We come together this morning very near the mid-point between winter and spring. For many Christians we approach Candlemas and the beginning of Lent. For the Pagan community we approach the celebration of Imbolc. Still others anticipate Groundhog Day. Beneath all these traditions, in the deep, ancestral memory, this is the time before planting, the time to begin preparations for life's return, for spring's multitude of glorious resurrections. This is a time to look forward, to ready ourselves for the work ahead, to envision the future.

I asked members of our Sustainable Living Committee to share with me their vision for the future. If this is our time before planting, before greening our sanctuary, our time of preparation, where might we be going? What might we expect in the springtime of this great movement of earth stewardship and eco-justice? I've asked them to share a small piece of their vision; I will offer my reflections in response to their vision. I remind us the sharing of vision does not assure its eventual outcome. The work has yet to be done. The journey still lies ahead. Some of this vision may be radically altered by the time we get there. Some simply may not be feasible. But all movements for justice, all movements for change, begin with the proclamation of vision. Therefore, let us imagine, let us dream, let us chart a course in the time before planting.

Voice One: As a green sanctuary we will have beautiful, natural, organic gardens, landscaped in precious detail. The memorial garden will naturally be the centerpiece, surrounded by vegetable gardens, herb gardens, children's gardens, perennial gardens, and shaded forest gardens. There will be opportunities to plant, to tend, and to harvest. There will be opportunities to walk, to sit, to meditate, to pray, and to commune with the natural world.

Josh: We have received a wonderful gift from the founders of our congregation: these four acres of woodsy land here in Manchester's hilly northern section. We don't know yet what this land will look like once we've completed our upcoming building expansion. We don't know for sure what potential there will be for gardens of the kind described in this vision. We already have a beautiful Memorial Garden which many of you use for meditation and prayer, for sharing thoughts with departed loved ones and old friends. I suspect there will be room for more gardens if we commit ourselves to creating them. Whether crafted to produce beautiful, natural colors and fragrances or vegetables and fruit for eating, or whether left to its own devices to grow at will, a garden invites us into spiritual experience, invites us into a quiet, contemplative, reflective mood. A garden invites us into a deepening sense of communion with the natural world. A garden invites us into that fundamental source of our living Unitarian Universalist tradition, that "direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder . . . which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life."
     There's an assumption embedded in the western religious tradition that knowledge of God, knowledge of sacred things, can only be gained inside a house of God, that is, a church, synagogue, or mosque. In the Protestant tradition, from which Unitarian Universalism springs, the assumption is even more restricted in that knowledge of God comes only from the preacher's reflections on scripture presented in the Sunday morning sermon. Unitarian Universalists no longer hold this assumption, so what better way to demonstrate our current beliefs, what better way to show that the sacred is as viable outside the church as inside, than to create, sustain, and utilize gardens as part of our collective spiritual practice? So let us plant, let us tend, let us harvest, so that we may more fully proclaim our religious vision, so that we may more fully engage the sacred residing beyond the walls of this beloved meeting house.

Voice Two: As a green sanctuary we will support local, organic farming, participating as a congregation in community supported agriculture. We will grow and share our own organic vegetables and herbs. We may even have opportunities to sell our own organic vegetables and herbs at a roadside stand or farmer's market.

Josh: I can't speak strongly enough about the need for community supported organic agriculture. When you produce your own food, or when you buy food directly from a local producer, you develop confidence in the food you eat in a way that is missing when you obtain food by almost any other method. You can be confident the food is truly fresh, and hasn't traveled 1,500 or 3,000 or 5,000 miles to get to you. You can be confident the food you are eating is not treated with chemicals or genetically altered in some way. And if it is treated or altered, you can know how, because you can ask the farmer. You can be confident the farmer received a just wage for his or her work. You can be confident the waste from the farmer's animals did not seep into local waterways and cause pollution. You can be confident the farm that produced the food was not a huge agri-business competing ruthlessly for water rights in regions of the country that don't have enough water to support farming. You can be confident the farm that produced the food was not a large corporate farm that caused the demise of 1,000 smaller family farms in a ten-year period. You can know the degree to which, if any, the farm has been subsidized by the government and thus caught up in the bizarre politics of United States agriculture, which are complex to say the least, but which also have immense impact throughout the world, such as preventing indigenous communities in developing nations from pursuing self-sufficiency in their agricultural production, which often leads local peasants into the only other type of agriculture that can earn a decent living, illegal drugs. You can be confident that your continued patronage of a particular farm enables the farmer to avoid the lure of selling off land to developers whose interest lies in perpetuating suburban sprawl. And, let's face it: fresh food simply tastes better. Fresh food makes eating a more enjoyable experience. Supporting local organic farms as a congregation makes a statement that we care about our health, that we care about how land is used in our region, that we care about the way our food connects us to and implicates us in the plight of farmers around the world.

Voice Three: As a green sanctuary we will produce minimal waste. We will have a comprehensive recycling program throughout the building and an efficient composting system for kitchen scraps, yard clippings, weeds, and leaves, and create compost that can be used in all our gardens. Reusable kitchenware upstairs and down and recycled paper products for kitchen and offices will be the norm.

Josh: I suspect if you ask almost anyone in the United States to speak about their basic image of a church, temple, or mosque, compost does not come immediately to mind, especially the decaying remains of kitchen scraps. I remember as a child a fascination with decaying things. My mother used to sing us a song, "the worms crawl in and the worms crawl out." I remember, as my father would turn over the compost heap in mid-March, being mesmerized as steam rose into the chill air from the moist heat generated as bacteria engaged in their relentless work breaking down the remains of our winter dinners. But somehow we grow out of our childhood fascination with decay, if we ever had it. It certainly does not come to mind when we think about church.
     I wasn't even sure I felt comfortable responding to this from the pulpit. I wrestled with it, and I realized we need a theology that encompasses the way things break down, the way things go back to the earth. We need a doctrine of decay, a religion of rot, a creed for compost. Most theologies, especially western theologies, don't complete the cycle of life. They put us somewhere else at the end of life, in heaven, or hell, or some universal consciousness. They focus on spirit, not on body, and not on the connection between the two. They pay little attention to the fate of physical things. They demonize bodies and earthly processes. They ignore the reality that all life goes back to the earth, breaks down, decays, and becomes sustenance for new life in an endless, beautiful cycle. A practice of composting, of storing and reusing our organic refuse brings us into relationship with the whole cycle of life, enables us to affirm life fully, gives us an immediate and real experience of interdependence through the years, through the generations. It's not just a banana peal rotting in that plastic bin in the kitchen. Its presence there makes a profound statement about the nature of life and our place in it.

Voice Four: As a green sanctuary we will make minimal use of fossil fuels through conservation efforts in our building design, through the purchase of energy from only renewable sources, and possibly through the adaptation of our building's energy system to on-site renewable energy sources such as passive solar, wind, and geo-thermal.

Josh: Eco-justice is connected to other matters of justice. Fossil fuel conservation is a beautiful example. We hear much about terrorism and the threat of terrorism today. I know the sources of terrorism are complex and multi-layered. I know the struggle to end terrorism is complex and multi-layered. At the risk of over-simplification let me say loudly and clearly what I believe to be true: reduce United States and First World dependence on fossil fuels and terrorism will be greatly diminished. I believe this because my study of the Middle East and US foreign policy informs me that the power of U.S. oil interests to shape Middle Eastern economies and governments is a source of anger and humiliation for many Arab Muslims. My instinct is that for Middle Eastern Muslims of all economic classes the crushing weight of US oil interests in their daily lives feels like a continuation of the long-standing colonial relationship between western capitalist democracies and Middle Eastern nations. Remove that crushing weight, and you remove the impulse towards violence, militancy, and terror. Obviously the U.S. will not change its patterns of energy consumption over night, but it's worth imagining what could transpire in a fifteen to twenty year period if the U.S. could shift to alternative forms of energy for the bulk of its energy needs. The U.S. would be able to reduce its status as a neo-colonizing force in the Middle East and thereby invite less overall animosity. U.S. policy makers would be able to think more clearly about the Middle East when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict, human rights issues, diversified economic development, religious pluralism, nuclear proliferation, narcotics production, and water rights. Green Sanctuaries have an opportunity to locate themselves in the vanguard of the movement to decrease U.S. reliance on oil-the only substantive and truly lasting method of combating terrorism. If we can do it, I have faith others will follow.
     Furthermore, even if the most dire predictions of global warming and climate change are overstated, reliable study after reliable study after reliable study indicates the burning of fossil fuels at current rates is immensely harmful to the earth. We need to build a market for renewable energy sources. The more congregations and organizations and families begin purchasing and experimenting with renewable energy, the more scientists and inventors will develop the technologies, the more entrepreneurs will invest in the technologies, the more energy companies will produce the technologies. So much of our daily routines are based on the use of non-renewable fossil fuels that the transition to renewable energy may be somewhat socially wrenching. Nevertheless, the earth's capacity to sustain life hangs in the balance.

Voice Five: As a green sanctuary we will serve as a model for action to preserve and strengthen the interdependent web of life. UUS:E members and friends will reproduce our congregational successes in their own homes. UUS:E members and friends will become experts in the practices of greening buildings and communities, such that we will train leaders in other congregations and organizations to implement similar greening strategies.

Josh: We will be like the stone dropped in the middle of the pond, rippling on, rippling out, into larger and larger circles, starting more ripples, until the ripples become waves and the waves become seas. We may never know for sure how far our small efforts will extend. We may never know in our lifetimes how much good our small efforts may do to hasten the springtime of this great movement for earth stewardship and eco-justice. But in this time before planting, in this time of preparation, let us have faith that our small efforts matter immensely if life as we know it is to be sustained on this earth for future generations. Let us have faith that in greening our sanctuary we fulfill the promise of the Unitarian Universalist principle of the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Let us have faith that in following the vision we set forth in this time before planting, there will come a glorious spring day when we finally understand, not only in our heads but also in our hearts, what it truly means to belong to the earth. Amen. Blessed Be.