The earthen chalice was born of clay and water,
The flesh and blood of Gaia;
Given form by the hand of the potter,
Set by the bounding fire of the kiln.
As we touch the flame to her lips,
Joining fire and air,
May her light remind us of earth, air, fire and water,
Of plant and animal, human and mineral,
That we and the earth are one.
—Rev. Ed Lane
Pastoral Prayer
Our hearts ache for spring. And indeed, the season of warmth and renewal, the season of color and fragrance and life re-emerging is upon us. In our mind’s eye we can already see red and pink buds gracing the branches of oaks and maples. We can already hear the spring song of birds returning from the southern reaches. We can already smell the fresh, fresh air of spring-time in New England. March mud begins to cake the souls of our shoes and the wheels or our wheelchairs and we track it into our front halls, our kitchens and our family rooms with a secret joy.
Spring in upon us, and after this long, strange winter—this winter of war; this winter of divisive politics; this winter of ongoing conflict in our nation and in our world—we are ready. We are ready for the arc of the sun to pass more directly overhead. We are ready, those of us whose bodies permit, to be down on the ground, digging in the dirt and planting seeds. We are ready to feel the warm breezes of April and May on our bear skin. We are ready for mice and ants and earthworms and bumblebees. We are ready for weeds and wasps and willows and warblers.
Let us take these next few days to bid farewell to winter. Let us welcome spring. Let us be at peace. Let us be at one with the new life emerging all around.
Amen and Blessed Be.
by Michelle Green
Our earth and its habitats and wildlife are disappearing as we know it and becoming a more volatile and inhospitable home for all of its creatures, with a heavy toll being paid by the most underprivileged of our brothers and sisters.As the world population grows, so does our consumption of life-giving natural resources: water, plants, animals, space, fossil fuels, soil, air and sun. Ecosystems are disappearing. Mining, logging, oil drilling, and the clearing of vast tracts of land for agriculture and cattle ranches as well as development for residential settlements and the roads, airports, and dams for people to do all of these activities, has destroyed just under half of the world’s rainforests – an acre every second. Wetlands are vanishing and wild places throughout the world are threatened and disappearing, or being drastically re-made, as once fertile regions like the Aral Sea in Central Asia become toxic deserts unfit for life.
This huge loss of habitat and the extinction of untold species translates into a massive rural exodus being forced on those who live off of the land, with unfit water, toxic soil, and human poverty and starvation in their wake. Our energy mainly comes from non-renewable natural resources, primarily oil and coal. As these commodities become increasingly costly, so does the profitability of taking great risks to secure them – at nearly any cost. Right in our backyard, in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia, a devastating new coal mining process, ‘mountaintop removal’, has begun. In the rush to capitalize on what used to be negligible veins of coal, it has now become profitable to blow off the tops of mountains with a mixture of ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel (the same combination used by Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombings), then bulldoze the millions of tons of debris and chemicals – reclassified as “fill” – into the valleys and streams below. Of course, this is polluting local water supplies in addition to destroying the habitat and untold creatures and plants, forever ruining the landscape. I fear that the earth as we know it is disappearing, becoming a more volatile and inhospitable home for us all.
by Chamae Munroe
The statement I am about to read is inspired by a workshop I attended last year at Massive Con and material I have been reading recently concerning the phenomenon referred to as peak oil.
There is only a finite supply of oil on this planet and one day there is not going to be any oil left. Even before that point though, the amount of oil left in the world will peak and start decreasing rapidly. This phenomenon is known as peak oil. Once the peak is passed, oil production will begin to go down while cost begins to go up. Since our economy is so oil-dependent, even small drops in production will have a major impact on our way of life. Much more than the price of gas to run a car is going to change once production drops, since almost everything in this country is somehow tied to oil. Approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are needed to produce every 1 calorie of food. Modern medicine, water distribution, national defense, the plastics needed to make computers and high tech devices, the construction of cars, even the development of alternative sources of energy rely on equipment powered by massive amounts of oil and other fossil fuels.
I am worried about the time when we reach peak oil and have to face a future dependent on a scarce resource. I am afraid of the wars that are being fought, that will be fought, over what dwindling oil there is. I am terrified of having to face what is to come feeling so unprepared for life after the depletion. There is no backup plan; there is no alternative energy supply that we can just switch over to. I am scared about the damage we have done to the earth by mining and burning oil, about the pollution it has caused, the deforestation that has resulted because of it, and how this destruction will continue if oil is not replaced by a greener source of energy.
Sometimes I am overwhelmed by a sense of impending doom, but I hope that we are able to realize the dire situation at hand soon enough to keep the world from coming to a crashing halt. Too Hot? Too Cold?
From Global Warming to Little Ice Age
by Dave Sherman
The good news is: no mater what human beings do to the Earth the Earth will heal itself. It has in the past and it will in the future. The bad new is: it will do it with total disregard for its inhabitants.
When I agreed to participate in this service and address my concerns about global warming, I never imagined the conflict it would stir up between my emotional self and my rational self. I have degrees in engineering and sociology but this didn’t help much when I encountered the myriad of interpretations of the evidence concerning global warming and when it was pointed out that we don’t really understand it and we need more data to develop reliable models.
There is scientific evidence and a reasonable level of agreement that the earth is in fact growing warmer. The globally averaged surface temperature has increased by 1.4 degrees F since the early 20th century with .9 deg F of the increase occurring since 1978, and eleven of the warmest years on record have occurred since 1990, and the five warmest of all have occurred in the last seven years.
So since we humans are changing forests into cities, putting dust and soot into the atmosphere, and putting greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels we have altered the natural course of the climate system and it all must be our fault. Therefore we can and should fix it. But there is debate over how much of it is our fault. Natural variability - such as changes in the sun's energy input to Earth, volcanic activity, and regional climate phenomena like El Niño also play a role in adjusting the global thermometer.
But still the media is full of stories about increasing ocean temperatures - the rapid melting of Greenland’s glaciers and decreasing polar ice cover and shrinking mountain glaciers.
By the way, I personally observed this last item when I lived in Seattle in the early 1980’s and climbed up on Mt Rainier and saw how much the glaciers had receded and were continuing to recede. I remember thinking something is very wrong.
Is all of this evidence of global warming leading to climate change? My rational side says I don’t know, my emotional side says it sure feels that way. But is it inevitable and irreversible? I hope not.
And is it only going to get warmer? There is a global circulation system of ocean currents that moves heat and water around the planet. The Gulf Stream is part of it. Warming is causing more water to evaporate from the tropics, more rainfall in sub polar and polar regions, along with more ice melt in those regions. As a result, fresh water is being lost from the tropics and added to the oceans closer to the polar regions. In the North Atlantic Ocean, the additional fresh water could change ocean circulation patterns, disrupting or redirecting currents that now carry warm water to the north.
If conditions change in the North Atlantic Ocean such that surface waters can no longer become dense enough to sink, then the "conveyor belt" could slow or possibly stop altogether. Redirecting or slowing this "Atlantic heat pump" could mean colder winters in the northeast U.S. and Western Europe. But the heat gained from higher greenhouse gas concentrations is still in the climate system, just elsewhere. The result: a warmer earth, a colder North Atlantic – with the possibility of longer, colder winters perhaps not unlike the little ice age that occurred between 1300 and 1800. And could the accelerating ice melt in Greenland make this happen sooner rather than later?
But just as a side note and an example of the complexity of the problem, because there is also significantly more CO2 in the atmosphere now than there was in 1300, the warming effect of that could result in things staying about the same in the North Atlantic while it is very hot elsewhere on the planet.
Have we started down a perilous path from which we may not be able to return?
There is unfortunately lack of agreement and we don’t have enough data to develop models that will help sort out the conflicting interpretations of the evidence.
But will it be too late when we do have enough data, good enough models and agreement between policy makers and scientists about what needs to be done? The US has embraced an energy intensive, economically driven society, and whether we like it or not, has a large population that depends on it. And guess what, the biggest developing countries in the world like China are following in our footsteps. So we may not have much time to sort it all out.
However, what I most fear about global warming and climate change is that no matter what models are developed and how much irrefutable evidence there is, policy and action (or lack thereof) will be driven not by rational thought by agendas and, worse yet, by ideologiesLook at Mother Nature On the Run . . .
The Rev. Joshua Mason Pawelek
Unitarian Universalist Society: East
Manchester, CT
March 19th, 2006
“Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 21st century.” Those aren’t the original lyrics to Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush.” The original lyrics say “Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s.” When Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt recorded a version in the 1990s, they sang “Look at Mother Nature on the run in the twentieth century.” This morning I asked Sandy to sing “Look at Mother Nature on the run in the twenty-first century.” Time is passing and Mother Nature is still running.
I’m not sure what Neil Young had in mind when he wrote these lyrics. There have been many different interpretations over the years. I am sure, whether he did it intentionally or not, that these lyrics echo an ancient literary form called apocalypse. Apocalypse was common in the Near-East around the time of Jesus. Some scholars say its roots lie in Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion. Apocalyptic writing claims to predict the future—a very specific future marked by catastrophic destruction. Apocalypses are often eschatological, meaning they refer to the final destiny of humanity. If someone mentions the eschaton, they are talking about what they believe will happen to humanity at the end of time. An eschatological apocalypse predicts a catastrophe at the end of time. “The end of the world is upon us!”
Most ancient apocalyptic writing takes the form of retelling a dream or vision. This is why “After the Gold Rush” strikes me as apocalyptic. “Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying in the yellow haze of the sun, there were children crying and colors flying all around the chosen ones. All in a dream, all in a dream the loading had begun. Flying Mother Nature's silver seed to a new home in the sun.” I interpret these lyrics to mean that in his dream, the earth is no longer habitable—“Look at Mother Nature on the run.” These chosen ones are departing from a dying planet in spaceships.
Ancient apocalypses often identify a chosen group who receive a new home—a paradise—following the catastrophe. You’ve heard of Daniel in the Lion’s Den? The Hebrew book of Daniel is an apocalypse. Written about 160 BC, it tells the story of Daniel, a pious Jew, who predicts the future by interpreting dreams and visions. The final chapter describes the end times: “At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” The author of Daniel is a Jew writing to a Jewish community during a time when Jews were being relentlessly persecuted. In an effort to help them persevere, to help them keep their spirits up, he predicts their salvation at the end of time. Your people shall attain everlasting life. The writer is saying, hold fast in this time of suffering, for the end of the earth as we know it is coming, and you shall receive your reward.
The book of Revelation is the central Christian apocalyptic text. It describes a long and intricate vision, which the writer, who is called John, claims to have received from Jesus. Similar to the author of Daniel, John is a pious Christian writing to inspire Christians to persevere in the face of Roman persecution in the early second century. So he writes and writes and writes, “I saw this,” “I saw that,” “I dreamed this,” “I dreamed that,” on and on, amazingly graphic, colorful, frightening visions of the future. He also describes the end of time. An angel comes from heaven to do battle with Satan. The angel seals Satan in a pit for 1,000 years. During this time the “first resurrection” takes place. All the saints and martyrs come back to life to rule with Jesus. This is often called the rapture. At the end of 1,000 years, Satan is released from the pit and amasses an army to make one final assault on the camp of the resurrected saints. The saints are triumphant; Satan is banished to the lake of fire; and Jesus returns to judge all those remaining based on “their works as recorded in the book.” This is similar to Daniel, except instead of everlasting contempt anyone whose name is not found written in the book of life is thrown into the lake of fire. This is commonly called Judgment Day.
You’re probably wondering why on earth a Unitarian Universalist minister is talking about Judgement Day. Well, if we want to understand theologically why so many human beings in the western world seem unwilling or unable to address environmental destruction in the 21st century, we need to understand what follows Judgment Day. In Revelation Chapter 22, after the final judgment, John says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” If one really believes the prophecies in Revelation will come true, then there is no point in caring about the environment, because this earth will pass away.
In an article entitled, “The Godly Must Be Crazy,” Glenn Scherer writes, “Many Christian fundamentalists”—he’s writing about Christian Fundamentalists, but I believe he could be writing about fundamentalists within many religious traditions—“feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time, when the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. They may also believe . . . that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed—even hastened—as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.” For those who are interested, I’ll include in the online version of this sermon a link to this article which cites data on how many people in the United States believe the prophecies in Revelation will come true and thus feel no great concern for the environment. The article also provides information on how members of congress—as many as 40% in 2004—promoted anti-environmental policies either directly or indirectly in response to this kind of theology.
Many conservatives base their opposition to environmentalism on the economic bottom line. Regulating business for the sake of the environment, they say, is bad for business. But many more base their opposition to environmentalism on theology. The Rev. Jerry Falwell famously quipped in an interview on MSNBC in December, 2002, It’s “God’s planet…and he’s taking care of it. And I don’t believe that anything we do will raise or lower the temperature one point.” I found online the announcement for a sermon preached a few weeks ago in a fundamentalist congregation in North Carolina. The sermon was called "Global Warming: Getting Ready for the Lake of Fire.” The preacher’s announcement said, “Many of the strange things promoted by the radical left have an element of truth, but [are] distorted. I believe the earth is experiencing global warming. [But] it's God's action, not man's.
The theology that undergirds this way of looking at the earth is often called “rapture theology.” You may be familiar with the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. These novels describe the great tribulations of those who, after the first resurrection, are left behind and must do battle with the legions of Satan in order to prove their righteousness before the final judgment, before the coming of the new earth and the new heaven. Rapture theology and concern for the environment do not mix.
There have always been rapture theologies. There are people in every age who believe they are living in the end times. They look for signs and often see them in environmental catastrophes. Hurricanes, earthquakes, wind storms, famine, pestilence. It’s easy. Anything can be a sign. Just for kicks, I’ll do it right now. In Revelation, Chapter 15, John says “I looked, and the temple of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, and out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues . . . Then one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God.” Michelle Green spoke earlier about industrial toxins in the environment, and the specific example of mountain-top removal and the resulting poisoning of the surrounding eco-systems. Revelation 16, “so the first angel went and poured his bowl on the earth, and a foul and painful sore came on.” Dave Sherman spoke earlier about global warming. “The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire; they were scorched by the fierce heat.” Chamae Munroe spoke earlier about the end of oil. Guess where the sixth angel pours out his bowl? “The great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up in order to prepare the way for the kings of the east,” who were assembling for battle. The Euphrates River runs through modern day Iraq, where there is much oil, where control of oil production is a motive for war, and where many are currently gathered for battle. What if the Euphrates is a metaphor for oil, and the drying up of its water is a reference to the end of oil? This is how rapturists do Biblical interpretation. It is not, as many would have us believe, a practice of Biblical literalism. It is a practice of Biblical fantasizing.
Not all Christian fundamentalists are rapturists. I was greatly moved in the beginning of February when 86 evangelical Christian leaders signed a letter calling for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. They did this against considerable opposition within their own ranks. I am also heartened when I find Evangelical Christian bloggers online who dismiss rapture theology as a misuse of the Bible and criticize Christians who welcome and encourage environmental destruction and war as signs of the end times.
Part of the mission of this Unitarian Universalist congregation is to live in harmony with the earth. This is a challenging mission. It challenges the notion at the heart of rapture theology that the earth does not matter because it has no future. Unitarian Universalism rejects such theologies. Still, it is profoundly difficult to break out of our current human patterns of disharmony, destruction, and pending catastrophe. We must take time to feel deeply the damage the earth experiences on a daily basis. We must take time to feel deeply the threats to life on this planet. We must take time to feel deeply, without turning away, the fear which Dave, Michelle, and Chamae have expressed so eloquently here this morning. Without facing our fear, we human beings may never convince ourselves to take our situation as seriously as we need to. Can we look at Mother Nature on the run in the twenty-first century? Can we stay focused? Can we transform our destructive practices, our addiction to fossil fuels, our rabid over-consumption of the planet’s resources? And can we, as Unitarian Universalists, along with people of faith from all traditions who care about the survival of this planet, articulate a theology, or theologies, so compelling, so powerful, so beautiful, so compassionate that we succeed in preserving this first earth, the only earth we’ve ever known, the only earth that’s ever coming.
I reject any theology that disregards the earth in favor of religious fantasy regarding the coming of a second earth.
I reject any theology that does not regard this earth as sacred.
I reject any theology that posits a God who would destroy the earth and invite a chosen few saints into eternal paradise.
I reject any theology that casts the earth as merely the disposable backdrop for the cosmic battle between good and evil.
I reject any theology that encourages and takes joy in environmental catastrophes which it sees as signs of the end times.
I profess a theology that regards the earth as sacred.
I profess a theology that demands environmental justice.
I profess a theology that encourages simple and sustainable living, conservation, preservation, clean energy, local and organic farming, sensible growth, animal rights and a profound thankfulness for the earth’s bounty.
I profess a theology that sees humanity as part of nature—a steward of nature, perhaps—but not above nature, not a dominator of nature, not a subduer of nature.
I profess a theology that upholds the principle of the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
And I do see signs—frightening signs—terrifying signs that the end of the earth as we know it may actually be upon us. But may these lips, this heart, and these hands never place irresponsible hope in prophecies of old, in expectations of resurrections and second comings, in proclamations of a new earth and a new heaven. May these lips, this heart and these hands place hope in humanity’s capacity to face its fears, to change its destructive habits, to learn, finally, what it means to live in harmony with the earth, for the sake of the generations who shall inherit our legacy for millennia to come. My prayer on this morning, two days before the arrival of spring in New England, is that by its own efforts humanity may turn the tide of environmental devastation, and that there may never be a need to fly Mother Nature’s silver seed to a new home in the sun.
Amen and Blessed Be.
http://www.pawcreek.org/ 2/22/06.
