February 24, 2008
“And I have dealt with presences behind the veils of Time and Place, and I have seen this world a star—bright, shining, wonderful in space.” I have dealt with presences. I think I know what this means. At least I know what it means to me this morning. “Presences behind the veils of Time and Place.” The late physicist, Darrel Reanney, helps me get at this meaning when he reminds us “our bodies are made of star ash;” when he reminds us “we are children of the stars;” when he reminds us “we are a star strangely and wonderfully fashioned into a thinking creature;” when he reminds us “the correct answer to a question concerning our ages is not to say ‘I am 15 years old’ or ’34 years old’ or ’68 years old’ as the case may be; rather, it is to affirm, ‘I am 15 billion years old.’”
I believe Reanney is speaking the truth. I believe all humanity—all life—is of the same stuff as stars. And all stars—indeed, all substance in the universe—emerged from one, common unity, one infinitesimally small point behind the veils of Time and Place. I believe this is true. That is, I trust in the truth of this creation story more than I trust in the truth of any other. I use the language of belief and trust intentionally—I might also use faith—because I don’t know for sure the story of the big bang is true. I can’t prove it. I know there are mathematical formulas physicists use to peer back through the veils of Time and Place to the moment just after the big bang supposedly occurred, but the formulas don’t take us to the explosion itself. I understand it is possible to feel and hear—at least with very sensitive instruments—the echoes of the big bang reverberating around the universe. Bell Labs scientists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered these reverberations—known as cosmic microwave background radiation—in 1965 and for this discovery won a Nobel Prize in 1978. Still, though the presence of this radiation is strong evidence for the big bang, it is not definitive proof. So, no; I don’t know for sure the story of the big bang is true. But when I gaze out into the cold clear winter night sky and bear witness to ancient star light streaming by from across the vast reaches of space, somehow my belief is affirmed, somehow my trust is affirmed, somehow my faith is affirmed—by intuition, by feeling, by flashes and flickers of insight: we are of the same stuff as stars; we are looking out into the night sky at family; and everything there is emerged from the same, dense primordial unity 15 billion years ago. Experiencing such affirmation, sensing the truth of our oneness with all existence—this is how I understand the words of the hymn: “I have dealt with presences behind the veils of Time and Place.”
This is the second to last sermon in my series on the Unitarian Universalist principles entitled, “How Shall We Live?” This morning I arrive at the seventh and final principle, respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. This principle has become our environmental principle, our earth-based principle, our green principle. In response to this principle we shall live as people who respect the earth. We shall live as people who recognize the damage our technological short-sightedness has done—and will continue to do—to the earth until we radically reform our ways. We shall live as people who recognize that we do nothing in isolation, that everything we do has an impact on our surroundings because we are interdependent, because we are interconnected. We shall live as people who, therefore, promote ecologically sustainable ways of being, ecologically sustainable ways of harnessing, using and conserving energy, ecologically sustainable ways of organizing our communities, developing our land, growing and distributing our food, building our buildings—the list goes on and on. We shall promote ways of living that sustain the earth not only for future generations of humanity, but for the future, period.
It makes sense that this principle would become our green principle. Only this principle refers to “all existence.” None of our other principles are this broad in scope. The others don’t suggest we ought to take the earth into account before we act. They don’t help us ponder our embeddedness in local, regional, hemispheric or global ecosystems—not to mention a solar system, a galaxy and a universe. Only the seventh principle does this. It strikes me that when the principles were adopted in 1985, our level of awareness regarding environmental challenges was far more limited than it is today. Since 1985 “global warming” and “climate change” have become household terms. People now regularly converse about peak oil, mountain-top removal, alternative energy, hybrid cars, bio-diesel, melting ice-caps. Wars have now been fought at least in part over access to oil. The long-term devastation wrought by the burning of fossil fuels is now taught in elementary schools, and those who decry and denounce global warming as a hoax, whether for religious, political, or economic reasons have largely lost all credibility.
Knowing what we collectively know today about the global environmental situation, it seems narrow-minded, overly humano-centric, even arrogant and dangerous to affirm and promote six principles about how we ought to relate to our fellow human beings, and only one principle that reminds us of our relationship to the rest of existence. Furthermore, it seems narrow-minded, humano-centric, arrogant, and dangerous to put last in our list the one principle that looks beyond humanity to a larger reality. In my view—again, knowing what we know today that we didn’t know in 1985—the seventh principle ought to be the first principle. It ought to be first so that our reflections on the rest of the principles can be more clearly informed by our understanding of our interdependence with all existence.
A month ago I preached a sermon on the current first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person. In response to this principle I said we shall live with faith. I said the more I reflect on the first principle, the more I realize we can’t prove there is such a thing as the inherent worth and dignity of every person . We can’t measure it. We can’t document it. We accept it on faith. We strive to live “as if” it were so—“as if” every person has inherent worth and dignity. I said at the beginning of this sermon that for me it is also an expression of faith when I speak of the truth of the big bang and the origins of all substance in the universe in that same, sublime primordial unity. It is an expression of faith because I cannot prove it.
But I don’t have to prove the big bang actually took place in order to be confident of our participation in an interdependent web of all existence. For me, interdependence with all existence is not a statement of faith. Interdependence is a fact. Think about the act of breathing. When we begin worship—once we’re done with announcements—what’s the first thing I always ask you to do? I ask you to take a breath. “Breathe in deeply the air of this beautiful, late winter morning.” When I lead public prayer, the first thing I ask those present to do is breathe. Why? To consciously experience interdependence. The air we breathe—the oxygen in particular—does not come from us. It comes from plants and algae and cyanobacteria that convert sunlight into energy through photosynthesis. This is basic high school biology. If I have the formula correct, six molecules of water plus six molecules of carbon dioxide produce one molecule of sugar plus six molecules of oxygen. Don’t worry, I will not test you on this. Oxygen is released into the atmosphere as a by-product of photosynthesis. We breathe it in; it enters our lungs; the oxygen molecules climb on board our red blood cells; our lungs pump deep red oxygenated blood to the left side of our heart which pumps it out to our body, animating our body, enabling our body to do everything it does. In the absence of oxygen, our bodies cease functioning within minutes.
I am reminded of the way Stevie Wonder articulated this interdependence on his 1979 album Journey Through the Secret Lives of Plants. He sang: “I can’t conceive the nucleus of all begins inside a tiny seed; and what we think as insignificant provides the purest air we breathe. But who am I to doubt or question the inevitable being? For these are but a few discoveries we find inside the secret life of plants…. But far too many give them in return a stomp, cut, drown, or burn; as is they’re nothing. But if you ask yourself where would you be, without them you will find you would not.”
Breathing in worship is not a symbolic act. It does not point to something else. It does not stand for something else. It does not symbolize something else in the way the bread and wine in the Protestant Communion service symbolize the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Breathing is not some ritual that simplifies or fixes our attention on an otherwise very complicated religious concept. Breathing is our central participatory act in the interdependent web of all existence. Perhaps this is why so many spiritual practices begin with breathing. This is why I begin worship and prayer with an invitation to breathe.
I like to meditate on when the air we breathe actually becomes part of our body. Does it become part of our body once it enters our nose and mouth? Once it enters our trachea? Once it enters our lungs? Once it attaches to our red blood cells? When does it become us? What is the line between us and not us? And might such a line not actually exist? Might it be more factual to identify ourselves and the air as intimately related components of a great living system?
I like to meditate on when the food we eat actually becomes part of our body. Does it become part of our body when we smell its fragrance or when we see it on our plate and our digestive juices start flowing? When it enters our mouth and we begin chewing? When it enters our stomachs? Our intestines? Or when its nutrients pass across tissue boundaries into our blood stream? Or maybe when we purchase it in the grocery store? Or maybe when the farmer sows the seed that eventually becomes the fruit or vegetable? And might such a line not actually exist? Might it not be more factual to identify ourselves and the food we eat as intimately related components of a great living system?
What about the water we drink? When does it actually become part of our body? What about the soil in which we plant our food? On which we graze our animals? What about the sunlight which is essential for plant growth? What about the rain which waters the fields? It all becomes part of us at some point in the cycle. Or we become part of it. I’m not sure there’s a difference. As my meditations progress it becomes harder and harder to tell. And perhaps the line between ourselves and water, between ourselves and soil, between ourselves and the sun’s energy, between ourselves and rain—perhaps these lines don’t truly exist. Perhaps these lines are illusions. Perhaps it is more factual to identify ourselves and all these things as intimately related components of a great living system, passing through one another’s porous boundaries again and again and again, a continuous process of recycling, a continuous process of building up and breaking down, of springing up out of the earth and returning eventually to the earth, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, millennium after millennium.
The atoms and molecules that make up all living bodies have made up countless other bodies. The atoms and molecules that make up the oceans and lakes and streams have made up countless other oceans, lakes and streams. The atoms and molecules that make up the atmosphere have made up countless other atmospheres. We are all made of recycled material. Water, soil, air—none of it is new. It has all been here since the beginning. I love this meditation from the Rev. Nancy Shaffer entitled, “In the Beginning:”
Kate is teaching the kids about dinosaur air. “The air you breathe—that air you have inside you every time you take a breath—that’s dinosaur air,” she says. “Dinosaurs breathed it.” The kids’ eyes are very wide. They take deep gulps of air, just to have more dinosaur air inside them. “The air we have is all the air we ever will have,” Kate says, “so we have to take good care of it.” The kids gulp less. Consider the air already inside. Kate tells more. “Actually, she says, we’re all cousins.” The kids look at each other, disbelieving, believing: “You?” “We—all of us--” Kate says, “way, way back, began as cousins. Way back in the beginning. The kids whoop, clap each other on the back. For the rest of the day, they savor the air and call each other “Cousin.”
And perhaps, in response to the seventh Unitarian Universalist principle, this is the answer to the question, “how shall we live?” We shall savor the air and call each other “cousin.” We shall savor the water and call each other “brother.” We shall savor the soil, and call each other “sister.” We shall savor the green things and the animals, and call each other grandfather. We shall savor the mountains and the valleys and call each other “grandmother.” We shall savor the sun and all the stars and call each other “family.” We shall know ourselves, finally, as star ash; we shall grasp our relatedness to all existence; we shall believe in our common origin; we shall call each other “beloved.” In these ways shall we encounter presences behind the veils of Time and Place. Amen and Blessed Be.
Reanney, Darryl, Music of the Mind: An Adventure Into Consciousness (London: Souvenir Press, 1994) pp. 19-20.
Wonder, Stevie, “Journey Through the Secret Lives of Plants” on Journey Through the Secret Lives of Plants (audio compact disc released in 1992 by Polygram International).
