April 10, 2011

Getting Ready for Earth Day

     You may be asking yourselves this morning, why on earth (if you’ll excuse the pun) is our Earth Day service today?  This is the tenth.  Earth day isn’t for another twelve days.

     When Earth Day comes, this country and much of the world will observe it.  There will be special Earth Day celebrations.  If nothing else, the U.S. knows how to party.  There will, I am certain, be Earth Day sales.  How buying a new couch is celebrating Earth Day I have no idea, but I promise you: someone will figure it out.

     Earth Day.  Earth Day!  Bright, earth colors.  Parties.  And, let’s be fair, some people will give time.  It will be hard, it’s Easter weekend, but some people will give time.  Help clean a stream.  Help pick up trash.  Do something.  Do something for Earth Day … and then?  And then,  most likely, turn the page.

     What today is about is that, in a very real sense, every day needs to be Earth Day.  Let’s take an Interfaith look at this Earth beneath our feet.

     Hebrew Scripture tells us simply, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”  Simple … yet also complex.  The earth is the Lord’s, not ours.  The earth is sacred, not profane.  We are stewards, not owners.  When we say we own a piece of property it’s not really true – not in a sacred sense.  We have borrowed it.  It has been entrusted to us.  When we say we own a piece of land and therefore have the right to do with it whatever we will we have forgotten that the earth is the Lord’s, not ours.  It belongs as much to our children as it does to us.  And to their children.  And their children. 

     As the Iroquois would suggest, in every action we take we need to be thinking of the effect it will have two, three, four, even seven generations out. 

The Sikh traditions tells us that:

“The earth is a garden,

The Lord its gardener,

Cherishing all, neglecting none.” 

     Would that we cherished all and neglected none.

     Buddhism teaches us that our obsession with consumption is not only bad for the earth, but for us.  The Diamond Sutra of Buddhism instructs us to respect all forms of life on earth, all animals, all vegetation, and when the Diamond Sutra speak of respecting all life, it includes the rocks!

     Taoism is a bit more, shall we say … earthy.  Quoting, “A horse or cow has four feet.  That is Nature.  It is man who puts a halter around the horse’s head or a string through the nose of a cow.  Therefore it is said, ‘Do not let man destroy Nature.  Do not let cleverness destroy the future.’”  Do not let cleverness destroy the future.  What a concept!

     And yet, we look around and frankly, it can be hard to be hopeful.  Our cleverness does seem to be at the very least on the verge of indeed destroying the future.

     So, what do we do?  What do we do?  Things look pretty bleak.  So bleak some are just giving up.  I can’t go there.  Some are hoping for a miracle.  A miracle would be nice, but I think perhaps the miracle needs to come from within us.

     So what do we do?  That, of course, is always the call of Interfaith.  Not what do we believe, but what will we do?  My thought.  Shed some light.  Plant some seeds.

     I love seeds.  I’ve been nurturing some in small pots in my house, and planted them last Friday.  If there is anything that captures concept of renewal, it is the simple seed and what can become of it.  Many have written about it.   Seeds are a potent metaphor.

   Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.
-  Robert Louis Stevenson

         The seed cannot sprout upwards without simultaneously sending roots into the ground.                                                                                                                                         – Ancient Egyptian Proverb

Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower.
              -  Shigenori Kameoka (director of the Shinto Moral Training Society)

     But the gardener must have a seed or two to sow.  So after the service, we’ll be distributing some seeds for your garden.  Seeds of renewal.  Seeds of life.  You will, I hope, notice that they are organic seeds.  Not everyone is clear about what that means.  It means that the seeds are not genetically modified.  The seeds are not patented.  They come from nature, not humanity’s cleverness.

     But I would hope for us to consider planting another seed as well.  That is the seed of engaged optimism.  From that I think we can perhaps grow the miracle we spoke of, that miracle that needs to come from us.

     Engaged optimism is a term I came with a couple of years ago.  I must confess to you here, today, that it has not caught on.  But undaunted, I keep trying.

     So what is engaged optimism, and what can an engaged optimist do?  By definition, if you will, the engaged optimist believes that we CAN make things better, but only if we are willing to act…if we are willing to stay engaged, even, and especially, if the path is difficult.

     What might some actions look like?  One of the primary actions might be weaning ourselves from the cultural norm we were raised in – the norm that yet exists today.

     We’ve spoken about this before, and I fear will speak of it again: it is the high cost of cheap.  The cost to people in unlivable wages and substandard working condition, the cost to the planet in what amounts to land-rape.  There is today, as example, a battle going on that you may not be familiar with.  It’s over natural gas … cheap natural gas.  The process is called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.”  It fractures rock and releases natural gas.  It also uses up a lot of water.  Is cheap gas worth that much water, I wonder.

     For myself, one seed of change I would continue to nourish within me is moving my life evermore completely from “faster and cheaper,” to “sustainable and healing.”  I already believe it.  But belief is not action.  I try to live it.  Yet the “lure of the bargain” is still deeply ingrained and always, always tempting.

     To shed even more light on this, besides seeds, everyone here will be offered a compact fluorescent bulb.  If they are not all snapped up, please feel free to take two.  If you don’t need them, then please do take them anyway, and offer them to a friend in honor of Earth Day.  Plant a seed.  Light a bulb.

     And yet, at the same time, it is necessary to understand that whatever we do on our own, while important, is not enough.  We need to ask not only, “What can I do?” but also, “What can we do together? 

     This is what I’d ask us to consider this morning.  In a few moments, we’ll enter into prayer.  And after that I’d ask us to break into a few small groups.

     Let us share our thoughts, our hopes, and our convictions.  What seed do we want to plant with our community.  And not just our church community.  What can we do as a Northwest community? 

     Earth Day is coming.  This is a time to ask, not what can they do; but what might we do?  And of course, if we are to be engaged and not just optimistic, we need not only to plant the seed, we need then to tend the garden.

     Let us close our eyes for a few moments:

May the seeds that we plant, in our hearts and in our gardens, in our communities and across our earth grow in peace and in love.

     Amen.