Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing

Someone-mailed me the Youtube video: “George Carlin Talks About Stuff.” He talks about trying to find a place to put all your stuff and that stuff is the meaning of life. The reason for having a house in the first place is that we need a place to put our pile of stuff. We want good stuff. Of course, someone else’s stuff might look like junk, and even if our stuff really is junk it never looks like junk to us. We get a bigger house so we can fit all our stuff somewhere and, if we have extra space, we go out and get more stuff. Of course, we may need to rent a storage unit so we can store more stuff. Funny and all too true.

When it comes to the damage being done to our ecosystem, I guess that you already know about is happening as well or better than I. It is enough to say that our culture’s preoccupation with production and consumption has destroyed the quality of much of the air we breathe, the water we drink and the very soil upon which we live and grow our food.

The choir sang a song during our financial affirmation that calls on us to “Open our heart to the sound of the planet…” If we do, we will hear that she is crying. We need help to open our hearts to the sound of the planet, crying out for us to go deeper into our relationship with what sustains all living things and us.

Infrequently will you find readings from Benjamin Franklin, B.F. Skinner and an Earth Based prayer from a Native American tradition all in one Service of Worship. That is why having a Psychology professor like Stephanie as a Worship Associate helps. Skinner stated what we needed in 1976, maybe even in 1948 was “…further knowledge about human behavior and new ways of applying that behavior to the design of cultural practices.”

He even identified the consuming and polluting way of Americans back then as the problem. “The choice is clear,” he wrote, “either we do nothing and allow a miserable and probably catastrophic future to overtake us, or we use our knowledge about human behavior to create a social environment in which we shall live productive and creative lives and do so without jeopardizing the chances that those who follow us will be able to do the same.”

I find that the practice of ecospirtuality as a discipline can help achieve what behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner desired. It can open us up to our relationship to that which gives and sustains life. A good place to start is opening your hearts to your connection with all the living beings that share the water, the air, and the earth with us.

Interestingly, Caryl choose this same Native American prayer for the choir’s Anthem. Not knowing that, I picked it for the cover of our order of service. It comes from a place of deep connection with the universe and all that is within it.

Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes
Ever behold the red and purple sunset.

Of course, we are not Native American. Oh, some of you may have a bit of heritage from one of the many Native American Nations, but even if you do, you are far removed from the lifestyle of those ancestors. Yet, almost every Sunday when we light the chalice we say, “Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful.” Yes, let that be our spiritual discipline. Let us open our eyes and hearts to the beauty of the natural world. That spiritual discipline could lead us to open our hands to help heal our planet.

What do you think of when you hear the word discipline? I guess that most of you do not get too excited when thinking about discipline. The word usually connotes a sense of a punishment. Even if we do not think about personal discipline as punishment, we normally consider it as doing something that is difficult, like Franklin’s adage: “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.” Or possibly, we imagine doing without something, like being on a diet, or the discipline of giving something up during the Christian season of Lent which begins on Ash Wednesday, February 25 this year.

Even when we talk about a spiritual discipline and not discipline in a broader sense, we conjure up visions of doing something that requires ongoing work at some difficult activity. Think about when you last tried to practice the discipline of sitting meditation, Tai Chi or yoga. These activities require persistence. They require personal discipline. When we do them consistently, however, for a month or more, we realize that they actually make us feel and function better and often become pleasurable. In truth, “What we do modifies us more than what is done to us.” (Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote that, 1898)

The discipline of Tai Chi helps me gain a better sense of balance physically. I also gain more balance mentally and spiritually. I have experienced the same positive impact with other spiritual disciplines when I have practiced them consistently over time. I am sure that many of you have had similar experiences.

It is time that we practice a spiritual discipline that will help us live in greater balance with our ecosystem. Will such a discipline require you to give up some of your stuff? Will it be uncomfortable? We are not sure that we like the idea. Think for a moment about our chalice lighting words, “Let us open our eyes to see what is beautiful. Let us open our minds to learn what is true. Let us open our hearts to love one another.”

If we really do open our eyes to what is beautiful, we will also open our eyes to see what is happening to our beautiful planet, our ecosystem. Do we want to wake tomorrow to see that the beauty has gone? Do we want the beauty we enjoy today to disappear for the children in our religious education program? It will if we do not open our minds to recognize what we human beings are doing to the planet.

Consider a cashier at your local grocery store, the one who has been checking out your groceries for years. Maybe you say a few words to her now and then, but in reality, you have hardly noticed what she looks like, let alone what kind of person she is. Now, imagine, that you learn that this woman is actually your biological sister, whom you never knew existed. She was given up for adoption before you were born, but you were never told.

Wow! What a shock. Would this make a difference in your life? Of course, it would. Would this change the way you saw her as a person? Of course, it would. It would make a world of difference in how felt about someone who up until that moment had been almost a total stranger. How would you treat her the next time you went grocery shopping?

Ok, that will probably never happen. Still, think about the reality that all living beings, not just human beings, but all living beings on earth, really do share a common lineage, a common heritage with you. (idea taken from Loyal Rue’s “Going Deeper”) If we open our hearts and our minds and recognize the birds and the animals, the trees and the grasses, are our brothers and sisters, then we willingly will open our hands to the work of reclamation.

The very core of deeper essence cries out for us to recognize all living things as family. The Spirit of Life has hidden lessons in every leaf and rock. The future of this planet depends on us adopting a spirituality where all living beings are seen as our brothers, our sisters.

The problem with our culture is that we do not recognize our sisters and our brothers. Over the years, great distance has grown up between the natural world and us. We have become more and more comfortable in our production and consumption oriented culture, isolating us from the natural world. There is a staggering imbalance between what we do and the impact our actions have on other living beings. One of my favorite poets, Wendell Berry, refers to our economy as a type of legalized vandalism. Our economic pattern of production and consumption is an out and out vandalism of the earth’s resources. Are they ours to consume and to waste?

It takes seventy-eight pounds of coal to run a clothes dryer for a month, and one hundred-seventy pounds to heat water for a month in the average American household. (Sierra, Jan-Feb) Multiply that by all our households represented, and all the households here, and then add all the households in India, China and elsewhere.

About one hundred and fifty years ago, Henry David Thoreau wrote “…To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically…When [man] has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now…”

I cannot even comprehend the destruction caused by coal mining or the resulting impact burning coal has on our ecosystem. We use hot water and turn on our dryers without thinking how it affects the environment. We do not consider the impact that we have on this good earth when we use poison on our lawns and on our farmlands.

The poet Marge Piercy wrote:

“Because you can die from overwork, because
You can die of the fire that melts
Rocks, because you can die of poison
That kills the beetle and the slug
We must come again to worship you
On our knees, the common living dirt.”

Common living dirt should be healthy and full of life sustaining organisms in our beautiful world. We need to kneel and worship the common living dirt that we walk on, live on and garden in which sustains our lives and that of all our brother and sister life forms.

“Superficiality,” some say, “is the curse of our age…The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”(Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster) When we come to a major crisis in life, when we, or a loved one, is facing the possibility of death, the importance of our stuff dissolves in the moment. Our stuff ultimately is superficial.

Today, more than ever before, we recognize that we must make great changes in our American way of life. We cannot wait until the political, economic and leaders of the world change things for us. Our choice is clear. B.F. Skinner wrote, “…either we do nothing and allow a miserable and probably catastrophic future to overtake us, or we use our knowledge about human behavior to create a social environment in which we shall live productive and creative lives and do so without jeopardizing the chances that those who follow us will be able to do the same.”

There is a deep spiritual longing within Unitarian Universalism and within the people of our country. We long for spiritual discipline and depth.

A key spiritual discipline for today is to follow the lessons hidden in every leaf and rock. A key spiritual discipline is to walk in beauty. A key spiritual discipline is to use our hands to create a culture of respect for all our sister and brother human beings and the entire family of living things.

Everything in the world is changing. This is a revolutionary time of economic and social change with the potential of becoming a great spiritual and cultural awakening. If we are able to make progress in navigating these changes, future generations may look back on our time as one of great transformation.

Too often, we feel that others need to change, but we are doing well. Leo Tolstoy put it this way, “Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.” Spiritual discipline needs to begin with ourselves. Contemplate, for a moment, deliberately choosing to take certain actions in a disciplined and consistent way that focus on your relationship to beauty truth and compassion for all the living beings of the earth.

Let us pause in our lives, set aside our preoccupation with stuff.

Let us open our hearts, to the sound of the planet, she is crying,
Let us open our minds, to the challenges before us,
Let us open our hands to the work of reclaiming.

The spiritual discipline of ecospirtuality helps us see the eternal truth that we need the strength and wisdom of each other and all our brothers and sisters to walk in beauty and respect all of life.

Native American Prayer (Nolan E. Schmit)

Let me walk in beauty
Make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things that you have made.
Make my ears sharp to hear your voice.

O Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me! I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Make me wise so I may understand
The thing you’ve taught my people.

O Great wisdom.
I seek strength
Not to be greater than my brother,
But to fight my greatest enemy,
Myself.

Make me always ready to come to you with
Clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the sunset,
My spirit may come to you without shame.

O Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me! I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.