist Guide to Making the World a Better Place has instantly become one of my favorite books. I only hope it will become a bestseller. For the sake of our planet, I hope so. Without a doubt this should become a major book for any Unitarian Universalists concerned with political engagement. Really, our issues as UUs are so similar to those of the mainstream of western Buddhists that it makes this book seem as if it were written specifically for us. At least I felt so. Really felt so…

Out of an amazing collection of thoughtful and helpful reflections one essay in particular caught my imagination. It was by my old friend Stephanie Kaza. We were in seminary together all those years ago, she a birthright UU at Starr King, me as a UU seminarian just half a block away at the Pacific School of Religion. We had a lot in common and shared coffee on several occasions. Stephanie is now Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics, Religion, Ecology and Ecofeminism at the University of Vermont in Burlington. Her essay, the one I really draw upon for today is called “Agent in Indra’s Net.” Indra’s net is the Buddhist equivalent of our own compelling theological image, the Interdependent Web.

The second primary source for this sermon was a paper given by the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gary Snyder, presented at a 1992 conference in Ladakh, India. As you may recall from references I’ve made elsewhere, he’s a major hero of mine and a profound influence on my thinking. The title of this particular paper is “A Village Council of All Beings: Community, Place, and the Awakening of Compassion.” I first found it anthologized in Snyder’s book A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds. I felt this essay pointed me in additional directions, providing important nuances as I reflected on what to share in this pulpit today.

In fact the broad outline for today’s reflection comes from Stephanie. She suggests four general rules for healthful spiritual engagement and specifically for healthy environmental activism. While the language is mainly Buddhist, I really believe it works for most all of us who sit in this room, today. These, if you will, rules of thumb for authentic engagement are in fact pretty simple: They start with our being with the suffering, then suggesting we cultivate what she calls a “Systems Mind,” which inspires, I feel automatically, taking up a path of “Nonharming,” and finally, out of that, getting us to something worthy of the word “Peace.” Let’s see how they work for you.

First, that being with suffering. This is sort of a bottom line deal. The premise is hard to deny as an aspect of human psychology. We long for this or that, it’s denied us, and we are hurt. We achieve it and it turns out not to be what we hoped, and we are hurt. We get it, whatever that might be, or her or him, and they change, and we hurt. As far as the ecological situation itself is concerned, as Stephanie extends this observation from the individual to our planet: “Global agriculture, urban sprawl, and industrial development have caused wide-scale loss of habitat, species extinction, land and water degradation, and (now an) unstable climate. In the last century, the rate of loss has accelerated significantly, to the point of threatening ecosystem health and the community of life.” We really are caught up in a world of hurt. And denial doesn’t help.

This brings us to point two. I believe wisdom insists we have a binocular vision. With one eye, of course we see how we all are different. It’s important first to note the uniqueness of every individual. This is a truism. We are born absolutely unique, precious, inheritors of many many possibilities. Then we need to push a bit, and see the uniqueness of species; and within that how we human beings have our own unique place on this planet. Our smarts alone guarantee us the top spot. We’ve long sense killed off or marginalized any serious competitors for that niche. But, I suggest, that seeing uniqueness isn’t enough. If we look hard, we see that while we sit at the top of the food chain, we also very much are part of it. That’s the other eye. Taken together we really see: each individual is special and we are all part of the same deal. Wisdom is all about relationship. Compassion is about relationship. It’s all about relationship.

One really helpful way of understanding this is through systems theory. It’s been important to me ever since I first studied it with Joanna Macy now so many years ago. Stephanie Kaza suggests “Systems thinking develops through looking at patterns in time and space, such as seasonal cycles or animal paths… A systems thinker looks across several scales of time and space, always piecing together the puzzles of relationship, of the many causes and the many effects.” She, Stephanie, further defines how things seem to self-organize in the world within which we exist. “Systems are created by self-regulating patterns, such as those that keep you at a constant body temperature, and by self-organizing patterns that allow the system to adapt and respond when new opportunities arise.”

I’m really taken with this model. But the point is larger than any way we might try to explain it. The bottom line is this: First, you and I, are, without a doubt special, unique, the reflecting animal, the top dog, the only creature on this planet that seems to have any real say in how things will be. And, at the very same time, we are all part of the same mess – whoever, whatever, we are. Human, rat, dirt, the rocks themselves: we all are part of the same thing, the same glorious mess. I suggest this knowing can be a frightening thing. And, if we don’t turn away, it can be liberating. It calls us to some radical action, a profound reorientation from a sense of isolation and entitlement.

But how do we handle it? What is the mature way, the wise way, the compassionate way? On this point Stephanie Kaza directs us to the Hindu and Buddhist concept of ahimsa, literally, “nonharming,” This idea of living in peace with the earth and each other is perhaps made most famous in our times by the Indian sage Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi and the American minister the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Stephanie suggests this isn’t any pie-in-the-sky ideal, but “a compassionate response (that) arises naturally out of a broadly-felt connection to other beings.” I agree, if with some caveats.

My old hero Gary Snyder goes on to observe how “ahimsa, nonviolence, harmlessness, is (often traditionally) described as meaning (we should) ‘cause the least possible harm in every situation.’ Even as we acknowledge the basic truth that every one of us lives by causing some harm, we can consciously amend our behavior to reduce the amount of practical damage we might do, without being drawn into needless feelings of guilt.”

What we’re being called to is a way of peace, of reconciliation with the world as well as our own hearts. Gary suggests “The awakening of the Mind of Compassion is a universally known human experience…” The modern social justice activist and spiritual teacher Robert Aitken wrote a poem as his aspiration in this spirit. Perhaps you feel some recognition. I understand he recites it every evening. “Hearing the crickets at night/I vow with all beings/to find my place in the harmony/crickets enjoy with the stars.” As Gary Snyder observes our experience of radical interdependence “may often be completely without obvious ethical content, a moment of leaving the hard ego self behind while just seeing, just being, at one with some other.’

And yet it does lead us to an ethical posture. As we see we are individuals, following the course of our own lives, but at the very same time and just as truly, we are all caught up in one another’s lives, and all of us in our lives, are part of the one world; well, then, an ethic does emerge. Here we begin to see the life of compassionate wisdom.

No doubt it’s all complicated. Gary Snyder boils it down to basic principals when he observes, “Our bodies – or the energy they represent – are… continually being passed around. We are all guests at the feast, and we see we are also the meal!” So, what to do? How do we recognize that we are all indeed born of the same mother, that our fate is all bound up together, that this planet is our one home? How do we make our decisions? What can be our choices? What should our culture look like?

I suggest it starts with a culture of education, cultivating a thirst for knowledge, encouraging learning as a spiritual path, claiming knowledge as an authentic gate to wisdom. This can very much be our gift, if not uniquely our gift, to world culture. At least in so far as we really embrace this vision of compassionate wisdom. I suggest this starts for us, here, in our religious education programming, both for children and adults.

Gary writes about that aspect for children, but I hear it equally for us as adults. “We… need an education for (our) young (and ourselves)… that gives (us) pride in (our) culture and (our) place, even when showing… the way into modern information pathways and introducing (all of us) to the complicated dynamics of world markets. (We and our children) must become well informed about the workings of governments, banking, and economics – those despised but essential mysteries. We need an education that places (us) firmly within biology but that also gives (us) a picture of human cultural affairs and accomplishments over the millennia… We must further a spiritual education that helps children (and adults alike) appreciate the full interconnectedness of life and encourages a biologically informed ethic of nonharming.”

This is the task at hand. This is how we can live in the midst of change. This is how we can heal the hurt of our own hearts, and the hurt at the heart of the world. It is our calling, our sacred trust, our holy responsibility.
Amen.